Questions about the new website sleep page at fitbit.com/sleep

[MatthewFitbit]

5/25/17 Edit: 

Hi all, we wanted to let you know that you can now see a timestamp while hovering over the sleep graph on both our mobile apps and the website. Thanks for your patience while we worked to bring this to you.

4/13/17 Edit: 

Hi everyone, and thanks for your patience while our team reviewed your feedback. The following points of concern have been addressed:

• Multiple logins required when visiting the sleep page - this has been fixed
• Count of awake/restless - these stats now appear in the daily sleep record
• Total minutes awake/restless - this stat now appears in the daily sleep record

The recent changes to the website sleep page were intended to bring it into parity with the mobile app. With the above additions, you’ll now find identical information across these platforms:The one exception is a timestamp while hovering over the sleep graph, which appears in our mobile apps but not the website. Our team is committed to bringing this function to the website sleep page later this year, with the goal of maintaining a consistent interface across all platforms.

Many of you also requested a “sleep quality percentage” stat. Our team has heard this interest, and are always exploring new features and tools that can help our users on their path to improve their sleep, health and fitness.

Thanks again for engaging in constructive conversation around these changes. If you have additional ideas, those can be posted on our Feature Suggestions board. 

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4/4/17 Edit: I met with several teams today to make ensure that these concerns have been fully heard. At this point we've got some potential solutions under consideration, and I expect to hear back next week with something definitive to share with you.

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Hi everyone, and thanks for your feedback and suggestions regarding the new Sleep page. I've merged a few threads into this one and updated the subject line to reflect the general discussion. Here are some answers to a couple common questions in this thread:

• How do I view/edit sleep data for an individual day?
  
  • Got to https://www.fitbit.com/sleep and click on any of the individual days below the bar graph to see data for that day. You can adjust start and end sleep times on this page.
• Where is "Time to fall asleep"?
  
  • "Time to fall asleep"doesn't apply to trackers with automatic sleep detection (Flex and newer) - since you don't press a button to initiate sleep mode, there is no gap of time to measure between that action and the start of your sleep.
• Why doesn't the "Today" button do anything?
  
  • Our team is looking into this.
• Why do I have to login again when viewing the sleep page?
  
  • This bug has been resolved

I've read through every post here, and it sounds like the feedback and concerns can be summarized as the following:

• I want to see a "Sleep Efficiency" score
• I want to see the sum or times awake/restless
• I want to see time duration when mousing over the bar graph
• I want to see hour data when mousing over the sleep graph
• I want to manually log multiple sleep sessions per day

To clarify: If you have a Blaze, Charge 2, or Alta HR, you will see Sleep Stages data on this page. The above feedback is from other users who instead see a graph that looks like this:

sleep screen shot

Please let me know if there's something specific that is not on this list. Our team is definitely receptive to your feedback, and we will relay this info to them for consideration as they continue to refine and improve this page in the future.

I know that any change is going to be a little jarring, but please remember to keep your posts respectful and on-topic, per our Community Guidelines. This thread will be better for everyone as a constructive conversation.

[MatthewFitbit]

sleep screen shot

[vic12655]

What the ??? Why did you change this? I want access to the same information I've received for all the years I've owned a Fitbit device! I've kept replacing a device whenever it was worn out because I really need to know my sleep stages, sleep efficiency, etc, because I have a condition that makes this information very important to guide my treatment. Why would you take this away after all these years??? If you don't return it to the way it was (perfect) I will be finding a different device. This is totally ridiculous and shows a total lack of concern for your customers. Aren't these devices to help improve your health? And that includes sleep stats! The information on your "web app" (whatever that is) is now as poor as the Android app sleep stats, which I never use because they don't tell you anything. I don't trust that my device is giving me the accurate time slept unless I can see the times I was restless through the night. Simply giving total hours and minutes slept is useless because there's no way to verify the accuracy.

[Alanna_tc]

Please, be kind, bring old interface back.

