Went to Bed Time is Hours Late

[bithead]

Last night I went to bed at 11:22 PM.  My Charge HR's sleep record says I went to bed at 2:30 AM.  This doesn't happen every night, but I'd say about 40% of the time.  Per suggestions in other posts I restarted the tracker on 1/4/2016 to see if this would cure the problem, which has happened since day 1 in November when I got the tracker.  It didn't solve it.  My sleep tracking mode is set to normal.

And perhaps related... when my "went to bed" time is reported correctly, I often get split sleep records with gaps between them showing from 7 minutes to an hour and 50 minutes.  This happened yesterday, again after I restarted the tracker on 1/4.

Assuming I'm not sleep walking, what should I try next?

[kawaiiko]

What's your heartrate during those times you're "awake"?  I have seen cases where if your heartrate is higher than the norm it reads as awake rather than asleep.  

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@bithead wrote:

Last night I went to bed at 11:22 PM.  My Charge HR's sleep record says I went to bed at 2:30 AM.  This doesn't happen every night, but I'd say about 40% of the time.  Per suggestions in other posts I restarted the tracker on 1/4/2016 to see if this would cure the problem, which has happened since day 1 in November when I got the tracker.  It didn't solve it.  My sleep tracking mode is set to normal.

And perhaps related... when my "went to bed" time is reported correctly, I often get split sleep records with gaps between them showing from 7 minutes to an hour and 50 minutes.  This happened yesterday, again after I restarted the tracker on 1/4.

Assuming I'm not sleep walking, what should I try next?

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[bithead]

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@kawaiiko wrote:

What's your heartrate during those times you're "awake"?  I have seen cases where if your heartrate is higher than the norm it reads as awake rather than asleep.   

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Thanks for the reply.  And while what you say may be true, my question is not about being awake - it's about being in bed - isn't that handled by some triple-axis gyro thingy (my technical term for the day)?

I can certainly see where HR might be used to determine asleep/awake/restless times, but a 3+ hour gap from going to bed to being recognized as being in bed seems a bit extreme.

For anyone following this, I've emailed customer support.  I'll try to report back here when I receive a response.

Moderator edit: merged reply

[MikeF]

I don't think it's about being in bed so much as being still. My guess is that you're a bit of a restless sleeper some nights which the tracker will detect. Get restless enough and it will assume you've awoken for a while.

[bithead]

I do have restless nights sometimes, but not so much that it should take hours before recognizing that I've gone to bed, especially when I've been sleeping during most of that time.  In fact, I'll sometimes wake up for a few minutes right around the time the Charge HR thinks I climbed into bed, but again, I've been sleeping for hours already.  I would be OK if that time was recorded as "restless" or even "awake", but to not have gone to bed yet is just too inaccurate to be acceptable.

[MikeF]

It doesn't recognise you've gone to bed until you've been still for an hour. In fact, that's the only way it has of knowing you're in bed (it can't tell you're lying down, for example) so if your levels of restlessness prevents that hour of stillness from occurring then it will think you never dropped off.

I've never tried this, but if you want a better record of sleep, you can put it into exercise mode the moment you climb into bed and turn that off when you get up. It then knows where you are and why and will hopefully give you a better picture of your sleep quality.

[bithead]

Interesting that it takes an hour to figure it out.  Do you know what triggers getting out of bed?  And I presume if one does get up in the middle of the night for a few minutes, the one hour countdown starts over again when returning to bed?

[MikeF]

I'm more fuzzy on the getting up side of things I'm afraid, I've not seen the question answered by anyone who knows and I've never asked. I'd assume a few steps will drop it out of sleep mode but it does log steps from sleep movement without that happening so it can't be that simple.

I usually ask @EmersonFitbit at times like this to see if he knows

[EmersonFitbit]

@MikeF @bithead It takes a pretty substantial amount of movement to take the tracker out of sleep mode- usually a good sold minute or two of walking around should do it. 

I drink a lot of water (and the occasional brews), and when I wake up in the middle of the night, my trackers usually reflect the full sleep period with a bit of "awake" splashed in there in order to show me what time I had to relieve myself.

