Any plans for sleep cycle alarms?

[swingingrichard]

Does anyone know if Fitbit has plans to have a sleep cycle alarm integrated into their current products? I.e. An alarm that wakes you up when you are at your lightest level of sleep?

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @swingingrichard, and welcome!, it's nice to have you on board. 

Currently, alarms on a Fitbit trackers are not designed to wake you up when you're on a light level of sleep. However, I would like to thank you for your feedback, our team is always looking to improve the Fitbit experience and I went ahead and found a suggested idea by @LadyofK to implement this feature in a future update. Feel free to add your vote and comment for this idea, this is truly the best way to make your voice heard. 

If there's anything else I can do for you, feel free to reply! 

[PeterR.]

Hello Marco,

Any update in the matter?

To be honest when I discovered that there isn't any alarm based on your current heart rate I was very disappointed.

Any chance to implement it in the nearest future?

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @PeterR., thanks for joining us in the Community, have a warm welcome! 

I understand your concern about how alarms are designed in the Fitbit trackers, as you know, we have recently implemented Sleep Stages on our newest trackers, Alta HR, Blaze and Charge 2. Sleep stages will be very useful for people to know more about their sleep quality using the heart rate on the trackers. Our team is always on the lookout for ideas to implement new features, which is why I would like to suggest voting and commenting on the suggested idea by @LadyofK, to add alarms based on the current heart rate, complementing perfectly Sleep Stages.

I hope this can be helpful, if there's anything else I can do for you, please keep me posted! 

[IcyBlueRose]

My Charge 2 arrived today. I was disappointed when I learned it did not have a sleep cycle alarm. I assumed since it monitors stages of sleep, and since it has alarms, that it would naturally have sleep stage alarms. I did upvote that enhancement request. I hope this natural extension of the sleep cycle and alarm capabilities are realized and implemented soon. 

[Paul_defectivef]

Completely agree with Icy Blue Rose, and before the Fitbit moderators post a generic response about liking feedback and alluding to sleep stages being useful for tracking sleep quality, that’s not what everyone is asking on this thread Fitbit. We are asking you to introduce the functionality whereby the user can set an alarm where the TIMING of the alarm goes off based on whether you are in a light sleep or heavy sleep part of your sleep cycle, with the assumption being that being woken up during a light sleep cycle you would feel more rested than being worked up during deep sleep.

There are free smartphone apps that do this and because we usually all have to set an alarm to wake up at a certain time in the morning to get to work in time, the smart alarm wakes you up during the lightest point of your sleep cycle between a preset time you set. I.e wake me up between 6am and 7am during my lightest sleep cycle or between 6:30am and 7am. Sleep stages is helpful but a smart alarm is going to be useful to me not a vibrating alarm or graphs. 

[Paul_defectivef]

This feature was suggested in 2015, do you know why this hasn’t seriously been considered https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Sleep-Better/Smart-Alarm-Any-3rd-party-app-that-does-it/td-p/779688

[armofeli]

Agreed, and since you already have all the data it's very surprising that you still don't have this feature. 

[johnbltz]

I second (or dozen-th...) this idea. Seems like it should be really easy. At the very least an API that would let other apps see my sleep tracking, so that another developer could do this, since Fitbit doesn't seem interested.

[mjperry51]

Sleep stages are “calculated” by Fitbit servers, not by the app or the tracker. Therefore it would be next to impossible to implement a sleep stage based alarm, since the sleep stages aren’t known until one syncs with Fitbit after waking up.  

[WiserOne]

This will probably never be implemented as the sleep stages are not calculated on the tracker side, but rather the data chucks the raw data to app and the platform running the app calculates when you went to sleep and what the stages were. None of that happens on the tracker side so, inessence, the tracker has no clue when you are asleep let alone the stage you are in. 

