Normal versus sensitive settings

[mdpiet]

I have been wearing my Fitbit on my left (non-dominant) arm on a normal sleep setting until recently, when I swtiched it to the right and sensitive setting.  When it was on the left, my sleep efficiency was usually in the mid to high 90s.  Now that I have switched it, my sleep efficiciency is in the 40s and 50s.  This is obviously a huge change and one that has me wondering about the accuracy of the Fitbit on both ends of the extreme.  Can someone explain the two different settings and why there would be such a huge discrepency in the numbers?  I am pretty sure I am not doing one handed cheerleading as the second set of numbers would suggest.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.  

Thanks.  

[damurray]

Hi,

For the comparison to be accurate, I would like to see what your results are with the dominant arm and a normal setting.  You have indicated that you changed the setting to sensitive when you changed arms.  There is a huge difference in how motion is logged between normal and sensitive.

Try returning the device to normal on the dominant arm and check your results.

[mdpiet]

Thanks for the response - I swtiched the setting back to normal and kept it on the dominant hand and the sleep efficiency went right back to where it was when it was normal on the non-dominant hand (around 95-98%).  I know that I wasn't asleep for longer portions of the night last night, but the device didn't catch any of that - it assumed that just because I was being still, I was asleep.  Again, don't think I am as restless as the sensitive setting would indicate (there are long periods - 20-30 minutes of restless activity when I have it on sensitive that I am pretty sure my wife would pick up on), but the normal setting doesn't seem accurate either.  

[healthy]

i have been , dealling with alot of sleep issues,always have but more now. I decided to put my flex in sensitivity mode instaed of normal and that was a huge differenc. i went form a 98% sleeper to a 50 % sleeper and my hpours of sleep dropped from 8-9hours to 4-5 hours. i really do not think this is accurate at all. Cause my sleeping really feels the same to me. the chart does not correspnd at all for the awake and sleep times, cause i look at the clock alot during the night But then again it has me awake for somteimes up to a !/2 hour and i do not remember that long of awakeness and i know for sure i was not movinf and swinging my arms. My big dogs awakes when ever i move alot in bed ?????? soooooooo, any ideas??

[Lou_Zhills]

I have the same problem. I'm not a real good sleeper -- never have been -- and I know the 90-plus efficiencies with the normal setting can't be right. But neither are the 40-50 efficiencies when my Flex is set to sensitive. This could be very interesting data. I have tried tapping into and out of sleep mode, as well as setting it from the software, as well as simply recording it manually the next day. Tapping seems to be the least accurate and manually recording seems to be the most accurate, as long as I remember what time it was I went to bed and got up. I want to keep up with everyone's experiences with this and maybe we can find the right setting protocol or provide Fitbit with enough information to make it more accurate.

[healthy]

thanks you for sharing how well your does not work either....so sad to pay so much $$$$

[Lou_Zhills]

I think I'm going to switch back to normal mode. I wish there was something in between normal and sensitive. Admittedly I had a bad night last night due to my hip pain, and I was more restless than usual. However, it shows that I took 139 steps around 4:00 this morning. What!! My house is so small, I don't even get 139 steps when I walk from one end of it to the other and back again! And I've never been prone to sleepwalking. I do know that I was especially restless around 4:00 because of pain and I did get up to take some Tylenol. That should have been about 20 steps. So apparently my flipping over and flailing around in bed trying to get comfortable was logged as steps. Hmmm...

[harleycane]

Similar story here, quite confused on what the difference is.  Normal setting on non-dominant it says I'm at 96% with over 6 hrs of sleep time.  In sensitive setting it is 65% with less then 4 hours of sleep.  I don't understand the huge discrepency non found any documentation from Fitbit on it.

[turtlecatmagic]

I'm using the fitbit flex and using the android ap.  Can you please tell me how you changed the sleep settings from normal to sensitive?

[Journeymanjoe]

The setting for Dominant vs Non-Dominant hand would be more for the step counting, because you would move your dominant arm more when you are not walking (I think). For your sleep tracking, the Fitbit is working off of your movement. On normal it disregards slight movements that show up on the sensitive setting. You can look at the same nights results with both settings from your dashboard, your amount of sleep didn't change, just the amount that it determines you were awake. The only way to determine if you were truely asleep or awake is by measuring brain activity with a sleep test. I have had three sleep studies and in all of them they said that I don't move.

Here are my results from last night:

Sensitive

Normal

[Doreen49]

Hi there,

I also have the android ap and also have it on my laptop. The sleep sensitivity is in the settings on the laptop but I don't see it on settings on the android. See if you can adjust from desktop or laptop and then it should sync with the adroid app.

I hope this helps.

[FloridaSkies]

I think that we need to keep in mind that these methods of measuring "sleep" are algoritms that estimate your sleep based on an analog (movement). Unless you use an EEG to actually measure brain-waves, you are never going to get a truly accurate reading. This gives you a way to 1) estimate your sleep patterns and 2) compare your own sleep patterns to your own sleep patterns to see what's happening over time. Quite a cool technology, actually. Some folks just need to temper there expectations what this will do for you...