Redesigned Sleep experience now in the Fitbit app

[RebeccaFitbit]

Hi everyone! Starting today, you may notice a new sleep experience in your Fitbit app. If you don't have it right away, please be patient as it can take some time to reach all users. 

Check out what’s new by going to the Fitbit Community blog. 

What do you think? Let us know!

[Catmandel]

You don’t care so why ask?  You have plenty of responses -all negative. Make it go back to the old way.,

[Teebag]

Greenvegansara I need to see those ones, in action so to speak, to see what they're like before I buy one as they are quite expensive but I'm definitely looking at changing from fitbit after almost ten years with them. That's mostly because I'm disgusted with the lack of decent response to the thousands of complaints about this sleep issue! I've lost count how many posts I've had removed now.

[Sksj28]

Please change it back. 

All of these comments and not one person who likes the "new experience."

Personally,  I'm waiting for a day off to shop other brands.

You obviously don't listen to your customer base.

[Tilo]

Doesn’t work.When I check sleep, “No Data” appears at least 40% of the time, This is unacceptable. Unless you actively update the app the night before, the app will NOT log your sleep. It becomes confused and instead presents your data from the day before, sometimes two days before. Sleep data is the second most important reason I wear a Fitbit. Why bother if it doesn’t reliably work? Perhaps others allow the app to constantly update and don’t have this problem. I prefer not to be constantly tracked. If Sleep doesn’t work consistently I will buy another tracker.

[Deborahrb]

Just changed to Apple Watch after many years on Fitbit. Needless to say the customer experience is 100% better and the tracker functions and displays are Devine. Bye bye Fitbit. You could have made this right for the thousands of people who commented but you chose to ignore us. Just lost another customer.

[Drose240]

Hi Rebecca-

I am a longtime Fitbit owner/user and have both read your press release on your "Redesigned Sleep Experience" & have experienced it in the app. Sadly, I am giving these changes a big "thumbs down". Having been in software sales for 20+ years I know the quantifiable value of having a "unique differentiator" and "value proposition" that separates a company from their competitors.

For Fitbit this has been your sleep tracking and interactive sleep metrics that are vastly more intuitive, and valuable than your competitors. The older version of the "charts and graph" were far more intuitive, interactive and meaningful than the newer version. Although you can interact with the new graphs it feels more static and behind in the times than the older version & requires the user to do simple math to figure out how long I was awake, in REM or deep sleep.

I still use the "browser version" available online, but I know that will be discontinued in July 2024. You had the "gold ticket" with the sleep features which delivered your unique value prop, but went the wrong way with the newer release.

It's a real bummer

[Deborahrb]

Agree totally not aware of customer feedback.

[jcambron]

Agreed. I pay for premium and have been a fitbit diehard for a decade. Time to shop for a new brand. So upsetting. 

[Lueds55]

Well said!!!

[surfkat32d]

I hate this new sleep interface.  I want to go back to the old sleep interface.  For a few days last week it reverted to the old interface and I was so happy.  Why can't I chose the way I see my sleep tracker the  way I want????

[josekreif]

The person who runs the Fitbit account on Twitter said

"this is how the new format of sleep data will be moving forward"

Just another reason to move on from Fitbit.

[dElaineB]

I don't like the new Sleep Timeline display.  It's hard to read - small, colors are awful, can't see what time I was awake and went back to sleep. I did not get a notification that the display would be changing so when I woke up the morning of the new display, I was convinced something was wrong with my service and hoped it would return to normal within the day. Obviously, that was wishful thinking. The typical range oval mark did not show for days so that display was useless until sometime later, but I don't like the horizontal display, range ovel, and again, colors. I like the color display we had before with more definitive lines. The same is true for the 30-day average. I like the more definitive line marks, perpendicular display, and again, the colors are awful. The Estimated oxygen variation tells me nothing. The graph showing my normal range was more useful.

[ReneeVV]

Like it seems almost everyone else, I have to say that I cannot overemphasize how much I absolutely hate the redesigned app!!!  The sleep stats are now visually a bunch of gobbledygook.  The OLD version was easier to see and understand at a glance. 

In the OLD version you could tap on the sleep graph and have it open larger in another screen, which you could then rotate to Landscape so you could see a larger version.  In the OLD version you could then tap on a segment and get a pop-up showing the time frame for that segment.  I just saw on your community blogpost from April 10, 2024 that explains the changes, that in the NEW version of the app you can tap and hold on the timeline chart to get that same segment information, but (1) that isn't intuitive without having read those instructions; AND (2) once you remove your finger, the time frame goes away.  I have reasons to want to have it continue to show while I log information into an unrelated health app. 

