Make sleep score optional

Suggested idea is to have the sleep score optional ! 

We should be able to choose if we have the score or not , I hate feeling like I failed my sleep!

 

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

1,450 Comments
Car21
First Steps

Please, please make the sleep score /rating optional.  I try to get good sleep and often it’s not over 7-8 hours but I get close and I felt good in the morning.  I only get poor and fair scores- which is not motivating me to do better just makes me disappointed. I like the data of time in REM, etc and find that very useful. Seeing a score and rating needs to be optional, so it can be turned off if selected. Thank you. 

Tanya13
Jogger
😂😂😂

Sent from my iPhone
WattsDP
First Steps

Please remove Sleep score, it has no useful properties. Hours slept is the useful tool there and one I used daily until the update, like many other people. 

SunsetRunner
Not applicable

@Granacher That's when I notice it the most...and yet I am able to get in a decent sleep! So the point of having this arbitrary score isn't worth using as a reliable number. It's just a best guess but only you truly know how you feel! I will come on this desktop app to see my sleep average,,,I won't even consider the sleep score anything but meaningless. 

Amberleahat
First Steps

I see a consensus throughout this post that the sleep score offers no benefits. I tried Premium to analyze exactly how the score is broken up and they are factors completely beyond your control. Because of this my scores typically ranges from 60 to 78 which is "fair" but then there are no insights on how to get better sleep. I can see I am restless without a feature telling me I am a horrible sleeper. It's December now and there really should have been a fix for this in the works. Typically a product's success depends on the customer and design of the product and I see a great deal of customers prepared to jump ship. 

anton.kolesnyk
First Steps

I'd agree to give Sleep Score a try, but for me it must not be a primary metric. I understand that idea that hours slept does not necessarily translate to sleep quality/health, so Sleep Score might be a smart idea, after all. But! Avg hours slept should be the primary metric (or at least there should be an OPTION to make it such). Basically, I want to easily see, without a calculator or an Excel sheet, what is my avg sleep hours for the current week, and for prior weeks. Maybe on the next screen there could be the median/Nth percentile as well. And the Sleep Score. So I will be able to select which goal to pursue, where to concentrate my efforts to make the next small step to make my lifestyle healthier. Right now, I don't even know how that secret formula is calculated - is it REM/deep sleep, or is it the regular sleep schedule, or the heart rate while I'm asleep, or something else. So should I lower the temperature in my bedroom, or make sure I go to bed at the same time every day, or what else?

But all the primary metrics should be easily available. For example, Steps is also a primary metric, everyone would like to see it. We all understand that 100 steps you walk to the restroom from your office chair is probably not exactly equal to 100 steps during hiking, so there also could be some more complex Fitness metric built on top of Steps + Heart Rate + Speed + Duration. But it should not hide the primary Steps metric.

It is especially important when you're not quite completing all the basic things: so for a start, any 10k steps daily no matter what is better than 2k steps, even if these are steps to the office coffee machine and back. Then when you complete the mandatory 10k daily steps, you start looking into the quality - so you go on 1hr hikes and so on.

The same with sleep: I have a lot of stress, and for now, I would be just happy if I can manage to get 8 hours avg daily sleep, just by organizing my schedule in a way that I physically can get that many hours in bed. Then It might be a good idea to start looking into the sleep quality: heart rate, sleep phases, whether I snore or not, etc. But basic things first.

Right now, it is the long Thanksgiving weekend for me, and I finally can afford to sleep as much as I want, and I open the app to see if, at least for this week, I can make it 8 hours average. So I wake up in the morning, and I feel I can get up just fine, but I also can sleep for a couple more hours. To make a decision, I open the Fitbit app. And all I can see is that I have 80 avg Sleep Score for this week. Does not answer my question at all. I swipe left on the chart, and I can see the hours I slept each day this week, but not the average. So to calculate I fire up MS Excel and by the time I'm done - no, I don't think I want to sleep for couple more hours, even if I need to.

Rich_Laue
Community Legend

@anton.kolesnyk you may want to link your fitbit account to IFTTT. They have a recipe that with the first sync after a user wakes up got sleep data gets dropped in your online spreadsheet. For me the spreadsheet is in Google docs. 

Or simply go to your Data Export Page and download export your complete sleep history. Then import to excel 

KatKY
Jogger

Great idea!  I would like to see them go back so that I can see the bar charts of how much I slept this week, this month, for several months, for the year IN THE APP.  I do not use the computer for this & do NOT want to.

