awake times being recorded as light sleep

[briansantell]

i have my sleep tracking set to sensitive but I am finding it is recording periods of being awake, as light sleep.  Should it be recording periods where I am basically 'resting with my eyes closed' as light sleep?  I am conscious during these times, but it is recording it as a light sleep instead of awake.  What determines the difference between light sleep and being awake?  I admit it might be a fine line but I feel like my awake times are being under reported and my light sleep times over reported.

[HeydyF]

Hey @briansantell, it is great to see you around more often!  A restless state of sleep indicates that you moved from a very restful position into one involving greater movement, such as turning over in bed. When your tracker indicates that you are moving so much that restful sleep would not be possible, your sleep graph will indicate that you were awake.

Fitbit wrist trackers use the Auto detection to calculate your sleep, which is based on your movement. When you haven’t moved for about an hour, your tracker assumes that you’re asleep. Additional data—such as the length of time your movements are indicative of sleep behavior (such as rolling over, etc.)—help confirm that you’re asleep. Morning movement tells your tracker that you’re awake. If you’re not moving but not asleep for long periods of time it’s possible for your tracker to falsely record sleep, in which case you can delete the sleep log from your history.

Now, regarding the normal and the sensitive sleep settings, your tracker's setting can record your sleep in either "sensitive" mode for extremely detailed sleep reporting or "normal" mode for a more basic idea of your sleep patterns. Note that this setting doesn't apply if you use Alta HR, Blaze, or Charge 2 to track your sleep stages. 

• The normal setting counts significant movements as being awake (such as rolling over) and is appropriate for most users.
• The sensitive setting will cause your tracker to record nearly all movements as time spent restless or awake. This setting may be helpful for users who wake up feeling tired even though their sleep history shows sufficient rest.

I hope this helps, but if you have further questions, let me know! 😉 

[Joe_SixApps]

Hi Brian,

I do experience the same problem. Although I have sensitive sleep registration, my FitBit Charge 2 often misreports sleepless periods as 'light sleep'. Apparently technology is not that far yet.
It's a pity that FitBit isn't wiling to admit this (see the reaction of our moderator). Especially since its sleeps graphs are, in spite of technical limitations, still very interesting. For instance when comparing a specific night with our personal average. Also for monitoring amounts of deep sleep and REM-sleep.

Regards,

Joe

[iSeeker]

Yes, I have also noticed that there are times when I've been unable to sleep and fully conscious (passed the time thinking about and solving problems), yet it is recorded as light sleep. I'm using Charge2 without a sensitive setting.

[MrAlex]

I’ve had a Fitbit Charge 2 since Xmas this year. I AM offered the option of ‘sensitive’ in settings . There is no note by it saying it doesn’t do anything . Is this a mistake or has the Charge 2 been updated since your post ?

Thankyou

Alex

[iSeeker]

Not aware of an update, Alex. But I've not tried the sensitive setting. Rgds iSkr

[KBAtagirl]

I had the same issue. I am new to my Alta HR and bought specifically to see what was going on with my sleep. I wake a lot during night and often stay awake for long periods. My husband says I probably get more sleep than I tihink I do. The first few reports looked fairly accurate, but last night I was conciously awake for much longer than the report indicated for at least 2 periods. Like iSeeker, my brain was active and problem solving. I thought through content for an upcoming presentation which was helpful. I was trying not to move and settle so I could fall back asleep. Maybe it was the lack of motion, but I assumed with the heart rate monitor there would be some higher level of accuracy. The bright light turning on didn't help either, but I figured that piece out this mroning.

Can you have a low heart rate and still be awake? Would this vary from person to person? Does the device need more time to to gather baseline info for me personally, or are the settings the same for all? A lot of questions in my reply, sorry.

[iSeeker]

In reply to KBAtagirl:

Over a week, my Charge2 estimates the amount of Sleep (Deep+Light+REM) as
about 3% more than my own estimate, but that's averaging out larger nightly
variations.

