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How Much Sleep Do Fitbit Users Really Get?
- OrwellianChild 9y agoI am almost exactly typical in hours of sleep and mix of sleep type to the aggregate. What's hidden is all the volatility in my sleep... In my last week, there is a range from 5.5 to 8.3 hours of sleep in a given night. The longest sleep nights don't necessarily follow the short sleep nights either, so it doesn't appear to be catch-up sleep. Weird body is weird. Other interesting notes: 1. Women need an extra half hour? 2. People sleep less as they age? 3. "Generation Z" is what we're calling kids these days?
- pcunite 9y ago2. People sleep less as they age? In my experience a lot of older people seem to say this. Note sure why it's true.
- swift 9y agoIn the case of my own family members, this seems to stem from physical maladies that are correlated with age - back injuries, for example, or weight increases aggravating sleep apnea. I'm not sure how things look for old people who are extremely healthy, though.
- Someone 9y agohttp://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0031938487903210 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/00319384879...: "The mean sleep duration (from PAM) equaled 7.29±0.8 (S.D.) hr compared to 7.84±0.62 hr as estimated from the daily diaries. Neither parameter was correlated significantly with age (p>0.05)" (N=43, 9 days, age range 21-83)
- ProAm 9y ago> In my experience a lot of older people seem to say this. Note sure why it's true. Because after age 30 your body, more or less, starts to die. There is a lot of discomfort and pain that is usually associated with this and as a result affects the quality and duration of sleep.
- monksy 9y ago> Women need an extra half hour? Could be differences in daily stress and work life that interferes with sleep and the ability to fall asleep.
- carlob 9y agoI think on average in western countries women actually work more much more than men when you consider house chores and childcare as work.
- pcunite 9y agoI try to run or bike several times per week. Will be adding tennis soon if I can. What seems to affect my sleep is occasional restless leg. I have to get up and do stretches or use something like the TigerTail to be able to stop the nerves from firing off. I'll toss and turn if I don't address it.
- mantas 9y agoI've similar issues once in a while. Taking a month's course of magnesium usually helps. Your reasons and results may vary though, I'm not a doctor.
- notheguyouthink 9y agoAccording to my Fitbit _(which I wear constantly)_, I get on average ~3h45m of "sleep". It apparently doesn't count restless as valid sleep, so it heavily eats into my sleep. Most of the ~8h chunk I'm asleep it marks as restless.. probably not a good sign lol. Though, I don't think I'm using their new sleep phase metrics, as my Fitbit app doesn't seem to have it.
- colonelxc 9y agoFor me, the fitbit overestimates my sleep by a wide margin (and I stopped using it for that purpose). It assumes if I am not moving that I am asleep.
- waivej 9y agoI had to switch it to sensitive mode for the same reason. It's also more useful as a relative metric than specific number.
- markwaldron 9y agoI had this issue as well but I realized my Sleep Sensitivity setting was on "Sensitive" rather than "Normal". Once I changed it, my average nights rest went up to 6h+
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- droopyEyelids 9y agoVery good chance you have sleep apnea, amigo. If you have health insurance the sleep study to test for it is likely 100% covered. In a way, finding you have sleep apnea is good news because getting successfully treated is a TREMENDOUS improvement to your quality of life.
- notheguyouthink 9y agoCan you have sleep apnea without it being loud and disruptive? My partner knows of sleep apnea (her father has it), but she doesn't think I have it. (also, I don't snore or gasp while breathing) The only thing I know I have is some form of restless leg syndrome. Often I go to sleep without symptoms that I can feel (thank god, it's terrible), but apparently I kick a lot in my sleep like a dog.
- peterjlee 9y agoTIL Gen Z is a thing. I feel old. Also, I'm guessing most Gen Z fitbit users are in college because there's no way high school kids can wake up at 8:12AM and go to school.
- rb808 9y agoInterestingly what is the next generation after Z - are we back to A again?
- jcdreads 9y agoGeneration [ obviously.
- scottLobster 9y agoGeneration Cyber, no doubt
- kylec 9y agoAA probably. That's the column to the right of Z in Excel.
- ghostly_s 9y agoNothing post-gen-Z'ers relate with more than Excel.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- madcaptenor 9y agoAlso, Millennials go up to 40?
- ProAm 9y agoThey'll never make it to 40
- kough 9y ago
- wimagguc 9y agoIt's interesting insight into how much sleep people actually get, but the article mixes up actual statistics with some random data pulled from elsewhere. What's missing is, for example, the data on how the amount of deep sleep impacts the individual's short-term memory, activity and "feeling refreshed" (sic). We don't actually know where those stats come from, so this conclusion is a bit far-fetched: "these findings further support the general recommendation that most adults need to consistently sleep 7 to 9 hours per night".