[MikePlante]

When i wake up and open the app, it takes less than a minute to sync and calculate my sleep cycle. So if i set a smart alarm to wake up between 6 and 630, have it sync automatically at 6 and every 5 mins or so until it determines im in a light sleep cycle, and then vibrate my charge 2 to wake me up.

[Tash718]

How did you set this up? I set my alarm at 5:30am but I don't know how you have it wake you up precisely at light sleep stage.

[MikePlante]

Tash718, I didn’t. It was just a suggestion to Fitbit developers and a possible solution to an excuse given by a previous commenter.

[Tuxarn]

It can track pulse. its all it needs to help an app like sleep as android to integrate it. 

[Etetherin]

@MarcoGFitbit

I voted for this feature on LadyofK's post over a year ago, and am looking for an update on the matter. Clearly this is something that Fitbit would want to do, as others have said it would "take the wind out of the sails of products like Aurora, and other similar things". To the rest of us on user side and even I ( a developer and UI/UX Designer) it seems something that the frame work is already built in. The sleep monitor already works great, now we just need to integrate a 30 minute window to wake you up during light sleep. I would like to add to that these facts:
1. There is clearly a demand for this or things like Aurora would not be so successful.

2. That post is now 6 years old, and has over 5k up votes.

3. Many people have left Fitbit behind in exchange for other brands of active wear that have this feature.
4. Lastly, other active wear watches are supported by 3rd party apps that use the heart rate and movement detection to subsidize the need for a built in system. As an example, the popular app "sleep Cycle" has integrated Apple watch support. For some reason non support the Fitbit, meaning there is nothing to subsidize that need. 

If you could answer these it would help:
1. Does Fitbit have any desire or plans at all to implement this feature any time soon? (I already know about the feature request, and I have upvoted. I am looking for more of a direct yes or no if at all possible)

2. If you have no plans, how many up votes do you require before plans are taken?

Thanks for your help and understanding, I can not overstate how much I love your products at Fitbit. This feature seems like something Fitbit would have stakes in, and if not it seems naive. 

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @Etetherin, have a warm welcome to the Fitbit Community, it's great to have you on board. 

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and for taking the time to provide your feedback about this feature. Please note that tt takes time to move suggestions through discussion with relevant teams and potentially onto our product development roadmap. Our development cycle for new features varies based on a number of factors and usually includes an internal planning period, which is why sometimes new features may not appear as quickly as you would like.

The development cycle varies based on whether it’s for software, hardware, web application, etc. During the early phase of development, a significant amount of research and planning is performed, in advance of any feature release. Integrating new hardware features after a device has been released to the public can be a challenge, however, we usually release a series of firmware updates with new features or bug fixes as software is always in development.

I hope this resolve your inquiries, if there's anything else we can do for you, please feel free to reply. 

[MikePlante]

Good non-answer to avoid the question.

[Etetherin]

Yea It seems to be a trend here. I really tried hard to word them in such a way that they were very specific questions, in order to get an answer. Alas, it did not work. All well, I guess we just wait for who know how long right? I do know one thing: If by the time i need a new active wear item, and this feature has not been implemented I may go for something else. 

Its not even out of spite either, I truly feel like this feature is a key point on making your life better. Furthermore, most reasons people own Fitbits would be aided in better sleep schedules. Losing weight? guess what, sleep patterns really effect that. Trying to be more active? Waking up early helps you have more time, waking up correctly makes your feel good for the day to come. I could list and link to studies all day long.

I got the Ionic because I really enjoy the aesthetic, and the fact its water proof and lastly all the features it does have. I was under the impression that it had the sleep cycle alarm clock as well. I was incorrect.

With that being said @MikePlante Here is a link to something a developer made, its not perfect as the restrictions are quite heavy on what you can do with the Fitbit developer kit, but it does work.
https://gam.fitbit.com/gallery/app/d3935b41-e7ad-4e22-9510-4b6aaf8207d5 (redirects you to the app, but you can also search "smart" and its the first on the list)