[bithead]

Thanks for the feedback.  In my conversatikon with Support, they've confirmed the one hour of non-movement time to recognize being in bed.  This looks like it will be a problem for me, as I rarely lay still when I go to bed at night.  Also, I guess I can be a bit tumultuous in the middle of the night, as I get frequent reports of being up for long periods before I awaken in the morning.  The apparent "sleep walking" isn't bad to deal with as I can correct for it easily in the web interface.  But a main reason I bought this device was for the auto sleep tracking - I had a different device before this one that required I manually indicate when going to bed and when getting up, and I was pretty consistent at forgetting to do one or the other.  So unfortunately, the Charge HR's sleep tracking is proving to be quite disappointing at this time, and will continue as such until it can more accurately determine when I go to bed.

[bithead]

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@MikeF wrote:

I've never tried this, but if you want a better record of sleep, you can put it into exercise mode the moment you climb into bed and turn that off when you get up. It then knows where you are and why and will hopefully give you a better picture of your sleep quality.

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FYI, I did give that a shot, but to no avail.  Apparently even when manually set to track activity, it still needs a certain activity level before it tracks anything.  I tried this twice and both times there was no activity record after getting up the next morning.

[Babygiraffe]

I am really disappointed in how my sleep is being tracked. I wasn't planning to track my sleep just as a matter of interest. I have trouble sleeping, and I had hoped that by charting my time in bed and my actual time asleep, I could see the effectiveness of lifestyle changes on my sleep, and work towards resolving my sleep problem. The problem is that my Fitbit doesn't show me as being in bed unless I'm actually asleep. The difference in time between getting into bed and falling asleep is about 2 hours. In the morning, I'm often awake and restless, but too groggy to get up and walk around, sometimes for up to an hour. If I could manually enter my bed time and the time I actually get out of bed in the morning, I would have a more accurate and useful picture of my sleep patterns.
-Any suggestions from other users?
-Any plans to improve the sleep tracking feature so that it is more useful for those of us who actually need it?

[bithead]

When you go to bed...

In the mobile app, from the Dashboard, tap the sleep info. In the top right corner tap the plus sign, then choose Begin Sleep Now. Set the device down and get your rest.

When you're ready to indicate you're awake, pick up the device and tap the I'm Awake button.

This routine didn't work well when I first learned of it, but it's been working properly now for several months.

[Babygiraffe]

Hi bit head, and thanks! Your solution worked somewhat but I still found that there is some confusion between time in bed and time asleep. I think the app needs to be more specific in the terminology used.
I've also changed the setting in the sleep tracker to Sensitive, and that made a big difference. I seen now that it's taking me well over an hour to fall asleep and I'm planning to change things up (no more Pinterest at bedtime, don't watch Code Black after 8:00 pm, etc) I'm also going to stop drinking water about 3 hours before bedtime, LOL.
Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

[evawut]

My Fitbit Alta also started doing this recently. I’ve found if I reset the asleep time manually, it’s accurate. If you back too far it just says awake, so you can basically find your true asleep time by guessing. You can change it again & again if need be 🙂 I too am very annoyed by this. The sleep tracker is one of my favorite features. 

[Korny09]

Have you considered just making a mental note and adding an hour to that sleep time mentally and to your average sleep time? I think that is something I may need to do because it always says I get one hour less then I usually get.

[Aethon]

I'm having the same issue. It's off by at least an hour 

[Stella721]

I agree. I bought a Charge 2 which is already gone after a few months! I have owned a Fitbit since 2014! I think the Charge 2 is a lemon and don't want another lemon! They will not exchange it for the Aria HR model which is the same price. So I'll purchase a new Charge 2 at a local store and return the lemon Charge 2 and then exchange it for the Aria with the heart rate. I bought this on line, but this option will get me what I want! In the future I would purchase another product as I know as I now know how crappy Fitbit customer service is!

[Ericalarsen]

I'm having the same problem. Contacted customer support & we reset my alta hr. Still hours late with my sleep start time. It's getting aggravating. It's brand new!

[Judygirly]

My Fitbit has been doing the exact same thing for several weeks. I’ve been wearing one for ten years and feel like throwing it away.