Sleep score available with Premium Subscription

[Matt_F]

I'm extremely disappointed how Fitbit have decided to lock away user's own sleep data behind a Paywall subscription. 

Subscription for: 

* Audio & Video Workouts

* Guided Programs

I totally understand because they're added features to enhance/supplement the tracker but

* Premium Insights

So I can see my sleeping heart rate, my own data from the tracker, is pretty rude.

I bought the tracker specifically for sleep data and there was nothing in the website to indicate that it is or will be accessible behind a paid subscription fee @ $14.99/month AUD...

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[HannaKate]

Am I missing something here? If you don’t want to pay for the service then just look at your HR on the HR tile for the time you were asleep... Is it really that much of a big deal that you would throw in your device and go to someone else, who you would probably just complain about when you used that? 

I didn’t use the free trial and then get this feeling of entitlement, it was a preview for a reason. Don’t use a FREE preview and then moan when the actual service gets rolled out 🤣 laughable! 

Personally I think it is a step in an interesting direction, especially with Coach being put into the this, as someone who works out at home, this will be really useful!!

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you for starting this discussion. 

I can't believe that it's about 110.00/year CAD just to see sleep stats. I don't care about the coaching as I already do my own training but I do care about my sleep. I have been a user of fit bit since the start and I am so disappointed in this. 

To me this is a very bad look for FitBit and will definitely influence my future purchases.

I may not post much, or at all, but this was enough to rile me up to do so at 430am.

[LifelessCrowd]

@HannaKate 

I never used the free premium AND even I can tell they've locked the usual stuff behind a paywall which is stupidly crazy.....

Don't know how you can be on their side, I agree with if you don't wanna pay for it then don't no one's forcing you BUT this is crazy having things locked behind a paywall when you used to have them and the price for it too! Stick your head on a bit more straighter next time 🙂

[Colin.g.h]

Hi Lizzy

My wife was about to upgrade to a Versa 2. The new subscription service has so soured her experience of Fitbit that she is looking at other options, and not considering Fitbit. So you have lost one user now and another when I upgrade. The Premium charge for core data devalues the Fitbit experience and setting it higher than my Netflix subscription is unjustifiable.

It will be interesting to see if enough people subscribe to compensate for the users you will lose.

Regards

Colin

[HannaKate]

@LifelessCrowd  so what usual stuff have they locked away? My usage is completed unchanged so I really don’t see why everyone is making such a huge fuss....

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi everybody, it's always great to have new members around.

Thanks for sharing your feedback about your Fitbit experience. Sorry you feel that way, we're always thankful to receive comments about our service and product. I'd suggest to keep adding your comments in a polite and respectful way. Your opinions are always welcome, you can check the Community Guidelines or let me know if you have questions about it.

Keep sharing your comments on the Forums. 

[irakez]

Yeah, "keep sharing your comments on the Forums", because no new potential customer is going to read these forums when making a decision whether to buy a Fibit or not, and we can successfully ignore you here, like we've been doing with any other feedback lately.

The only way to make Fitbit feel the same pain we are feeling when starting our day with some pathetic unsolicited anxiety-inducing opinion on our sleep from some random people, totally unqualified to even make this sort of judgement, is to take our pain outside.

The least we can do, apart from leaving comments and voting here, is to leave 1-star reviews on App Store/Google Play, where other people who are not yet Fitbit customers may see. And try to leave similar 1-star reviews wherever you can, to warn unsuspecting new customers how much they may regret their decision to purchase a Fitbit device, like many of us do.

I guarantee you that this kind of feedback will definitely be more tangible to Fitbit as a company, and will have more chance to ignite some action.

[MatthewFitbit]

Hey everyone - it sounds like there might be some misconceptions about how the new Premium service works. No previously existing Fitbit features have been moved behind a Premium paywall. Everything that was previously available to you for free will continue to be available for free, and Fitbit will continue to add new free features.

Premium offers a suite of new features as extra support and motivation, but does not change the free experience. We've put together a Premium FAQ here that should answer some of your questions. I hope that helps!

[Matt_F]

Hi @MatthewFitbit ,

I'm not sure if you read my original post and looked at the screenshots I had provided but unless the newer updates now provide the Sleeping Heart Rate & Restlessness %, my screenshots show otherwise.

This is why I have rolled back to v2.95 and have not updated the software since. If these are back in the latest versions then please let us know.

[MatthewFitbit]

@Matt_F Those are indeed new features, available through a Premium subscription.

My response was intended to address misconceptions in this thread that Fitbit has moved previously free features into Premium, which is not the case.

[tgfish]

This is a cheap money grab. Will be my last Fitbit device.

[J-flex]

I don’t see any advantage to joining a paid service.  I’ll happily stay with the free service as it provides everything I need.  I don’t need a device on my wrist to determine how or how well I sleep.  I have access to professional  services that deal with this should I have any concerns.  

