Sleep benchmark should be against the ideal, not other users

[Urbanmom99]

I understand that the sleep benchmarks are against other users as opposed to a benchmark against the recommended healthy statistic. I would find it more useful to see what the ideal sleep amount is rather than compare myself with sleep of the other users.  I have no idea how healthy the other users are.  If everyone in my age group has unhealthy sleep patterns, then benchmarking against them is not going inform me if I am getting a healthy amount of sleep.    As an analogy, if the average number of steps for people in my age group is 2000 and I do 5000, then I will have the mistaken belief that I am healthy. In reality, it should be much more than that.

[OmuGuy]

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@Urbanmom99 wrote:

1. I understand that the sleep benchmarks are against other users as opposed to a benchmark against the recommended healthy statistic.
2. As an analogy, if the average number of steps for people in my age group is 2000 and I do 5000, then I will have the mistaken belief that I am healthy. In reality, it should be much more than that.

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1. Good point that normal is not necessarily healthy. I can't why both stats can't be shown. 
Even so, there might be a problem in getting consensus about a healthy amount of sleep, which would be subject to individual variation.
2. Why do you think you need take more than 5000 steps a day? Ten thousand was a wonderfully effective number proposed by a Japanese public health doctor to get people to move their carcasses. In English, notions of number tends to run hundreds, thousands, millions. In Japanese the number system is more based on four zeros, hence 10,000 is a natural notion after 1,000. There was no scientific reason for choosing 10,000. It was, however, effective. You have to keep clicking to counterintuitively alter the daily step target in the Charge 3. Even then, the stats still use it as a benchmark.

[Urbanmom99]

I actually average 20k steps a day. I was just using 2000 and 5000 streps as an example of how using user data can be misleading. If one is told 2000 is the average amount users, then a person might believe that 5000 is good.

Best regards,

Moderator Edit: Personal info removed

[Urbanmom99]

I actually average 20k steps a day. I was just using 2000 and 5000 streps as an example of how using user data can be misleading. If one is told 2000 is the average amount users, then a person might believe that 5000 is good. That is why we need to see what the ideal is instead of just user data. 

[AlexandraFitbit]

Nice suggestion, thanks for sharing @Urbanmom99! We look forward to hearing what other community members think. 

[RunningAmy]

It would be good to have more info on this and have the choice to see what the "Best practice" benchmarks are for healthy sleep, as well as compare to the average.

I would also really like a better understanding of how these might change over time and what to expect as I get older. In the last two years of wearing the fitbit I'm not sure if the benchmarks changed for me but I am definitely sleeping about 30 minutes less on average and I also don't know whether this is my actual sleep pattern or changes to the way Fitbit measures sleep.

[vbsteffer]

I agree that seeing the best practice benchmarks would be helpful.   Am i getting enough deep sleep, REM?  Would be good to know based on best practices. 

[bikinibottom]

Fitbit measures the absolute time in each sleep stage, and then calculates the percentage of the total time in each stage. The percentage is then compared across users. If it exists, I've never seen a scientific recommendation for the "ideal" amount or percentage for each sleep stage. Even the estimates for the average are pretty broad.

[bcperry15]

Great idea - was with my brother over weekend (east coast vs west coast).  Comparing sleep stats and we are both about the same for 30 day sleep benchmarks.  But, he sleeps 7:50 hours/night and I get 5:24 hours/night.  Specific, difficult goals lead to best performance, ie 10k steps/day.  Need to add ideal Hours at each of the 4 stages of sleep (and ideal range) to give us appropriate feedback, set goals, and seek medical advice if we are in an unhealthy range of hours -- somehow believe 5:24 is low, but is it dangerously low ... benchmarks indicate that my percentages are in the acceptable range for my age.

[JuanFitbit]

Hi everybody  and thanks for sharing this suggestion, which has received votes from other community members. I’m happy to let you know that this suggestion has been picked up internally at Fitbit and is being considered by our team. This suggestion will either remain ‘Under Consideration’ until released, or else move to ‘Not Currently Planned’ if it’s not viable right now. Further updates will be posted here.

Please remember that if a suggestion is chosen for development, it can take some time before updates are available or a release is finalized, so thanks in advance for your patience :). To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs. Fans can continue to vote for this feature suggestion while it is under consideration.

[iamlam628]

One of the main reason I bought the fitbit charge 3 is the sleep tracking and analyses. Although I am a new user, I already have an suggestion for you to make your so that your sleep report can be more useful. I am very interested to compare my 30 day avg to the benchmark but currently you only show my today's % vs the benchmark, I think the 30 day avg comparison against the benchmark avg is more meaningful. Therefore I would like you to add another chart (or replace the current one) to show 30 day avg vs. the Benchmark. (instead of Today vs. Benchmark.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @iamlam628 ! Great suggestion, thanks for sharing your feedback. I've moved it into a similar request. Post a comment or click on the thumbs-up to show your support.