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Sleep tracking as shift worker is an horrible experience.

Gyrolion
8 months ago

Well I give up, as a shift worker this is horrible as a full body metric tracking device. 

I recently made the switch to garmin because of the great reviews, it is an amazing watch to use while running my multi day ultra runs, thriatlons, etc. (yes you can do that while you are a shift worker unlike some people say) 

But the problem about the sleep schedule and tracking is horrible. 

At first I put the schedule like a "normal" person and it was from 23:00 -> 09:00, sleep was tracking fine, but then I had a couple of unplanned night shifts, no sleep recorded and my watch goes to this sleep focus mode automaticly, turn it off, after a couple of minutes back into sleep focus..

Ok well, change schedule then, this is very burdonsome, I work very irregular hours meaning I have to fine tune this every day.. 

Browsing around the internet for a fix for this I found out that in previous watches you could just set you sleep schedule from 0:00 -> 0:01 and it worked fine.

Tried it, but then there is no more sleep recorded, making every training metric the watch has unusable, body battery not updating properly, no training readiness scores. 

Also weird thing, you go to bed at around 23:00, put the watch into sleep focus mode, then because the schedule ends, your watch takes itself out of sleep focus mode... so I woke up at around 3:00 and I saw that the screen was bright again.. had to put it back into sleep focus mode.

For shift workers this design is just horrible... 

Garmin, please can we just get an option to turn of the sleep schedule, and let us manualy enable sleep focus mode when we go to bed and wake up. 

For now, I'm planning on reselling this watch because for an 1100 euro watch, it has become just a glorified GPS tracker for me and that is making me upset. 

  • 0 8 months ago

    Im am a shift worker and with crazy sleep schedules ,and zero issues. Go in Garmin connect and tap on your watch, configurations and in sleep mode you can schedule your sleep routine as you need. I use that since it was launched in previous models,in the Fênix 8 work well as in the others. This is that kind of cases is better ask or do some research before complaining 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Tiago78

    Did you read my whole post or are you just replying on the title? Because in the post it states that I can adjust the sleep schedule.. but i think we need something that we can set and forget, and the best method is no sleep schedule

    Just let us push a button (sleep focus button) on the watch to activate it and be done with it. 

    That is all I'm asking. 

    If you keep the sleep schedule on it puts the watch in sleep mode, it activates it automaticly even if you disable it, on the other hand, when sleep schedule is off it puts the watch out of sleep focus making the screen light up when I'm trying to sleep. 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Gyrolion

    I'm not a shift worker.  Mine sleep schedule was set 10pm to 7am everyday.  However I went to bed at 8pm a few times last week and the watch detected my sleep started before 10pm.  Not sure if you just go to sleep any hours and see if the watch would detect your sleep automatically.  Somehow mine seems to act automatically.  My Pulse Oximeter is set on during sleep.

  • 0 7 months ago

    The Garmin implementation of sleep tracking is basically a gimmick. They only include this half baked feature so as not to be seen as falling behind their competitors (some of which do implement this very well). 

    I just got back from a week of search and rescue training where my sleep was extremely poor with uncomfortable conditions causing constant waking. The sleep app did not recognise this at all. 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to 6942738

    Global brands like Garmin, Huawei, Jabra, Suunto, Sony, Samsung, Huami, Withings, and Mont Blanc have all created wearable devices that utilize Firstbeat analytics to interpret performance data into information people can use to make better, more personal health, fitness, and training decisions.

    I agree I would like it to progress to detect sleep 24/7 for shift workers, not sure how easy this would be to achieve. I believe Garmin bought first beat analytics. So now everyone except perhaps, apple are using the garmin owned first beat metrics!?

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to scarboroughjohn
    scarboroughjohn said:
    So now everyone except perhaps, apple are using the garmin owned first beat metrics!?

    I can't speak for any of those other non-Garmin vendors, but Suunto doesn't use FirstBeat anymore. Kinda makes sense, since Garmin bought FirstBeat. Why would you assume everyone else (other than Garmin) would continue to use FirstBeat forever!?

    https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2023/11/suunto-amoled-review.html

    – First Suunto watch using fully in-house algorithms, transitioned away from FirstBeat algorithms

    At the time of the sale (4 years ago), DCR speculated that it wouldn't make sense for Garmin to continue licensing FirstBeat algorithms to its competitors (although they said they would). I'm not gonna check all the companies you mentioned, but at least Suunto no longer uses FirstBeat.

    scarboroughjohn said:
    Global brands like Garmin, Huawei, Jabra, Suunto, Sony, Samsung, Huami, Withings, and Mont Blanc have all created wearable devices that utilize Firstbeat analytics to interpret performance data into information people can use to make better, more personal health, fitness, and training decisions.

    Great copy-paste job. I thought it sounded like corporate marketing/PR-speak:

    https://www.firstbeat.com/en/blog/key-takeaways-about-the-future-of-wearables-from-firstbeat-summit-2019/

  • 0 7 months ago

    You nailed the problem.

    And why the *** we cannot turb on gesture in sleep fokused program. Thats a mess. If you work at night, you are not able to use your sleeping window e.g. 10pm till 6am, because your watch doesnt support gesture during this 8 hours.

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to Nukulukuhugulu
    Nukulukuhugulu said:
    you work at night, you are not able to use your sleeping window e.g. 10pm till 6am, because your watch doesnt support gesture during this 8 hours.

    So, press a button. 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to Nukulukuhugulu

    Check the "display settings" in "Sleep Focus" you can turn on "gesture mode' there. TBF the "sleep focus" settings have some decent options for customisation.

    Nukulukuhugulu said:
    And why the *** we cannot turb on gesture in sleep fokused program
  • 0 7 months ago in reply to mcbit

    Nope. That's incorrect and one of the problems. You can't switch it on, it's grey.