I don't like new interface because I don't understand the data, I understand better numbers and %.

Your sincerely.

[sushisu]

Well said!  You have no trouble communicating your feelings. Ditto what you said.

[G2EWS]

Just adding my annoyance to this thread.

Remember that the key part of sleep to understand is getting to REM. I am not sure those who have access to this data from fitbit are showing correct data.

The average person takes 90 minutes to get to REM. If you don't truly get to REM your body cannot recover. 

The whole reason for a good number of us buying fitibit's was to see that was happening and change our life style to suit.

Having been a fitbit user almost since they began I was excited to recently buy the Charge 2 and was subsequently pleased at it's ability.

Now! It is like a spare part on my wrist. I was about to surprise my Wife and Daughter and upgrade their fibit flex's. The point of stating that is not to threaten fitbit, that would be foolish, but to point out how pleased I am or was with the Charge 2. 

I do hope that fitbit get this right. My healthy sleep is critical and if I cannot monitor exactly how long I am asleep then it is of no use to me.

Like others, I ask, please put the feature back on, so I can see how long my sleep sections where when I hover over my sleep time.

Best regards

Chris

[froyle]

What's happened to the sleep percentage? This, to me, was the most important part of my use of the flex. I have a Charge for Heart rate etc, but the flex readings were great JUST AS THEY WERE!

[ran.cooper]

Fit bit changed the sleep monitor so now it only tells me when I went to bed and when I got up.  I need a watch for this? Bring back the sleep efficiency percentage! Why is your managment so determined to ignore the desires of their customer base.

[LainieF]

One thing I see missing from your list is the ability to swap between normal and sensitive views of the data. I find this very useful and miss it in the new graph.

[gcammorato]

WTF   It was fine the way it was.  Thanks for changing for no reason and stepping backwards in Customer service and satisfaction on Sleep information.   Can I have my money back?????

[ifdiet]

My dashboard has been given a makeover. As of today, I have to go two layers deep to see the sleep pattern. That's OK, but I can't find the sleep efficiency. Has it been removed?

[DwightC]

sleep screen shotso is everyones sleep log showing like this. No breakdown on times you are restless or asleep

[ifdiet]

I also miss being able to hover over the sleep pattern to see the precise time that I was awake or restless. I like being able to easily correlate the sleep pattern with occasions of wakefulness when I noticed the time.

[littleninja]

I noticed the sleep efficiency gone from my dashboard, yesterday.

I enjoyed seeing the percent of sleep quality I was getting. I hope they redo that in the new update.

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[ColoradoJon]

Hi -

I like the new sleep graphs, but for some reason my graph looks completely different from my Wife's graph.  Mine looks like this:

While hers looks like this:

Any idea why mine is different than hers?  Thanks in advance!

[SandyGA]

To Fitbit (hopefully this is passed on to them): Clearly Fitbit has a lot of very frustrated users with this change. Since I used to work in and then managed a software develop group prior to retirement, I understand the importance of customer satisfaction with changes you make. I suggest you select some of these folks and find a way to incorporate their input into your planning and testing process. This latest change has made me and obviously many others unhappy. How many people do you suppose are affected but not bothering to let you know? And you'll never know because they'll simply move on to another product and never recommend Fitbit to their friends.

[marzekiel]

This hubris of Fitbit is too authoritarian for the typical fitbit user. 
It's always best to give options and try to persuade people, not to hit them over the head.

[bluefoxicy]

@G2EWS actually, REM is the lightest phase of sleep.  Recovery sleep is non-REM (NREM) slow wave sleep (SWS), stage 3 (or stage 3 and 4, depending on the literature), which are the deepest phases.  When in deep, slow-wave NREM, your brain and muscles repair themselves.

There are some simple explanations at the Sleep Foundation.

