Heart rate spike during sleep

[KittyB52]

I have noticed an occasional strange spike in my heart rate late at night when I am asleep. It's happened a few times now, most recently on Saturday evening.

It shows on the app as happening around 23:59, and my heart rate jumps up from around 60 to 150, although in one instance it was 170.

I am assuming it's a bug/glitch, as it happens at the same time of night each time but I'd like to know what is causing this issue.

[Zenjenni]

This happens to me every night all the time. It spikes anywhere between 1am and 2am and spikes for a few mins sometimes up to 150 or 160! Should I be worried?

[Jjelmer]

I see a lot of “me too” and fixes of reset and position of watch but no real feedback regarding seriousness of these spikes. I’ve had my Fitbit for about 8 months now and basically it has performed as expected. But last night I had a spike that went from 56 to 172 and back to 56 over a 3 or 4 minute period about a 3rd of the way through sleep period.  No frightening dream or noise that I noted. It is the first time to see something abnormal. Has anyone figured out what’s really happening. It has to be either a real event or an app glitch. Thanks 

[Poleyjo]

I have these spikes showing every single night and many times throughout the night, but I also have palpitations throughout the day and am currently undergoing cardiology investigations 🤷‍:female_sign:. I don't have any answers yet though.

[SunsetRunner]

If you're having them every night or consistently I'd look to be setup with a Holter monitors as it'll watch your heart all through the night recording the same as an ECG does. Those who have it happen once I wouldn't worry as it's a glitch or maybe a one off tachycardia incident but without it repeating or having other concerns likely nothing to worry about. Sent from my Galaxy

[Jjelmer]

Agree. I’ll of course will be hoping not to see it again. 
Thanks 


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[Poleyjo]

Hi, thanks yes I've already had one about 2 weeks ago. I'd waited since January for it due to COVID delays. So now I'm just waiting for my results.

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[RPLT]

Did you end up replacing your tracker or anything else that solved this issue? I really think it is a software bug and I don’t know why Fitbit hasn’t fixed it yet.

I upgraded from a Charge 2 to Charge 4 and it’s been like this for me since day 1. I gave it a few weeks assuming it’d get better but it didn’t. Tried soft resets and hard resets and everything Fitbit tells you to try and I am still seeing the same thing. It happens around the same time window every night, even if I’m not sleeping during that time, and shows a spike where my “zone” is in cardio range. Goes up by at least 2x during the glitch period! I’m fairly certain this is a software issue because of how consistently it happens around the same time every night, and because my tracker shows my correct resting heart rate but the app reports the spike.

I’m very annoyed with this problem at this point and am even tempted to switch to another tracker. Fitbit was my first fitness tracker and I’ve stuck with them since then but the issues they ignore or choose not to fix is bothersome. I just wish we could know what’s causing this and could look into fixing it.

[Jjelmer]

I have only had the one spike in over 8 months so assume since it didn’t wake me and only one incident it is an error. 


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[Fitter81]

Same as you; I’ve tried to reset but there’s been no change at all; it
still happens every day at the same time, like clockwork. Very annoying.

[SunsetRunner]

This is the same as me. Had only happened once or twice. Got setup with a 24 holter monitor and really hasn't happened since.Besides making sure it's sitting about 2 fingers width above your wrist bone, my only other suggestion would be to chat with a doc to see about getting a Holter monitors over night if it's been happening regularly.

[Murf13]

Sleep apnea?

I agree I have Afib and my Fitbit is very accurate with spikes.. maybe sleep apnea?

[SunsetRunner]

Hi All, it's definitely a glitch and I was able to prove it. My peaks in the heartbits are always happening between 1-2am. So what I did was staying awake till 2, watching TV. My  HB didn't go over 64. However, during the day I walked around town and my heartbit went to 120-130 which was fine but guess what? I went back to check the record for this morning between 1-2 and there was a spike to the same values exactly there, where before that was just normal values. So my point is: try this yourself. No spikes in the morning but as soon as u do some exercises during the same day Fitbit retroactively writes the values in the morning. And the reason y it does that between 1-2? It's normally the time when I have my break in the afternoon. In other terms, the spike you see on the right, it was not there until 11am when I started walking around town. And as you can see, because it was 11am the spike was moved to noon, rather the usually 1am. I should have taken a screenshot at 2 am but pls pls pls try that yourself. No one has 160bpm at night, but if u had it (as I had in the past) it's just because in the afternoon of the same day I went by bike and I reached 160bpm. Hope it makes sense. Very annoying tho. Sense is not cheap and this is a massive massive glitch 

[RPLT]

Hi Matty70,

Thanks for your response and for trying this out! I did something similar a while ago and came to the same conclusion as you.

I asked for a warranty replacement and my new device, unfortunately, does the same thing (although not as high of a spike as it was with the old device). When I track my HR on the device during 11PM-2AM, it's usually a little higher than resting but not in the cardio/peak territory. But, when I do some activity and sync the app with the device, it generates this spike. I'm planning on trying out an HR5 to see if this issue has been resolved so I will post once I have some data.

My guess for the 12-2AM spike is something about the tracker being "reset" or "glitching" at midnight, regardless of what time zone the tracker is set at (although fitbit HQ is in CA, I'm EST).

This is extremely unfortunate because if the HR5 isn't any better (I've read some disgruntled comments on it already but won't form a judgement until I try it out), I will move on to something else although I've really enjoyed having my fitbit for 6 years.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @RPLT . I would be nice to have an admin here cause customer service carries on "blaming" the way I wear it. The issue is even worst. It doesn't happen after the afternoon's activities, but asap they started. The screenshots here are a before/after. The before were taken this morning 645am. As soon as I walked here, see what happens in the last two pics. And I am sure they will change later on according with other activities. Keep you posted.

 

 

 

 

 

[littlemissmax]

Did you get any answers to what’s going on?

[Zenjenni]

Hi there! The large majority of responses lead me to believe it is some sort of glitch. It generally only happens to me on days that I’m most active. I think that the company should address us all in this forum, there are way too many of us for them to ignore. I literally bought my entire family fitbits (four in total) and it happens to them all. Will be switching to Apple Watch at christmas likely! I’m excited for it as most of my friends have Apple Watch. Also my family complains that they can’t actually see the time when they glance at their watch (kind of the purpose of a watch as well) and they complain that they have to press the button. Beet wishes to all who are sticking with Fitbit, but no one from the company seems to want to address this issue at all. It great customer service.

[Gemtheginger]

I’m having something similar, though my spikes are not as high and not every night or always at the same time. These spikes show up immediately after I wake up, so it’s not being retroactively applied as some have found. I also noticed that when I went into my dashboard on a browser to get the exact times, the spikes don’t even show up. It’s only on the app, so this leads me to believe it’s a bug of some kind.

[Jasonvado]

This has been happening to a lot of people with the Fitbit. No matter the
version, for years now. Doesn’t seem like Fitbit will be correcting this
issue

[jrb29301-b]

I came to look as this happened to me for the first time last night - I almost never have "peak" heart rate, but my fitbit shows peak (128) of 2 minutes at 5:40 AM this morning. (The rest of the night was about 54 to 62)/  I guess with only once I won't worry about it.  My watch did come off my arm at some point last night - i wonder if that is related.  (The graph does not show any "not available' times when it was off my arm, which seems odd.

[joseph.openshaw]

most of the feedback I received has been that many have experienced the
same anomaly. Other comments were questioning apnea or heart murmurs. I
have had a full checkup and have neither of these health issues. I think
it's a bug in the phone, but have learned to just ignore it.