I see see the premium service as a cash grab.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @tgfish, welcome to the Community Forums. We really appreciate your comments @J-flex.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated, but as mentioned before all Fitbit users will continue to enjoy the free features in the Fitbit app available today, such as daily and weekly trends for your activity, exercise, heart rate, and sleep, hourly activity, female health tracking, educational insights, the Fitbit community, and logging food, water, and weight.  

You can read more about recent changes on Fitbit Premium here.

I'll be around in case that you have additional questions.

[tgfish]

This is a market signal that Fitbit is moving towards a service model to compensate/replace the hardware revenue. Who knows if there will ever be another "free" feature on these devices. What's next? Multiple tiers of premium Fitbit? That kind of uncertainty is unsettling for me as the consumer and will guide my purchasing power to something more dependable product like an Android wear (unlikely given the immaturity of that ecosystem), Samsung device, or Apple watch device. Buy it, use it, done.

[tgfish]

---

@J-flex wrote:

I don’t see any advantage to joining a paid service.  I’ll happily stay with the free service as it provides everything I need.  I don’t need a device on my wrist to determine how or how well I sleep.  I have access to professional  services that deal with this should I have any concerns.  

I see see the premium service as a cash grab.

---

How is that helpful to anyone in this thread? Do you assume everyone with this concern has access to the same professional service and/or is willing to pay for that?

[J-flex]

@tgfish  I do know that Fitbit and any (premium) services they want to me to pay for aren’t in my opinion qualified to make claims about any results from a device worn on my wrist, nor would I rely on any of this to be accurate health/medical information. If I have any concerns or issues with regards to my quality of sleep, HR, and BP, etc, etc I would never rely on any data obtained from something I wear on my wrist. The Professional services I would access and deal with are my Dr and and other Medical professionals who are trained experts to address and deal with my health concerns/issues.  

My Fitbit is only a fitness tracker (nothing more, nothing less). It is reasonably accurate in recording my steps, which I use for participating challenges which I enjoy.

Buying into a premium service isn’t going to change or improve my quality of my life or change results in my fitness.  All that will be accomplished is paying for something that is of no use, no service and no benefit to my health.  My gym membership is of greater value to me and my health.

[Kanim]

Ugh not a regular forum user but came here to express my utter disappointment that statistics of any kind are getting locked behind a paywall. Especially when the software is so buggy. Stuck notifications, not getting notifications, having to reboot watch etc.

Just ensured I'll move away from Fitbit ASAP.

I have zero interest in paying for a subscription to a watch...  Especially when you pay hundreds for it.   

[PatTheDog]

@MatthewFitbit please consider allowing users to dismiss or hide the locked banners that link to Premium content if they decide they do not want a Premium subscription. I really dislike seeing the Fitbit app becoming more of a platform to push upsell to Premium.

I have created a Feature suggestion for such a setting, I suggest people add their vote to it: Setting to hide Premium upsell in app

[micheledelhuman]

If I scroll through the upper bar graph to get to hours of sleep per night it still shows me the sleep score in the content below. It no longer shows me average hours of sleep per week. even when expanding the hours of sleep per night in the upper bar graph I can no longer see my average hours of sleep for the week. This needs to be changed as knowing my average hours of sleep for the week is actually useful where the sleep score is pretty much entirely useless (in fact I would love to disable to sleep score entirely).

This should function similar to the weight graph where you can scroll and it will constantly be updating your average for that chunk of time.

as a side note it seems to be still grossly underestimated the amount of REM sleep. For 3 hours of sleep it gave me 4 minutes. 

[sevenspeed]

  @HannaKate I don't mind paying a small fee for better sleep tracking data, even though the device advertised SPO2 data which it is yet to be using over a year later, which is false advertising as I also bought the Versa based on that feature.  I didn't try the free trial either.  I have never complained about FitBit before as a long time user but now my device will rarely ever send me notifications as well, maybe that will be a premium.

  But main point being, if you are going to charge a fee for sleep data don't make me pay for private coaching and other features I do not care to have.  I also read the Fitbit Coach was not basing your workout on measurement but a canned routine and would push some people's heart rate too far.....

I just want to track sleep and heart rate, for exercise I have a Chest Strap that does so much more as well as more accurately then the FitBit and has a social aspect for it.  I may be going to a Polar watch as I found out in another thread on this topic that it can track Heart Rate Variability while sleeping as well, I have a device for that which was also $300 but is just for a morning or pre/post workout checkup, you can't wear it at night since it's a finger sensor.  I used to have a Zeo headband which had so many features for sleep including a smart wake alarm but the company went under.

  It's also not very heartwarming to see this in every changelog history, just saying we made some changes but it's too much of a hassle to list them.  The last place I worked, if we did that we would have been out of business.  If someone is having a problem with a feature it helps to know when it got changed to see if it could be due to a bug in an update.

• Head’s-up! We’re stepping up the Fitbit app. For new Fitbit app features and fixes, your phone must be running Android OS 7+. To confirm your phone is compatible, see Which phones and tablets can I use with my Fitbit watch or tracker?
• We fixed some bugs and made stability improvements.