- johnchristopher 9y agoFWIW I have been using a flex 2 for two weeks now and I couldn 't believe how I messed up my sleep. I was a trainwreck and going for no more than 5 hours per night while misevaluating my sleep time to 7-8h. I decided to break the cycle and I have been sleeping much more for one week and already can see the difference. I think I should have bought an alta or a charge to get the benefits of the HR monitor. Still, I am glad I bought one. It was a reality check. And I bought it because I really wanted an vibrating wrist alarm.
- Swizec 9y agoSimilar story here. I always thought I slept like the dead and nothing short of a force of nature could wake me. Fitbit rolled out their new sleep types tracking and I find out I'm actually a super light sleeper. Most nights I don't get anywhere near the low-end benchmark for Deep Sleep and I overshoot the high-end benchmark for Light Sleep by many points. It's weird because my subjective experience and the data that Fitbit shows are so out of whack. I could swear that I sleep well, but nope.
- E6300 9y agoCrazy thought, but perhaps the device is actually pretty terrible at measuring when the user is asleep? Wrist-band heart-rate monitors are known to be fairly less accurate than chest-band HRMs.
- just4themoney 9y agoI hate to be so pessimistic but since Fitbit doesn't measure brain waves (among many other things) any "sleep" data generated by the Fitbit is somewhere between those novelty love tester machines and random bits in accuracy. Don't trust it over your subjective experience.
- 0xffff2 9y ago>I could swear that I sleep well, but nope. Who's really right here then? I'm curious, if you have some nights where the Fitbit says you sleep better or worse than average, does that correlate with your subjective experience?
- punjabisingh 9y agoThe sleep tracking from my FitBit is my favorite feature. Even the cheapest FitBit Flex provides good analysis of my sleep (restless, awake, duration, etc). I use it more to make sure I get 7-8 hours to sleep than to count steps. Disclosure: volunteer beta tester
- tejaswiy 9y agoSince noone's asked this question yet, how accurate is using movement / heart-rate as a proxy for EEG when estimating sleep patterns?
- pizza 9y agoThis is related https://www.livescience.com/42710-fitness-trackers-sleep-monitoring-accuracy.html https://www.livescience.com/42710-fitness-trackers-sleep-mon...
- ared38 9y agoMine didn't have HR monitoring, but I found the movement (aka actigraphy) to be pretty much useless. Fitbit was counting all the time I was laying still trying to fall asleep as "deep sleep", and looking at the chart I couldn't differentiate movement at 12:00 when I knew I was awake from movement at 6:00 when a noise woke me up but I fell right back asleep. The movement data is probably enough to tell when I've slept better or worse, but I wouldn't trust the absolute "number of hours of sleep" they report.
- brlewis 9y agoFitbit does not attempt to track sleep stages w/o HR monitoring; it's just Awake, Restless or Asleep. Yes with nothing but accelerometer data stillness can be mistaken for Asleep, but I think you're misremembering when you say "deep sleep".
- 2muchcoffeeman 9y agoAnd are there any good sleep trackers?
- criddell 9y agoZeo made a very good one called something like Zeo Sleep Manager. They stopped making them a few years ago, but you can still find them online and there's a fairly active community around them still.
- cmiles74 9y agoI was doubting the effectiveness of my CPAP machine and decided to take the night off. I usually sleep close to eight hours with 3 to 4 hours of deep sleep; without the machine I sleep about the same time but log only 30 minutes to an hour of deep sleep.
- robhu 9y agoIf you have a model that stores data in an SD card you may find Sleepy Head useful.
- cmiles74 9y agoI will check this out. It stores data on the card, but I had forgotten about this. It might be interesting to see if any correlates with the sleep data.
- Mahn 9y ago> I usually sleep close to eight hours with 3 to 4 hours of deep sleep Sounds like you are getting better sleep than most healthy people. I always wondered if one could benefit from a CPAP machine even without suffering from sleep apnea.
- cmiles74 9y agoMy partner sleeps poorly and I have wondered the same. You are right, I should be grateful for the machine. But the mask is a hassle and I find myself getting cranky about it. Still, I wear it every night. It was definitely reassuring to see what a difference it makes. I should try and talk my partner into trying it. ;-)
- SimonPStevens 9y agoI'd take all of this with a giant pinch of salt. If the data is anything like the sleep data generated by my Garmin vivosmart HR+ it's not much better than garbage. It frequently counts me as sleeping when I sit down to watch TV in the evening, or read a book in bed. Sometimes I stay up until 1am reading and it always tracks me as deep sleep from 10pm when I got into bed. I usually take it off for my morning shower (It is waterproof, it just annoys me when washing) and it nearly always counts the walking from bed to shower as a few minutes of restless sleep and the shower itself as deep sleep. I'm not sure how it makes an assesment of my sleep level. I don't know if it's just based on movement or if it takes heart rate data into account but it does have a heart rate sensor. It seems to usually be wrong. In theroy it would be possible to know about these limitations and adjust your use of it to make it more accurate, but unless the participents of the study are aware of that and have been manually correcting the data then that won't be the case. (Not a general critisim on the device, I like it for everything else, but it's sleep data is clearly rather inaccurate)
- ClayM 9y agoMine is actually pretty good - it doesn't pick up when I sit down, but will occasionally turn on sleep mode while I'm lying in bed reading. However it marks me as awake during that sleep time, so I guess it's accurate?