IN the NEW version, the estimated oxygen variation graph that is within the Sleep page isn't very useful, either in form or location.  It would be slightly more useful if you didn't have to tap on the item to get the graph to open in a separate screen.  If it were on the same screen as the sleep timeline screen, and located just below it, then one could see how the oxygen related to the sleep stages at a glance.  This is how it was displayed in the OLD version.  The Oxygen Saturation charts in the Health Metrics page is more useful in that it actually shows the overall percentage of the oxygen level average.

I hope that Google-Fitbit is actively reading and taking into consideration all of the feedback that you are getting in response to this community post and I HOPE to see updates and fixes very soon to the app!

[josekreif]

Someone started a change petition last month. It would probably be worth it  for some of us 2,500 voters here to sign. The more outlets we hammer, the better chances we have of reaching Google's ears.

https://www.change.org/p/demand-fitbit-to-restore-usability-and-implement-user-requested-features-in...

As is, Google does not seem to be reading this forums. They probably don't know these even exist. 

[DLThune]

I'd be willing to bet upwards of 90% of Fitbit users (regardless of which Fitbit they wear) hate the new sleep graph.  There's a thread that has over 2000 comments that are almost all negative feedback.

[DLThune]

I've had it for a few months now and I still hate it.  The look of it is bad enough, but 4 nights out of 5, it takes my sleep before midnight and tacks it onto yesterday's sleep.  I have to go to yesterday's sleep, delete the chunk from 10PM to midnight (or 10:05 - 11:55), and then I have to go back to today and THEN I can edit my sleep log.  I'm absolutely serious about how often it happens.  My basic sleep schedule is around 10 pm to 5:30 am.  

With the old version, I never one single time (in 7 years) had to remove sleep from the previous days log in order to add it to the current day's actual sleep.  

Saying I'm not a fan is an understatement.  Saying that I might like it if I give it time is wishful thinking.  I hate it, and that won't change.  I suspect Fitbit will actually lose users as a result of this change - but the saddest thing is that they simply don't care.  They've already got our money.  

[Lueds55]

You’re absolutely right! If they did care they would have issued a response one way or the other. Absolute silence!

[Picardium]

Long time Product Management, Product Design and Eng leader here.  

I'm a long time Fitbit customer.  I've been building consumer and enterprise systems that include simple and advanced analytics for 25 years.  I've worked at startups, I've worked at some of the biggest tech companies in the world.  

This. Is. The. Worst. Example. of. not. listening. to. the. customer. I've. EVER. SEEN.  Period.

I've been surfing the various forums for months, since this happened.  I've made complaints. I even subscribed to another thread because I found this so interesting from both a personal (I loved my old fitbit analytics) and professional (I would use my Fitbit analytics readouts, especially sleep, to show designers why design that is inclusive and readable by people over 50 as well as showing the valuable data needed by everyone was a standard to strive for.)

In every forum I've been in, the Fitbit moderators are not responding anymore to these threads.  I'm seeing classic "google - or insert any big company name - hate" comments, but many of these comments are heartfelt and deeply emotional, and trying to be productive.  But after receiving thousands of email updates from the one forum I subscribed to (got more than I intended to bite off there) and not a single response from Fitbit, I'm kind of professionally shocked.  

You've got passionate customers, who CARE about what you've created.  They're telling you clearly that a change made was bad, that it's bad enough that they're going to stop being customers.  This is why we do this stuff.  There can't be a single human working on these products who could read through all this feedback and not be influenced by it.  No response isn't acceptable.  But worse, I fear that leadership and individual employees are not reading this input. 

As a Product Manager, this kills me. It hurts my heart.  It's amazing to watch a product melt down in real time. To watch brand equity and customer good will get squandered and leached away like this.  This is a Harvard Business School case study in the making.  Turn it around, Fitbit team.  It's completely within your power.  

[ReneeVV]

Yes, I too saw the display revert back to the OLD style for a day - that was maybe a few weeks ago - and I too was very happy as I assumed that Fitbit had gotten so much negative feedback that they widely decided to chuck the new format and got back to the OLD.  NOT!  Next thing I knew it was back to the horrible new version!

[Foodlady]

So it's been months, and I am one that really dislikes the upgrade. Got a new Fitbit about a minute before the change but I never would have bought another one had I seen what was coming. Never seems to track me right, I can't add modifications when I know I went to sleep and/or woke up at different time than the watch seems to believe, I don't like the graphics. For my last 3 watches, it was the reason that I use the Fitbit. Every Smart watch counts steps. . It was the sleep that was for me. Afraid I'm looking at my very last Fitbit. Really too bad because it was a good product.