There are times when I am definitely awake but lying still, to try to get
back to sleep, and at such times I'm quite sure the Fitbit does often count
the time as Light Sleep; sometimes even as REM. Sometimes when I'm reading
prior to putting my head down also gets registered as sleep; so being
stationary does risk getting counted as sleep.

As to one's own recognition of being awake or asleep, there are times when I
become aware that I have just awoken during a period when I thought I was
not asleep. My wife, who doesn't sleep as well as myself certainly reports
me snoring lightly at times I had thought I wasn't asleep - so I think your
husband is likely to be correct in his judgement that you get more sleep
than you think you do.

That said, as you know, the device is not measuring sleep directly, only
interpreting the light signals it receives, so some inaccuracy is
unavoidable - or, to put it another way, the Fitbit's "categorisation"
doesn't fully coincide with the categories of our own self-assessment.

I don't think that a low heart rate is a reliable indicator of sleep.
Although it counts my base rate as a few BPM above the lowest rate, my heart
rate is often quite high when I sleep, especially if I've eaten more than
usual in the late evening. Even when I'm fully awake, my heart rate can be
below the "resting rate" estimated from my sleeping rates.

My readings might not have been reliable for the first few days after
acquiring the Charge2, but I don't think it should take more than 4 or 5
days to settle down - maybe a week at most.

Hope this helps - iSeeker

[iSeeker]

Trying to delete duplicate................................................................................................................................

[iSeeker]

Re-posting reply that disappeared (as opposed to the duplicate I wanted to delete):

In reply to KBAtagirl:

Over a week, my Charge2 estimates the amount of Sleep (Deep+Light+REM) as about 3% more than my own estimate, but that’s averaging out larger nightly variations.

There are times when I am definitely awake but lying still, to try to get back to sleep, and at such times I’m quite sure the Fitbit does often count the time as Light Sleep; sometimes even as REM. Sometimes when I’m reading prior to putting my head down also gets registered as sleep; so being stationary does risk getting counted as sleep.

As to one’s own recognition of being awake or asleep, there are times when I become aware that I have just awoken during a period when I thought I was not asleep. My wife, who doesn’t sleep as well as myself certainly reports me snoring lightly at times I had thought I wasn’t asleep – so I think your husband is likely to be correct in his judgement that you get more sleep than you think you do.

That said, as you know, the device is not measuring sleep directly, only interpreting the light signals it receives, so some inaccuracy is unavoidable – or, to put it another way, the Fitbit’s “categorisation” doesn’t fully coincide with the categories of our own self-assessment.

I don’t think that a low heart rate is a reliable indicator of sleep. Although it counts my base rate as a few BPM above the lowest rate, my heart rate is often quite high when I sleep, especially if I’ve eaten more than usual in the late evening. Even when I’m fully awake, my heart rate can be below the “resting rate” estimated from my sleeping rates.

My readings might not have been reliable for the first few days after acquiring the Charge2, but I don’t think it should take more than 4 or 5 days to settle down – maybe a week at most.

Hope this helps - iSeeker

[KaraThraceAHSD]

KBAtagirl,

Yes, you can you have a low heart rate and still be awake. When you lie down and are still your heart rate slows. Hiw much it slows will vary from person to person. 

I have the same issue with my Charge 3.  It tends to record times when I am still and trying to fall asleep as light sleep. I don't think that there is anything that can be done at this point. The technology isn't there yet. The only way to know if your asleep would be to have an electroencephalogram (EEG) monitor your brain waves. They do this during actual professional sleep studies.

That said, I think the Fitbit sleep monitoring is interesting, just a bit inaccurate. I usually just subtract out the times I think I was actually awake.

[iSeeker]

Thanks for that and I agree with what you wrote.