 

Currently I am not using my fitbit at all & will get a different device if they don't improve what I see in the app.

YojanaFitbit
Moderator Alum
Moderator Alum

Hi @VVPrints, thanks for explaining why you would like to have this option. I've moved it into a similar suggestion which has been updated as "Under Consideration". You can learn more about here. Keep adding your suggestions!

mldvshr
First Steps

The sleep score is totally useless and arbitrary. Please bring back average time slept! I used that number all the time. 

Granacher
Base Runner

First is the score arbitrarily assigned. Deleted and manually entered sleep time and score was 18 points higher. Tell me again how accurate sleep algorithms are applied. Just give us an on/off option!

40059D47-DBC0-46EC-A32B-1EA171F14772.jpeg

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Tanya13
Jogger
🤪😂🤪🤪...what a big joke!

Sent from my iPhone
Rich_Laue
Community Legend

After a reading of what the sleep score is based on. It is strange that a user would say that sleep score is just a random number pulled out of thin air. 

goldenmom7500
First Steps
The sleep score is a composite that purports to have some meaning.
However, 1) it seems to be a composite that we are unable to do much to
improve and 2) it has little relation to well-being otherwise. I have
slept 3.5 hours and received a high (low 80s) score - felt HORRIBLE ... I
have slept 8 hours and received a low (low 60s) score, maybe felt OK. It
is ultimately annoying and worthless.

--
Granacher
Base Runner

@Rich_Laue  Then the score should remain the same regardless of the method of time entry. 

Gainn
Recovery Runner

Another example of why sleep score is useless. 

Screenshot_20191203-193657_Fitbit.jpg

Tanya13
Jogger
Well that is what It is....absolutely meaningless.

Sent from my iPhone
SAHO77
First Steps

Just wanted to add my voice to those who hate the sleep score! It creates stress and upset and is not helpful. Please bring back the sleep average, which is infinitely more useful. I don't need a random grade from Fitbit over something I only have so much control over. I agree with all of the frustrations people are having with the sleep score. It should be an optional feature or should be eliminated. Fitbit products should be designed to help, support, and encourage its users, not castigate them with an unhelpful grade that does more harm than good.

HMT
Stepping Up

I too find sleep score unhelpful. I have puzzled over it since it was introduced, trying to make sense of how the figures are arrived at. Finally, I have come to the conclusion that there is no logic to the sleep score. Just this week I had a good night's sleep of over 8 hours with plenty of REM and deep sleep and got one of the lowest scores I've ever had. This followed by a poor night's sleep where I was awake a lot, which got a much better score. The system or algorithm or random number generator that is coming up with the score is broken. Please allow users to switch this function off. I would much rather go back to the useful and meaningful measurement of average weekly hours sleep. I have been a Fitbit user for a number of years and for the first time I am considering jumping ship. I have been reading up on the Apple watch and I see others here mention Garmin (which hubby has) so might well investigate that option. 

Tanya13
Jogger
You are right - there is no logic - and it is an arbitrary figure pulled out of a hat. The must ludicrous thing to be introduced!

Sent from my iPhone
SunsetRunner
Not applicable

I've just had a terrible night's sleep. Tossing and turning and a big chunk staring at the ceiling. Guess what? Sleep score 80! 

Farcical.

 

 

AlisonMH
First Steps

The sleep score, and especially the comments, is a total joke and an insult to people who have genuine sleep problems, often due to ill health. Why does Fitbit think it’s helpful to tell someone who’s been lying awake half the night in pain to ‘get more zzzs’ or to ‘put sleep first’? When are you going to give us the option to bin it and return to the far more helpful - and less patronising - average weekly time slept? At the very  least can you tell us how to disable the banal comments.

Gainn
Recovery Runner

@AlisonMH

I Don't get the comments under the score for some reason (ionic galaxy s8+) but my wife does (versa galaxy s10+).

 

Fitbit also needs to fix the text in the sleep details being so hard to read. White text on a white background with a faint drop shadow does not make for easy reading. 

bliss_s
Recovery Runner

Oh NO!!! 

The latest firmware update to both the IONIC and Versa adds a new "feature" for your on wrist viewing enjoyment.

Confirms that they're not listening to us (sigh):

 

Fitbit OS 4.1 - Firmware Release (70.7.14)

...

On-wrist Sleep Score: The score will now be available in the on-device dashboard that can be accessed by swiping up from the clock face. You can still see it alongside your sleep data within the Fitbit app after you sync.

Russell_UK
Recovery Runner

Yes lol, but at least it will be sent out as a notification haha

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