Smart Alarms that Wake You More Naturally (eg. in Light Sleep Stage)

[MikeHalsey]

I just got my Fitbit flex and I think it's fantastic.  If it monitors your sleep though it will have a good idea of when you're in deep (REM) sleep and when you're in lighter sleep.  You cycle between these two during the night on a pretty reliable pattern, and they're easy to tell apart as you don't move around while you're in REM sleep.  At least not as I understand things.

Could an update for the Fitbit modify the alarm feature please to wake you up as close as possible to your chosen time, but NOT during REM sleep?

This will allow you to wake more naturally, feeling refreshed, rather than how unpleasant it is when your alarm goes off in REM sleep.

Thanks, please all vote for this

Moderator edit: labels.

[jviegas]

It's a must have feature! 

[ignaciosiri]

WHY ON EARTH is this feature not implemented yet!?!?!?! I bought the charge 2 expecting to do just that, i give a f*ck about activity tracker, i can use my phone for that, what i was expecting was the sleep tracker & smart alarm feature (can use my phone too, but its not comfortable to have it at bed). Really annoying this feature is "under consideration" since '14, even that it has 3485 upvotes... PLEASE LISTEN TO YOUR USERS. Planning to sell it if i dont see this feature in the near future (no more than 2/3 months). It's really a simple feature to implement... I'm disappointed.

[_eka_]

Would be nice if someone from the company steps in and tells what's going on, like... "Mmmm we are so sorry it's not possible, go on with your life." or "Yes, ETA is ..."

Regards.

[Aurel70]

I am looking for this too and surprised that others have solved the problem already. 

besides: this being an Fitbit owned forum. Do they ever respond to anything hier? Wheres a moderator giving a response?

So we just keep asking...

[ignaciosiri]

Top 1 feature suggestion and its not addressed or at least answered... Remove the suggestion section if you're not going to read/use it... Pathetic.

[Zemme]

Got the Alta hr as a gift just now to replace my up3 that had a broken bracelet band, and incredibly disappointed to find that - not only does it not have a smart alarm/wakeup, but it's not even a feature that's being addressed...seemingly. For nearly 4yrs!? I'm with ignaciosiri, if this isn't a feature within a fairly short period of time I'm just going to return this.

[ribogushter]

This is nuts... The TOP suggested feature, suggested nearly 4 years ago, a feature that nearly every other fitness band has had forever (meaning that it shouldn't be THAT hard to implement), and nothing... 

[ignaciosiri]

UPDATE

Hi! I've contacted with Fitbit to check if they were aware of this topic and got an answer. Hope this get more visibility, i'll keep you updated!

ANSWER FROM FITBIT (support ticket #21328559)

Hi Ignacio,

Thank you for letting us know about this feature request in our community forums. It is always a pleasure to assist you.

We certainly appreciate all the comments comments and feedback regarding this situation, all the information in community that you provided, will be taken in consideration as our company works to provide the best quality of services and products available in the market, there are cases in which we have very limited options. Our product team looks forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps. 

We can assure that the best place to make your voice heard is the Ideas board on our community (https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/idb-p/features), which our product development teams consult regularly to ensure we're delivering on what our customers need and want. 

Thank you so much for your feedback and for participating in our community!

Atentamente,

Adrian J y el Equipo de Fitbit

---

MY RESPONSE

Thank you for answering fast, there are a lots of ways this can be achieved, whether integrating an alarm into the app so when it detects you are in the range of waking up time and in a light stage sleep, it goes off. The sleep stages functionality is already implemented so there's not much to add. 

Another possible way is to partner with apps dedicated to this functionality such as Pillow or Sleep Cycle, so the only thing you need to do is expose fitbit's sensor data to those apps and nothing more, this apps will take care of the rest (an integration similar to what fitbit has with Runkeeper)...

I think you should not underestimate this feature request as it's game changer for many users, there are a lot of people switching from fitbit to Pebble, Jawbone UP, or even Apple Watch (Pillow can be installed on the apple watch). Even people buying fitbit taking the feature will be there for granted but then realizing its not and getting angry.

Hope you analyze the consequences of not having this feature and act in consequence.

Thank you again for hearing and letting us help.

Regards!

---

I know they didn't say too much on the message but at least we know they are aware. Lets see if that suggestions throws some light to the devs, product designers and executives...

Lets keep in touch,

regards!

[ignaciosiri]

Another conversation we had on Twitter support: 

ME

Hi, are you aware of this? https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Alarms-that-wake-you-more-naturally/idi-p/4609 … It's #1 TOP feature request (3482 upvotes, 24 pages of comments) by the users since 4 years ago!! And nobody from Fitbit is answering nor addressing the feature... You are losing users just because not adressing or answering that feature (really simple by the way)... Please do something and hear the community! Regards, Ignacio.

20h20 hours ago

FITBIT

Hi Ignacio, thanks for reaching out. Your feedback is much appreciated and very important for us, as we always strive to improve our products and services. We'll make sure to pass your feedback along. With regard to your question, our Team is aware on the suggested features that was been shared through our Ideas Board. In fact, we currently tagged this feature request (Alarms that wake you more naturally) as under consideration. Although we don't have a specific date to share on when those feature will happen, rest assured that Fitbit is dedicated in developing the most consistently accurate trackers on the market by constantly working to provide customers with the best experience possible by releasing new features and updates to improve our products. The success of our products comes from empowering users. Thanks for bearing with us.

19h19 hours ago

ME

Thank you, but the thing is you labeled it as "Under Consideration" almost 4 years ago!! On 01-28-14 at 11:5... Thats not acceptable, at least make an update to inform the status, its impossible to be considering a feature more than a few months, something is wrong, please update the status to calm down the community. Thanks in advance!