Now I have a Fitbit I actually keep two records as I've long kept
subjective estimates of time asleep and time consciously "dozing", though I
couldn't distinguish deep or dreaming times subjectively.

Generally, the two methods are in reasonably close agreement, except in the
late phase when I might not have fallen back to sleep for part the last
hour or so.

If the deep-sleep recording is reasonably reliable, then I'm getting a
significantly better quality of sleep than I had thought, and as Yogi Bear
would have put it, "better than the average!"

With best wishes for the New Year - iSeeker

[SleplssElsewher]

I have experienced poor sleep for many years and I got my charge 3 mostly to help track my sleep. For several months I even worked with a sleep specialist, but that didn't help much, other than to help me recognize not to dwell too much on quality of sleep. I would suggest to you not to be so completely certain that when you are lying in bed at night thinking you are awake that you might not actually have periods of sleeping. One of the first technologies I used to track my sleep was an android app called Snoreclock. Snoreclock creates an audio recording of your sleep, figures out when you were snoring, and then displays a graph in the morning showing periods when you are snoring. What astonished me was how often I had been snoring when I thought I was awake. Snoreclock records the sounds of the whole night and you can just finger in to the period it says you were snoring and actually hear yourself. Its bizarre and very revealing to be absolutely certain that you were awake and yet have an audio recording that shows that you must have been asleep because there you were snoring and not only had no idea at all that you were doing so, but were completely convinced you were awake. I am not saying fitbit is always right. I am sure it is not, but if you are really interested in quality of sleep then you might want to try combining the information of a number of different tracking systems.

[iSeeker]

That's useful!

I am aware that sometimes when I think I'm awake I have found myself
realising that I've just been dreaming; but there are also times when I've
been thinking something through in a manner that I'm fairly sure has been
uninterrupted.

However, the idea of recording snoring sounds (no pun intended) very
useful.I have an audio-memory stick that will do the job.

Many thanks for that, and wishing good sleep in the New Year - iSeeker

[JaneenRR]

I agree. And it’s annoying. I know some people said oh maybe you are actually sleeping   But I disagree. 

Wehn I can’t aleeo I ften read on my kindle and it will often record that as sleeping time. Or I am laying there focused on slow breathing to try to at least get peaceful rest and it will say I was in light sleep. When I know I was not

really disappointing 

[SleplssElsewher]

The biggest issue I am having right now with my Fitbit sleep tracking comes from just how bad my sleep is. I wake up several times for long periods every night, sometimes with one awakening period lasting for about an hour and half. Because of the long awakening the Fitbit records those sleep sessions as two nights. I can edit a disrupted sleep like that into one night, but when I do I often lose all the sleep data because the first of those sleep sessions is usually less than two hours, and when I combine them the data from the longer session seems to disappear.

In response to the Fitbit recording other times I am awake as light sleep what I usually do is just look at the REM and the Deep sleep and evaluate that. I figure the light vs awake to be just a sort of OK indicator.

[SleplssElsewher]

Sleep specialists all say that screens are bad for sleep because of the quality of light that emits from them. So, if you are awake at night - reading a paper book might make more sense than reading on your kindle.

[JaneenRR]

yeah - i have just decided to ignore the light sleep part

my rem is usually less than 45 min and deep is somewhere between 0 and 40

I suck at sleeping

[Lizzie_Bee]

LOL my partner often accuses me of snoring when I'm sure i was awake! Maybe I should start believing him! 🤔 😳

[Lizzie_Bee]

Having read the replies us seems like the fitbit cannot distinguish between asleep and awake all that easily, and apparently we can often over estimate our own wakefulness as well. I think what would help when looking at trends would be if we could log how we feel in the sleep tracker as well. So we get a sleep rating and also add out own "feeling rested", "feeling tired" log. Thatcham we can see how our ratings relate to how we feel, and how REM, light sleep and deep sleep, wakeup times etc all affect how we feel. Getting a high sleep score is great but only if you actually feel great too!