- OrwellianChild 9y agoThese are all worthy considerations for these trackers... I can only speak for the Fitbits, specifically the Charge 2 (which has a HR monitor too). Fitbits have 2 measurement modes for sleep - normal and sensitive. Normal pretty much tracks me as sleeping like the dead for 8 hours each night (however long I'm immobile in bed). Sensitive, on the other hand, tracks much more detail and can tell when I'm restless, sleeping deeply, and even when I get up in the night and move around. I highly recommend the sensitive sleep setting for Fitbit users - it gives you more data to play with! Fitbit recently re-worked the way they track sleep in its HR-monitor-equipped devices (Charge 2, Aria HR, etc.). It introduced more details (it was just tracking restless/deep before) and this upgrade greatly improved the sleep tracking for me. Before Sleep Stages, it would track only 3-4 hours of my sleep each night. Now, it catches the full 6-9 hours. Now, all of this is to be taken with a grain of salt in terms of accuracy, but to compare among Fitbit users and to yourself over time, this information is incredibly useful! The strongest example of the usefulness of this for me so far has been the effect of moderate alcohol consumption on the quality of my sleep. I am far more restless and get much poorer sleep after drinking just 1-2 beers on a full stomach. This has led me to cut back almost completely on alcohol and the quality of my rest has dramatically improved!
- huangc10 9y agoIt'll be really interesting to see the sleep data compared against other countries or continents. Sex and age is interesting but you can't tell much from this data. Could comparing it with other countries correlate with a country's economy, culture, general state of affairs? Also, if there is a year to year trend cross reference with country. If this data is accurate, it could be useful in determining a country's future economics. Ie. perhaps a general population's 5 mins of average less sleep means more stress which means more economic downturn/changes?
- Skunkleton 9y agoThese types of articles often have a correlation vs causation problem. For example, the article says that if you want better deep sleep, then move your bed time to between 9 and 10 PM. Ok, sure the data shows that people who go to bed at this time have more deep sleep, but why? Maybe it is a longer window to sleep in without light/noise? Maybe people with fewer sleep problems go to bed earlier? Is it because going to bed at 9:30 is magic? What am I supposed to take away from this?
- posterboy 9y ago> Is it because going to bed at 9:30 is magic? I guess, the inner clock is adjusted to that time because that's when the sun goes down in summer, and when melanin increases, because of changing light levels, we become sleepy. just , a shot in the dark so to speak ;)
- ram_rar 9y agoUnless there is some kind of sensor in the pillow, which can calibrate your sleep. None of these fitness trackers can accurately measure your sleep.
- eduren 9y agoWhat makes a "pillow sensor" more accurate? Is there anything like that on the market?
- ram_rar 9y agoSony has patented in this area. https://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/sony-patent-application-puts-electrodes-in-a-pillow/ https://www.engadget.com/2013/02/08/sony-patent-application-...
- eduren 9y agoYou're honestly comparing the accuracy of a product out in the market, with one in the patent stages back in 2013? I understand being skeptical of the accelerometer + hr monitor solution, there are certainly more involved ways of analyzing patterns that are available to sleep specialists. But how does it help the discussion to dismiss it in favor of a non-existent product?
- ram_rar 9y agoMy point is, a sensor in the pillow might be more accurate in tracking your sleep than a fitness tracker. Thats all!
- haswell 9y agoIt really comes down to how much accuracy you really need. I use a Fitbit Charge HR and while I'm sure it's not perfect, it gives me a general idea of how much time I spend in bed/sleeping. I'm sure it's not accurate down to the minute, but I do think it gives me a general idea of how much sleep I get. For me, that's fine, and really all I need.
- 9y ago
- Sir_Substance 9y agoI know that fitbit thinks this is really cool, but this is really creepy. Everyone who owns a fitbit has doubtless signed off on being part of these kinds of studies if you dig all the way into fitbits EULA, but I bet none of them actually got an email saying "click here to opt in/out". For a lot of fitbit users, they will never see this study and it will never cross their mind that they're being studied. This is why I searched high and low for a fitness tracker that doesn't have an online component. I eventually settled on a garman fitness watch plugged into turtle sport: http://turtlesport.sourceforge.net/EN/home.html http://turtlesport.sourceforge.net/EN/home.html
- throwanem 9y agoI don't really worry about this kind of data being in The Cloud(tm). All the GPS integration is disabled, and I've explicitly forbidden the app any access to location services, so it's not tattling to the world about where I am, and the level of exertion I'm hitting at the present moment, or the extent of time during which I'm asleep, isn't something in which I see any significant potential for exploitation.
