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Can anyone comment on the current state of the art for the sleep tracking feature of this or other smart watches? I have a Garmin Vivosmart HR that is close to

by tcbawo 6y ago

Can anyone comment on the current state of the art for the sleep tracking feature of this or other smart watches? I have a Garmin Vivosmart HR that is close to end of life. I'm looking for something light with >7 day battery life, vibrating alarm clock, and decent sleep tracking.

abawany 6y ago
I am a Vivoactive HR user and will be buying the Vivoactive 4 soon. The always on display is indispensable, as is the battery life and SpO2 monitoring; Garmin is gold. I've tried Fitbit, Vivosmart 4, and AW4 but the Garmin is what I feel makes the best tradeoffs between functionality, usability, and quality plus they have great customer service. Edit0: fixed model names - darn Garmin with its meaningless model names.
bentcorner 6y ago
I have a Vivosmart HR as well but my wife got me a Fitbit Versa last year and it's a give-and-take. The battery life is worse but the color screen is really nice and the watch can do more (most notably have multiple alarms set from the watch). Vibration motor is better on the Fitbit. Sleep tracking is slightly better on the fitbit (re. graphs and data). Accuracy seems better but I'm no expert (I've gotten false positives where the Garmin thinks I'm sleeping if I'm sitting at my computer not moving much, Fitbit has tracked naps which is impressive). I kind of liked the Garmin app more than the Fitbit one. The fitbit app can be confusing to navigate and it's irritating that they try to upsell you on a subscription. The garmin app is more spartan but it's easier to see your data. I think it might be easier to extract your data from garmin as well. Syncing both watches to your phone is equally painful. I don't know of anything new that has a long battery life like the Vivosmart HR. Garmin claims equally long battery life on their newer devices but I'm skeptical.
doitLP 6y ago
Just curious, what do you actually do with your sleep data? After trying several trackers and building up a week or two of data I don’t really see a use for it. What’s the point of regularly monitoring it?
- mbirth 6y ago
  I'm using a vivosmart 4 to monitor my sleep. I mostly care about my SpO2 data to detect sleep apnoe. But also my avg. heart rate is a great indicator whether I'm fine or if there's a health issue or extreme stress at work.
- tcbawo 6y ago
  I don't believe in the accuracy of the data I currently have to make any judgements. For several months, I have been measuring my blood pressure and noted the effects of caffeine, alcohol, and exercise. I would like to gauge sleep length and quality to correlate with physical and mental well-being. Ideally, this would be passively measured and monitored, but I haven't gotten that far into it yet.

by tcbawo 6y ago

abawany 6y ago

I am a Vivoactive HR user and will be buying the Vivoactive 4 soon. The always on display is indispensable, as is the battery life and SpO2 monitoring; Garmin is gold. I've tried Fitbit, Vivosmart 4, and AW4 but the Garmin is what I feel makes the best tradeoffs between functionality, usability, and quality plus they have great customer service. Edit0: fixed model names - darn Garmin with its meaningless model names.

bentcorner 6y ago

I have a Vivosmart HR as well but my wife got me a Fitbit Versa last year and it's a give-and-take. The battery life is worse but the color screen is really nice and the watch can do more (most notably have multiple alarms set from the watch). Vibration motor is better on the Fitbit. Sleep tracking is slightly better on the fitbit (re. graphs and data). Accuracy seems better but I'm no expert (I've gotten false positives where the Garmin thinks I'm sleeping if I'm sitting at my computer not moving much, Fitbit has tracked naps which is impressive). I kind of liked the Garmin app more than the Fitbit one. The fitbit app can be confusing to navigate and it's irritating that they try to upsell you on a subscription. The garmin app is more spartan but it's easier to see your data. I think it might be easier to extract your data from garmin as well. Syncing both watches to your phone is equally painful. I don't know of anything new that has a long battery life like the Vivosmart HR. Garmin claims equally long battery life on their newer devices but I'm skeptical.

doitLP 6y ago

Just curious, what do you actually do with your sleep data? After trying several trackers and building up a week or two of data I don’t really see a use for it. What’s the point of regularly monitoring it?

mbirth 6y ago
I'm using a vivosmart 4 to monitor my sleep. I mostly care about my SpO2 data to detect sleep apnoe. But also my avg. heart rate is a great indicator whether I'm fine or if there's a health issue or extreme stress at work.
tcbawo 6y ago
I don't believe in the accuracy of the data I currently have to make any judgements. For several months, I have been measuring my blood pressure and noted the effects of caffeine, alcohol, and exercise. I would like to gauge sleep length and quality to correlate with physical and mental well-being. Ideally, this would be passively measured and monitored, but I haven't gotten that far into it yet.