Does the Ionic sleep analysis correlate with professional studies?

[paulkinzelman]

I was just curious whether anybody has worn their Ionic (or other sleep analysis Fitbit) to a professional sleep study. Do the results of the study (time and schedule of various levels of sleep) correlate well (or not) with what the Fitbit says? How accurate is the sleep analysis feature of the Fitbit? Does it use anything other than pulse rate to calculate sleep levels? It'd be interesting to know the algorithm Fitbit uses to determine the levels.

[Baltoscott]

Hi @paulkinzelman.  In addition to heart rate it uses movement to calculate sleep levels. 

I have not been in a sleep study and would be very surprised if or other wrist based devices are anywhere near the accuracy of, say, a study that is directly monitoring brainwaves.  Like you, I would be interested in hearing from others who have actually compared results to an actual sleep study.

That said, I find the info it provides a better indicator of my sleep quality, and more worthy of tracking, than simply marking the time I spend in bed.  In particular, as I notice a lot of 'awake time' in bed it reminds me that I may need to turn out the lights or turn off devices earlier, and maybe stop consuming things shortly before I go to bed (= fewer bathroom trips).  Also, beer/wine etc in the evening tends to affect my sleep quality over the course of the night, even if it may help me 'wind down' and get to sleep in the first place.

[Rich_Laue · Accepted solution]

Let's start by looking towards Fitbit with the first paragraph of this PDF.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/29235907/

As for normal users yes this has been compared in the past 

https://youtu.be/crnfetK_kQo

I've seen others comparisons, all positive, but like this review, I have not seen any comparing sleep stages to a sleep study.