Inspire sleep and step accuracy versus Fitbit One

[tnaylor12]

I have had a One for several years now and was afraid that it was nearing the end of it's life so I purchased an Inspire as a back up. I am only interested in step and sleep tracking so I have been wearing both trackers all of the time to compare the results. I now have over a month's worth of data so it is time for a short report. I'll summarize:

For step tracking, the two trackers give different step counts despite traveling together. They vary by as much as over a 1000 steps more from the Inspire than the One. Now, I'm not expecting that they exactly match but the difference should be within 50 - 100 steps, if not less. Both trackers are worn in the clip cases during the day and on my wrist at night.

Sleep tracking is even worse. The One requires that the sleep timer be set manually so I know what time it is when I start it at night and turn it off in the morning.Lets call this the sleep period. Within this period, the One records between 8-9 hours of sleep and 1-2 hours of awake/restless. This coincides with my experience when I get up to go to the bathroom at night so I know how many times I am awake. The Inspire uses an apparently random algorithm to determine the sleep period since there is no provision for manual starting/stopping the sleep timer. I've had starting times anywhere from 2 in the afternoon to 2 in the morning.I've had sleep numbers anywhere from 2hours to 12+hours while my One is recording 8-9 hours consistently each night. The Inspire is also less sensitive to sleep restlessness that the One despite both being set to "sensitive".

If/when my One dies, I don't see how I am going to have any confidence in the steps and sleep tracking from the Inspire.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[AlvaroFitbit]

@tnaylor12 I hope you're doing well!

Let me help you with your steps and sleep accuracy between your Inspire and One. Regarding the sleep tracking, your Fitbit Inspire will start recording sleep after it detects an hour of inactivity. If you have a light sleep or move too much then this may difficult your sleep detection. The opposite might be true also as inactivity from watching TV or a movie may lead to sleep detection. You can try wearing your device on your dominant hand to increase the amount of movement it is subjected to. Finally you can restart your device. You can also manually log your sleep time. You can read more about sleep detection here. The main difference between the Inspire and the One is that the One isn't detecting sleep but recording it. You tell it when to start and when to stop so this make things easier for it. On the Fitbit app you have the option to manually start and stop the sleep detection by tapping the sleep tile then tap the plus sign and select begin "sleep now". 

Regarding the step detection it could be a difference in the settings, try going to your device's settings, for added sensitivity you can try wearing your device on your dominant hand but select that hand as non dominant on the device’s settings to make it more sensitive to movement for decrease sensitivity do the opposite.

Let me know how it goes.

[tnaylor12]

First off, thanks for replying. I am doing well. Second, I am well aware that the Inspire "detects" sleep as opposed to the One which records sleep. Since I have ample evidence that the Inspire sleep algorithm leaves a lot to be desired and is grossly inconsistent. I much prefer the One approach that requires me to start and stop sleep tracking manually. This gives me much more accurate and consistent results than the Inspire's faulty algorithm. I have asked in several places if it were possible to set the Inspire so sleep tracking could be starting manually, but have gotten no answer.In your response you say: "option to manually start and stop the sleep detection by tapping the sleep tile then tap the plus sign and select begin "sleep now". " There are two problems with this. It apparently assumes that I have the app on my smartphone and that I have my phone with me when I want to go to sleep. The main problem is that I don't have a smartphone (yes, there are still some of us around), but if I did I wouldn't be taking it to bed with me. So, my conclusion is that there is no way to manually start and stop the sleep cycle with the Inspire. That is too bad because the One approach is clearly superior, even though I do occasionally forget to either start or stop the sleep cycle. But when that happens, I at least know why I got a bad result. With the Inspire, I have no idea why it says that I went to sleep at 2:00am or that I got either 2 hours or 12 hours of sleep. I have had those results. I am not sure what I am going to do when my One quits on me as I know from message board comments that it will. I was hoping that the Inspire would be a reasonable alternative but, based on several months of comparing step and sleep tracking, which are the only two parameters I am interested in, the Inspire does not do the job. It would be great if Fitbit started making the One again but I gather that won't happen.