Fitbit has introduced a new sleep profile feature for Fitbit Premium users, a feature that collects long-term sleep metrics to inform you more about your bedtime habits.
The feature is compatible with the best Fitbit devices, including the Fitbit Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Charge 5, Luxe, and Inspire 2 devices, and is expected to launch during the week of July 4th. new longitudinal analysis of your sleep patterns” after a minimum of 14 days of use and is used to help “calculate trends and compare them to what is typical for your age and gender”.
It does this by collecting different sleep metrics over these two weeks, including sleep schedule variability, time before deep sleep, interrupted sleep, sleep duration, rest, and REM sleep. Once he has all this data, he will assign you to one of 10 types of sleep categories, represented by illustrations of very cute animals.
Do you sleep like a giraffe in short bursts, needing a quality sleep schedule, or do you sleep more like a bear, which tends to fall asleep early and consistently? In case these are the burning questions keeping you up at night, Fitbit may be able to provide the answers starting July 4th.
On the first of every month, your profile will be updated, so you can see if your more general sleep patterns have changed over time.
Analysis: How useful is sleep tracking?
The best sleep trackers, including Fitbit devices, are impressive in the depth of data they can capture. If you struggle to sleep on a regular and consistent basis, Fitbit capturing longitudinal data and making it easy to analyze trends in your sleep can encourage you to make changes to get better bed rest.
However, sleep tracking is often as useless as it is impressive. If you’ve been up all night, you know you’ve been up all night. Likewise, it’s not good for Fitbit to say you spent less time in deep sleep than you did the night before, as it’s not a metric you can act on.
We’ve covered the benefits and pitfalls of fitness watches and sleep tracking before, but abstracting all that complex information into broad strokes like these animal profiles and updating them each month can keep you from getting unnecessarily stressed about the sleep minutiae.
‘s expert sleep editor Claire Davies said: “On paper, Fitbit’s sleep profile looks more subtle than the basic level of sleep tracking we’re used to on wrist-mounted devices. Having a wider range of metrics to use helps provide better context for your overall sleep health.
“But when comparing your data to averages of people of the same age and sex is interesting, remember it’s all subjective. Your mental and physical health, bedroom environment and partner sharing your bed can all affect your sleep.”
You might be a giraffe this month, but don’t make too much of it. Next month, you might be a bear.