Sleep Debt Feature

[MaximPayne]

I’m a flight attendant which means shift worker working different day/night shifts. I believe there are many of us working this kind of job. For us is important to know our sleep debt. 

There is a whole science behind it but basically means that we accumulate debt of not sleeping and we need to fix this by more sleeping on the days we can. 

Min Fitbit app, surprisingly, there is no information on this. Just how much you slept and how lower is that from the target without calculation how much sleep we missed and how big is the debt in the past week or month. 

I believe this is a simple thing to implement. Just another information under sleep option that would be prove so useful not only to shift workers but to all people who don’t sleep enough. 

Would be great to include this info in your yearly stats to see geographically where sleep debt is highest or lowest. 

Thanks. 

Moderator Edition: Updated title for clarity and format

[AlexandraFitbit]

That’s an interesting idea and could be useful, thanks for sharing this suggestion @MaximPayne! 

[Emeraldeyes]

This would be amazing. I am not a shift worker, but I am very sleep deprived lately, working 12 hour days and with a sick puppy who can't make it through the night. I was just wondering about my sleep debt, as I know it's bad for my mental and physical health to be missing this much. This would be incredibly useful for me.

[SunsetRunner]

That would make the sleep tracker so useful. Right now you can track how much and how well you've slept but there's not really any suggestions for how to improve it. This definitely would. Please Fitbit, do add this feature. Many people with irregular schedules and sleep problems would benefit from it.

[EvadneCake]

Yep, I'm also on a shift pattern that changes every week and a sleep debt feature would be really helpful - it's a great suggestion. 

[JohnsonH]

I'm not familiar with the term "sleep debt", however, it definitely happens to me too! I'm more of a night person - so i dont go to bed until around midnight every night and wake up about 6 hours later. It's not really enough sleep in my book, so on weekends i always sleep in a lot more. With the regular fitbit sleep graph, I can always tell which days are weekdays vs weekends b/c my weekend peaks are much higher. I think knowing more about sleep debt and being able to track it would apply to a lot more people than even those who realize it, like myself who is totally unfamiliar with "sleep debt" and the science behind it. Thanks for the suggestion!

[Patricktsmom]

I am an emergency services shift worker and there are weeks where I have a day or two with zero sleep. I’d like to see the sleep averages give you the option to include days with no sleep (currently they are not included in the averages because it is possible you took your Fitbit off.) The only way for a sleep deprived person to know if their sleep is improving is to include these zero sleep days into the average. Perhaps automatically logging 0 hours when the device doesn’t detect sleep and prompting the user to keep or edit the 0 would be a feasible option.  My Fitbit currently shows 5 hours and 38 minutes average daily sleep for this week.  But if you average in the 3 days I had zero sleep it’s more like 3 hours and 45 minutes. That’s a HUGE difference!

[Darcyt]

Fitbit should add into the sleep section of the app a sleep debt calculator. If you don’t get 8 +hours of sleep then however far away you were from 8 hours would be added into the sleep debt each night. Or say you sleep more than 8 hours that would be subtracted from the debt. It would be very helpful and keep people aware of how much sleep they need. 

[Emeraldeyes]

Patricktsmom, I’m not a Fitbit admin, just a user. I think you can create
sleep logs, so they just need to change it to be able to create one for 0
minutes (or maybe 1 minute) instead of the current minimum of 10 minutes.

[Patricktsmom]

I wasn’t aware I could create a sleep log. Even creating one for 10 minutes on my zero sleep days will provide a more accurate average. Thank you! I’ll figure out how to create one.

Sent from my iPhone

[LizFitbit]

Hi everyone, and thanks so much for sharing this suggestion! While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

We're always striving to enhance Fitbit products and services, and your input is a big part of that process. We truly thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us.

[UDW1794]

A tool to help estimate sleep debt and what may to be recovered to get back in good standing

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @UDW1794, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to see a Sleep Debt feature on the Fitbit app. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. 

To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs. You might also interested in this other feature: What’s my daily readiness score in the Fitbit app?

I hope to see you around.

[Dfi123]

It would be cool if Fitbit could calculate my sleep debt (difference between my sleep needs and the sleep I got over the last 14 days) and assist in bringing it down to 0.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Dfi123, thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about adding 'Sleep Debt' feature on Fitbit devices. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. 

Click on the thumbs-up to show your support. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

I hope to see you around.