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Hello everyone!
Recently, I've seen a few different questions about sleep tracking. Because of this, I thought I'd create a short tutorial on how to properly track sleep, how sleep tracking may be done with each device, and what the results look like on the Dashboard. We'll also be sure to touch on manually logging sleep. Let's begin!
Sleep Tracking: Sleep tracking is used to help quantify the hours- and better understand the quality- of your sleep. There are a number of different ways you can track your sleep, the easiest of which being using the sleep tracking functionality on your tracker itself, if possible (please note that neither the Fitbit Zip nor the Fitbit Ultra support sleep tracking). Finally, while the majority of users fall under the 'normal' category, we also have the sensitive sleep option for the users that do not. Be sure to take a look at our article, and set your sensitivity accordingly!
Flex- To enter sleep mode using your Flex, try rapidly tapping your device's display for a few seconds, or until you feel a vibration and a light pattern (simultaneously). @RickyFitbit provides a step-by-step in this post!
Fitbit One- To enter sleep mode one the Fitbit One, simply press and hold the button on the device for about 2.5 seconds, which is when you feel a vibration and your device's display turns into a stop watch. That stopwatch represents the amount of time in bed thus far.
Fitbit Force- Similar to the Fitbit One, you'll be pressing and holding the physical button on the device for about 2.5 seconds, which is when you would feel the vibration and your device's display turns into a stop watch. As of a October 2014, Force tracks sleep automatically! Simply wear your device to bed- when your tracker syncs with your account, you will be able to view your sleep stats on the dashboard.
Fitbit Charge, Charge HR, and Surge- Similar to the Fitbit Force, you Charge will allow you to track sleep automatically. Simply wear your device to bed! An alternative option would be to press and hold the button on the device before and after sleep, similar to Force and Fitbit One.
Remember, it's important to put the device into sleep mode as you're getting into bed, and take it out of sleep mode once you're waking up. After your first sync since post wake-up, you will see a sleep quality graph on your Dashboard (MAC/PS/iOS device, Android device, or Windows Phone). Here's a few examples of the same graph using different platforms:
 (Website Dashboard) |
 (iOS) |
 (Android) |
 (Windows Phone) |
Now that we've covered tracking sleep with your device, we can cover what happens if you forget to log your sleep!
Manually Sleep Tracking- This method can be used for when users forget to track their sleep at night. The process uses the following steps:
- Go to your sleep log page.
- Enter the time you went to bed on the previous day.
- Enter the time you left bed the day of.
- Select 'Log Sleep'
Afterwards, you should be all set! Your graph will appear as it would with tracker sleep recording across all platforms. Be sure to reach out with any and all questions!
Important notes:
- After syncing, you'll see your sleep graph with three different sleep states (asleep, restless, and awake😞
-Asleep: When your body is completely at rest and unmoving.
-Restless: This state indicates that your body transitioned from a very restful position with little movement to movement, such as turning over in bed. This doesn't necessarily mean that you were fully awake or cognizant of your movements, but it may indicate that you were not getting the most restful sleep possible at that time.
-Awake: As the name of the state implies, this would indicate that you were moving so much that restful sleep would not be possible.
- We use these three states of sleep to calculate your sleep efficiency, which is the most prominently displayed number on the sleep tile/graph. To learn more about the sleep states and sleep efficiency, check out this help article regarding sleep!
- Each platform is different. As such, manually logging sleep on different devices use different processes. Check out this article for iOS sleep help, this article for Android sleep help, and this article for Windows devices.
- You may have noticed a differenced in the graphs above, particularly in the Dashboard graph versus the mobile app. This discrepancy can be attributed to different versions of the website.
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