- petepete 9y agoAt least it has chance to measure sleep. My Android Wear device (Huawei watch V1) has no battery by evening and has to spend the night charging.
- sjclemmy 9y ago> People who sleep 5 hours or less a night deprive their body of the opportunity to get enough deep sleep, which occurs near the beginning of the night. I'd like that explained to me. If it's something that happens near the beginning of the night how does duration affect it?
- racl101 9y agoI have a Fitbit and love to use it for step counting but I sure as heck don't sleep with that thing.
- blunte 9y agoWell, those of us with the top of the line model, the Surge, can't really contribute to this discussion. Why can't we contribute? Because Fitbit has, for whatever reason, chosen not to include its highest paying customers with the same features they've given to their lesser models. https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Sleep-Stages-for-Surge/idi-p/1908806#comments https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Sleep-St...
- throwanem 9y agoThat's a shame! Perhaps a model closer to the middle of the range will suit you better.
- beeeebo 9y agoLooks like my pattern I wear a mii band it was 20 bucks baby
- uses 9y agoThis info would look really nice as stacked bar charts. And the average sleep / wake times would look great as parallel timelines to show start / end times of sleep.
- jkimkidding 9y agoI've tried sleeping with my Fitbit Charge HR 1 but often found that it hindered my sleep. The green light that monitors activity would show ever so slightly and ruin my sleepiness.
- appleiigs 9y agoFitbit Charge 2: if you move your arm while trying to fall asleep, the display lights up right in my face. Apple's cinema mode for the watch sounds good.
- latkin 9y agoThis bothered me, as well. If you disable "quick view" then the display only lights up when you tap it. That's a big improvement, IMO, though if my hands are full it's harder to check the time.
- zimpenfish 9y agoDisabling "quick view" also saves a chunk of battery life. Which is always helpful.
- neves 9y agoDoes it track snoring?
- zimpenfish 9y agoI don't think any Fitbit has that functionality yet. SleepCycle for iOS has "snore detection" if you use the microphone mode (I suspect other apps have similar options by now.)
- model_Citizen 9y agoOh, fucking please. Take a two week vacation to even out your sleep, while saddled with zero social obligations, and you'll see that these sleep numbers are still harassed. 7 hours my ass. Just because there's a common baseline among fitbit users, doesn't make them models of perfection to be emulated. Just a snapshot of opportunity, nothing more.
- Anand_S 9y agoData from Fitbit can help you see patterns which otherwise you won't notice. I used to stay near a Railway Station, and my sleep used to get disturbed every 30 mins. I did not realize this until I saw the data from Sleep tracking. I was getting less than 50 mins of deep sleep and I could easily see that the deep sleep was disturbed at exactly the train timings daily. With this knowledge, I moved to a new place with less disturbance during night. Now my Deep Sleep is increased by 50% after this move.
- ComputerGuru 9y agoThe only accurate sleep detection I've had from all the devices I've tried is, surprisingly, my $20 MiBand (both the original and the MiBand 2). I don't think it's a hardware issue, I'm pretty sure it's just stupid software. The results I've gotten from the SleepCycle iPhone app - all the way back in 2009 - are more precise than any of those other fitness trackers. It used to rely on the uber-sensitive iPhone accelerometer but they "recently" switched to using the microphone for some reason.
- zurn 9y agoIs there a monitor like this that won't send your data to the cloud?
- kqr 9y agoWell.... any device not connected to the internet will plainly not send your data to the cloud. Then it's the matter of parsing the data on your own, which at least for Garmin devices should be possible once you figure out the format. (If someone hasn't already, was a while since I explored that.)
- zimpenfish 9y agoThe FIT file format is available online (might have to sign up to the ANT Consortium or something, I forget.) But...it was designed and implemented by embedded engineers who looked at TIFF and thought it wasn't batshit enough. http://garmin.kiesewetter.nl/ http://garmin.kiesewetter.nl/ is useful for converting them to CSV and extracting the data that way.
- Sir_Substance 9y agohttp://turtlesport.sourceforge.net/EN/home.html http://turtlesport.sourceforge.net/EN/home.html That will do it for you.
- sgt101 9y agoAverage? Mean or Median!
- Kluny 9y agoAverage is such a useless measure, what if there is a bi- or tr-modal distribution, or a huge number of outliers in one direction or the other? I wish they would include modes and medians.