There have been some studies on using drugs such as Tiagabine, Gabopentine, or Honokiol and Magnolol to increase the restfulness of sleep by reducing time in REM and increasing time in SWS.  This allows people to sleep for the same amount of time and wake up better-rested.  ZMA is marketed for this purported effect, primarily by magnesium acting as a makeshift benzodiapezine (it binds to the same site on alpha-GABA receptors and acts as a positive allosteric modulator, just like Valium).  All of these things can cause dependence and withdrawal, although Honokiol and Magnolol are shown to have fewer cognitive effects and little to no detectable dependence (they also tend to have little to no actual effect, at least in some people).

You definitely need REM, and you get well more than you need; when sleep deprived, your brain will sacrifice REM time and catch up by spending more time in SWS to restore proper operation.  That's why you can catch up on sleep without paying the full debt.  Sleep debt takes its toll anyway:  you perform less-well while sleep deprived, so missing 20 hours in the week and catching up in 10 hours on the weekend doesn't put you 10 hours ahead.

[roselou]

I have a Flex and it doesn't do automatic sleep detection - I have to tap it.  The new page should not have been rolled out until all of the bugs had been sorted

[procyon]

Very unhappy with this change, for all the reasons stated. It is almost like false advertising when you buy something and all of of sudden it changes after a year of use. When I bought it was sold as having access to all of your data. It seems like they go out of their way to keep my data away from me. This is the latest example. Another example is heart rate, where you have to go through great lengths to see detailed heart rate data (i.e., not a moving avg). I was thinking of getting a fitbit for my wife, but will not unless this is fixed. What we want is all of our data, not less of it. The pretty graphics with dumbed down data tells us what they think of their customers.

[Jeni_B]

Well said and a very concise summary of what went to very horribly wrong here. I normally would just vote on a reply but this deserves more attention.

@MatthewFitbitaside from the specific technical/feature feedback and fixes that are needed, I do hope that this advice is taken to heart by those involved in feature and product development. 

Another piece of advice to avoid the ire that this rollout has raised (myself included): it would be wise and prudent in the future to make an announcement for a beta test. Both solicit testers and actively recruit current customers/users (and ensure that some of them have been vocal and critical in the past) to try it out and provide feedback before rolling out a new feature to the masses. Make certain that the pool of user (Customer) testers has a wide range of reasons for using a FitBit (general gear head, trying to up activity levels, actively manage a health condition, mentoring and monitoring clients for coaches, athletes, wanna be athletes).

@bluefoxicywrote:

 (....)

These complaints arise because the tone of support ranges from dismissive to condescending.  Approximately every single person in the world is most-concerned with how they're treated, even though interfacing with another human being is extremely-temporary.

(...)

• Managing Project Stakeholders, also in hardcover.  This is the problem today.  If you want to know what happened here, read this book cover-to-cover.  These people out here throwing chairs and making angry posts?  They're your stakeholders.  Somebody at Fitbit didn't properly manage project stakeholders—they didn't include us—and the project failed.

That last one is the technical reason for today's angry phone calls and sternly-written letters.

 (...)

I put in a FR to roll back the change because the people who actually use the sleep tracking functionality don't want to use the product you delivered.  At the very least, the option to use the old version should have been kept, so you can gather metrics on how many users are switching back; instead, Fitbit seems to have decided on leaving users stranded with something they don't want.

(...)

 Many have already announced that we're delaying purchases of newer trackers, or not planning to purchase them at all, or simply moving to another product because we don't have any consumer confidence in Fitbit as a company anymore.  By forcing this new, unaccepted deliverable onto users until you can remediate their concerns, you are pushing them to solidify those decisions—and pushing more users to work their way away from the Fitbit product line.

That is what stakeholder management is about.  That's what hasn't been done here.  That's why the project failed, delivering its product only to receive a hail of stones and debris as users attempt to chase you off and take back what they had before.

(...)

[jbuckl9176]

Sleep percentage is common sense , please bring back.  Why would you get rid of sleep percentage.!!!!!!