All about Fitbit’s new sleep features

Being completely honest, are you sleeping well? Okay, regardless of your answer, the truth is that it is very difficult to know exactly how much sleep you get each night, and many times, trying to get an objective reading of your sleeping quality is quite tricky. However, Fitbit Sleep Profile is a tool that can make it easier.

From assigning you a “sleep animal” to describing your sleeping habits to keeping track of the exact time you rest. With the aim of teaching the user all about their sleeping and probably how to get a better rest. In this note, we’re going to tell you a couple of things about the Fitbit’s premium version, the best app to monitor your sleep hours. Let’s get started.

How the Fitbit Premium Sleep Profile works

The Sleep Profile is Fitbit’s latest rest-related update since introducing sleep tracking in 2009. It’s available for Fitbit Premium members with Google Pixel Watch, Sense 2, Sense, Veras 4, Versa 3, Versa 2, Charge 5, Luxe, Inspire 2 or Inspire 3 devices.

To begin with, it’s not the first time that Fitbit implements sleep statistics among its services, as before Sleep Profile, the interface providing a detailed monthly analysis of these 10 features the Fitbit research team identified as most important for a cohesive picture of sleep quality and quantity. These are some of them:

1. Sleep schedule variability: how much your sleep schedule varies from day to day.
2. Sleep start time: the time you usually get to sleep.
3. Time before sound sleep: how long it usually takes you to really fall asleep.
4. Sleep duration: how much sleep you get on average.
5. Deep sleep: how much time you spend in the most refreshing sleep stage.
6. Restorative sleep: how much time you spend with your heart rate lower than your usual resting rate.
7. Sleep stability: how often your brain wakes up for a moment as you change sleep stages or sleep position (often without you realizing it).
8. Nights with long awakenings: how many nights you spend awake for long periods due to things like noise.

The six Fitbit Sleep Profile animals

Likewise, the system of Sleep Profile is designed to assign you an animal that represents your current sleeping habits. It has these six animals with different sleep behaviours that also correspond with common human sleep patterns:

• Bear: Your sleep schedule is constant, you sleep regularly at the same time and go to bed earlier than most. You tend to reach a sound sleep quickly.

• Dolphin: You fell asleep later than most and sleep less due to an inconsistent sleep schedule, or more disrupted sleep at night. Your sleep is very light and you can take naps to catch up. This is the least common animal among Sleep Profile users.

• Giraffe: You have a shorter sleep and despite sleeping later, you usually wake up earlier. You also have a relatively good proportion of deep and REM sleep despite a shorter overall duration.

• Hedgehog: Generally, you sleep later and wake up earlier. Your sleep tends to be lighter, typically taking longer to reach sound sleep and may get less deep and REM.

• Parrot: You tend to keep a consistent bedtime and don’t sleep too early or late. You typically reach sound sleep quickly and usually get a good amount of sleep each night. You likely sleep deeply once you drift off but can be light on REM due to waking up briefly throughout the night.
• Tortoise: You tend to fall asleep at different times each night, but often earlier than most. Paired with slightly later average wake times, you tend to spend more time in bed overall but may find it takes longer to reach a sound sleep, impacting your lower than average deep and REM sleep.