5s

[ignaciosiri]

BIG NEWS!!! (I hope lol) 

I've got this answer from Fitbit's team. It seems they've passed the request directly to engineers team in order to start developing this feature asap. I really hope this is a thing and expecting to get this feature in a reasonable time frame. Here's the email:

Hello Ignacio,

You are very welcome, nothing make us happier than hear your amazing suggestions.

We are happy to inform you that we've passed these suggestions along to our engineering team so they can release an update soon, however we're not able to guarantee a time frame.

We suggest you to keep an eye on the Fitbit website, maybe you will see some amazing news sometime.

Is there anything else, big or small, that we can help you with, please let us know and we will be happy to assist.

Atentamente,

Daleth C y el Equipo de Fitbit

---

Let's cross fingers and hope to wake up more naturally anytime soon!!

Big hugs! 

[ntoombs19]

This should absolutely be a feature. It's actually very surprising to me that after almost two and a half years this feature hasn't been implemented. I would've thought that the Iconic would have had this feature since the OS is based on what Pebble created and Pebble watches have had that feature for almost four years now. The Iconic has access to more data than any other Fitbit watch so this should be something that would be extremely easy to implement and would likely persuade more potential customers to buy a Fitbit watch over something else.

[ntoombs19]

With the Iconic having just been released, my guess is they'll be in bug fix mode for the next few months. Maybe after that they will release this feature. I will be very surprised if after almost 4 years, this feature is released anytime soon. I'm encouraged that you got a response so quickly. At least they are doing that part right!

[_eka_]

I'm encouraged that you got a response so quickly.

4 years is not quickly tho. 😞

[Rich_Laue]

@ignaciosiri, there is a very simple explanatas to why this hasn't been released yet. The Ionic will be the first Fitbit tracker that actually will record your sleep, and know the details of your sleep. 

So far the Fitbit trackers record your movements and heart rate. After a sync to tue Fitbit server, the trackers data is anylized to determine when the user was sleeping. 

It makes it very hard to have a natural alarm when the tracker doesn't even know the user is asleep

[ignaciosiri]

@Rich_Laue But isn't the fitbit connected to the app in real time? If that is correct, the analysis of the sleep stage could be done by the app (as i think it's how it works now), and the device alarm just go off when the app decide is the best time

[SunsetRunner]

@ignaciosiri wouldn't work for those of us who sleep with our phones in another room or turned off, as I do.

[Gryzor]

Indeed - I set my phone to Airplane mode every night. But even if they remain on, power management on the OS side would mean that pretty soon communication with the servers would probably die.

[Rich_Laue]

@ignaciosiri, yes while a user is walking it i sdd v possible to connect to the app and have a real time display on the phone. This however is only the app being used as a remote display and only works durring movements.

Currently the app does not do any processing to the data and is unable to drtermine sleep or any of the auto detectable exersizes.

The Ionic is being reported to actually do the processing of the data and monitor when the user is asleep.

[JennyBrown]

Guys, Jawbone does it. If they can do it, so could FitBit.

But, FitBit won't do it. Or, even if they do, it'll be on a "new" model of FitBit rendering all the old versions to be, well, old.

As I have mentioned before, I switched to a Garmin Vivosmart HR. I was able to buy it on Amazon refurbished for $50. It does pretty much the same stuff the FitBit Charge HR does, and I have heard reports (and read some) that they last more than eight months. It doesn't have a smart alarm, either, but it's literally a third of the price for the same stuff, better display, more waterproof, and the promise of lasting longer.

[HammerFit]

I love this idea! I had this option on my Microsoft Band 2 and waking up was a gentle experience. Sometimes it would wake me up a half hour prior to my alarm, but because I was in a light sleep cycle I did not feel very drowsy.

[ribogushter]

Oh, don't even start with the MS Band 2 🙂 It had so many good features...
Guided workouts for example...

[mibe1978]

I just bought a Charge 2 tracker 2 days ago. I am really disappointed now to find out that it is missing this smart alarm feature.

It was the one and only reason to buy the device.

It looks like this feature will never be available for Charge 2 users, because the processing of sleep stages is not done on the tracker and not done on the smartphone app. Instead the processing of sleep stages seems to be done on the fitbit servers. Very unlikely that they will implement a constant processing (every few minutes at least) of data from the tracker through the smartphone app to the fitbit servers. This would require constant communication between tracker <-> smartphone and smartphone <-> fitbit servers through the night...

very unlikely.

I am really unhappy to see this, so most likely I will return my Charge 2 device now and look for some other device that can actually do it.

[Gryzor]

@mibe1978 : well, I've been asking for this feature too so I agree largely with what you say, but you bought a product specifically for a feature which you didn't check if it supports? 

[TGML]

Great idea!!

This is exactly why I end up here in this forum...

I am trying to do Dual Core Polyphasic sleep... and a smart alarm would be... the light in the end of the tunnel!!

😛

[Kael]

I'm hoping the addition of the App store might finally bring this feature to light, I'm sure another app developer (depending sensor API access) will pick it up.

In the basic form (which is how a lot of smart alarm phone apps work), it's just like this:

Set Alarm (this is your absolute latest wakeup time), say 8:00am.

Alarm app reaches the gap threshold (usually 30 minutes), so 7:30am and starts looking for a G-Sensor event over a set threshold (cutdown on false positives), if you're in REM then you aren't likely moving. 

(No particular language, just a logic rundown)

If GeventValue > Gthreshold OR current_time == alarm_time ---> sound alarm.