Sleeptracking not working properly and terrible customer service

[M_Eriksen88]

I am extremely frustrated with the customer service from Fitbit. I wanted to hear about other people's experiences with them. I reached out to them because the sleep tracking on my watch isn't working properly, but instead of providing a solution, they said the problem was me not doing mindfulness before going to bed. What kind of ridiculous response is that? 

It has been 10 days since I last contacted them, and I still haven't heard anything. This is unacceptable. I paid good money for this watch and I expect it to work properly. 

I am disappointed with Fitbit's lack of customer service and will be reconsidering whether to continue using their products in the future. I hope others have had better experiences, but from my perspective, it has been a complete disaster.

[charleskn]

I am sorry that you're having these issues. Can you say more about the issues you're having with your sleep tracking with your Charge 5 tracker? Maybe we can assist. Have you read this help article as a start?

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1314.htm

[SunsetRunner]

I haven't contacted customer service yet because other problems have fixed themselves in a few days, but this problem seems more persistent. I can't speak for the OP, but the problem I'm seeing is that it starts tracking my sleep an hour or more after I actually go to bed. I even made sure to do some 4-7-8 breathing before bed last night and turned on sleep mode, and it didn't work. Will be contacting customer service soon.

Note: Lately, it seems to be off by about an hour, and I almost wonder if daylight savings time affected it, but the wake time is correct.

[AprilEng]

The  past 2 nights, my Charge 5 is not tracking sleep properly. Last night I went to bed around 10pm, but sleep tracking didn't start until 2:51am. My heart rate was tracking fine during this time. Similar situation the night before. Not sure what is causing this. Two nights in a row feels like a pattern. 

[charleskn]

I have not had these issues, so I can only poke at possibilities. I tend to have the opposite issue, where I am watching some TV before bed, and it thinks I'm asleep because of my remaining still, and my low heart rate.

The Fitbit help article on sleep tracking states that, "When your body is completely at rest and you haven’t moved for about an hour, your device records that you’re asleep."

Is it possible that you're restless as you fall asleep? Does your heart rate seem elevated at all during that initial time, during which Fitbit thinks you're awake?

I assume that the sleep tracking works a little like the automatic exercise recognition:

• The tracker decides your doing whatever "activity" (sleep, running, elliptical) and starts a timer
• If the tracker thinks (based on motion) that you're still doing the same activity after the minimum time (one hour for sleep), it decides that your asleep (or running, etc).
• The tracker/software "should" adjust the activity/sleep stat time to when this was first detected. I have observed this with my Fitbit detecting running/elliptical activities that I forgot to start/stop.

I can only assume something is interrupting the sleep algorithm (motion or maybe heart rate). My first suggestion is to restart your Fitbit tracker and see if that helps.

It seems unlikely that the app is the issue, but it can't hurt to at least clear your Fitbit app cache under your mobile device's settings.

[AprilEng]

Took your advice to restart the Fitbit and tightened my strap by one notch and problem solved! Thanks!

[charleskn]

@AprilEng that is good to hear 😊

@M_Eriksen88 anything from your end?

@SunsetRunner ???