Smart Alarm

I personally would not know what to do with the time, there is a reason its set for 5, because I can max out my sleeping (and body regeneration) until I absolutely have to go. If that smart thing wakes me 30 min earlier I wont have any useful thing to do with the time and also lose that 30min for body regeneration.

I'm already using a alarm clock with a light that gets brighter. Waking up to this doesn't feel forced at all and its always on time.

Until you use a device that does this well it's hard to understand the benefit.  I used this with an Up band and it was life changing.  

I remember being skeptical but found that when I followed the device I was usually pretty much awake and FELT GREAT!  How many times have you woken up 15-20 minutes before the alarm and then fall back asleep and then feel like crap?  Fortunately I learned from my experience with the UP band and now get up when I wake up within 20-30 minutes of my alarm.  

Obviously YMMV, but what's the harm in giving it a try if Garmin introduces it?

Olu.F. said:

Until you use a device that does this well it's hard to understand the benefit.

We'll disagree here.  In order to be in the REM cycle you have to have increased brain activity. Your WHR device has no way of detecting this.  All these companies (Garmin, Fitbit, etc) are using data from laboratory test to guess what sleep cycle you're in. The data says the average person will be in this cycle for x amount of time. Then they normally enter this cycle for x amount of time. These cycles are not definitive, nor will they be the same for each individual on any given night. Diet, alcohol, medication, illness, etc will all affect this.  Your watch is trying to do it's best to guess what cycle you're in using HR and movement using these averages. This alone has it's limitations. The data accuracy is also susceptible to movement of the WHR sensor while sleeping.  Now we take that device and add an app that's supposed to take this data and wake us at the best time.  While reading up on these smart alarms, the term "placebo" was mentioned many times. People say their smart alarms work because their app told them it worked and told them they felt more refreshed. Theirs no scientific data that supports this and it's junk science. I'll explain why using the example I gave earlier. I need to get up for work by 5AM.  The smart alarm decided the best time to wake me was 4:40.  I may actually feel quite refreshed, but there is absolutely no evidence that if I were to have slept to 5AM that I would have felt groggy, the same, or even more refreshed than waking at 4:40.  Is there harm in trying an app like this?  Not really, other than possibly depriving oneself of needed rest if the app is detecting movement (an individual thing which doesn't necessarily mean your in a light sleep cycle) and waking you early.  You stated your opinion and I respect it. I'm giving you mine and why I don't need to try it before I decide if it's beneficial. 

Ok.  Sounds like your mind's made up.  In that case don't use it IF Garmin decides to release it, but don't dissuade other's for asking for it or trying it out.  Yes, without an EEG and a sleep lab it's impossible to determine sleep cycles perfectly, but some of these devices (I have an Oura ring as well) get pretty close based on HR, HRV, Respiration rate, and movement.  

Also, when it comes to things like this, all that matters is an n of 1.  You'd be surprised how powerful the "placebo" effect is, especially in areas that are not so scientifically measured like quality of sleep.  

Olu.F. said:

 In that case don't use it IF Garmin decides to release it, but don't dissuade other's for asking for it or trying it out.  

Any added feature will raise prices due to development and support. How much, I have no idea and obviously depends on said feature. As a prospective buyer of future devices, my opinion matters just as much as those who want the feature regardless of I chose to use the feature or not.  To say if you don't want it, just don't use it or comment isn't fair. So, as I respect your opinion, please do so with mine.  Garmin isn't going to make their decision based on what I think anyway. 

Would be almost perfect if I would not need to run this every night manually. 

I don't know why such strict attitude on a feature that you haven't tried.

My background: I needed to get up at ~06:30 strict. And before that all the conventional alarms was quite unpleasant for me. So at first started sleep as android on phone, then after acquiring pebble switched to pebble "smart alarm", as sleep as android were eating phone battery and it was pain holding phone under pillow.

Pebble time had built in "smart alarm" - it was one of two types of alarm. It would track last 30 minutes of sleep before alarm and wake you up in that period based on your movements (as they marketed based on "sleep cycle"). My personal feeling were fantastic. Over time I started getting up at ~6:00 right before that "smart alarm". Of course with exceptions when breaking my day - night cycle on a previous weekend or something like that. But it's more gentle, then strict 06:30 even with broken day nigh cycle. Sometimes I do oversleep to that 06:30 when alarm kicks in no matter of my "sleeping cycle", then it is not as pleasant, but it happens really rarely.

So now Upgraded from pebble time to fenix 6x. I knew that it won't have such feature. And that's why I was delaying this upgrade for a year, or even more (it would have been fenix 5 before). I don't want to use dedicated app or sleep as android because I have to remember to set them running before every night and they are a battery drainers. Garmin have more "levers" to implement this automatically and with way less battery drain.

In overall It's hard to explain, but what you would choose from following: strict alarm at "5 am" (as yours) and feel unpleasantly wake up "right in the middle of sweet sleep", or alarm which would wake you at ~4:30-4:59 interval, but feel refreshed and waked up in a "right moment" which feels pretty close to natural wake up. If you don't feel any unpleasant feeling from a strict 5 am alarm, then this feature is not for you, but believe that there are quite a lot of people who needs this kind of feature.

And I agree with you it does not measure if you are in a "real REM" or any other guess of "sleep cycle". It just measures your movements (pebble didn't even had HR). Better wake up feeling was quite enough no matter how you call or describe this implementation.

Also are you going through all new feature requests, which you don't feel the need and ask to think about price increase due to development and support?

This is exactly what happened to me as well. I started to use the app Sleep Cycle 2-3 years ago when my sleep was horrible. Now, 95% of the times I wake up even before the lower part of the specified time frame and I don't even consider to go back to sleep for a couple of more minutes.

I did not believe it myself either but my sleep was so bad I was willing to try anything. I think, the modern lifestyle tries to fight with nature in every way it's possible, but nature always wins eventually.

vukisz said:

In overall It's hard to explain, but what you would choose from following: strict alarm at "5 am" (as yours) and feel unpleasantly wake up "right in the middle of sweet sleep", or alarm which would wake you at ~4:30-4:59 interval, but feel refreshed and waked up in a "right moment" which feels pretty close to natural wake up.

This is a trap question I refuse to answer because the only options you're giving is a negative "strict alarm and feeling unpleasant", or a positive "waking earlier and feeling pleasant".  You're assuming I use a "strict" alarm and that I wake up feeling unpleasant.  I do not. I've been using an app on my phone called "Gentle Alarm" for years (Google it) that does the same thing as your smart alarm with one huge exception. It does this at the prescribed time I set and doesn't shorten my sleep time.  There would be absolutely zero benefit for me to wake any earlier than necessary with a smart alarm that depends on how well your WHR device is working.