Sleep Tracking not accurate

tl;dr I can't speak for others but I get very accurate sleep detection -- my hunch is your night-time pattern is unusual enough that it's breaking some of the built-in assumptions that the 245 relies on.

First, congrats on the new baby and good luck with catching up on sleep!

Second, I've had good luck with sleep tracking overall, but I've noticed on the rare occasion I get out of bed to p**, the next day's sleep report may show me as highly active, but still asleep.  That observation, plus the fact that we're asked the typical time we get in/out of bed while setting up the watch, suggest to me that Garmin has optimized sleep detection for a fairly stereotypical night -- which you are not generating!  One possible heuristic they may use:  once your "normal" bedtime has been reached and you're relatively stationary, any mild movements afterward are assumed to occur during sleep.  In other words:  it would be a terrible device for someone with insomia.  

I might also add:  since there is only about a 10-beat difference between when I'm quietly working at the desk (65 BPM) and pretty much out like a log in bed (55 BPM) I can say with high confidence that my HR is not a good predictor for sleep tracking.  It wouldn't surprise me in the least if sleep tracking relied almost exclusively on the accelerometer, which again:  when you climb back into bed after the the last diaper and bottle and it takes you an hour to fall asleep, if you spend most of the time in a quiet state that may be "sleep" as far as Garmin is concerned.  

Yes, Garmin sleep tracking is awful. Never got the time I actually fell asleep right. Often reporting I was in deep sleep while using my pc, brushing my teeth etc. Got so tired starting every day editing my sleep stats I returned the Venu after 2-3 months. Doesn't even record naps.

Hi,

Thanks RE: baby! It's been a wild ride, but very rewarding.

I appreciate your comments on how Garmin may use assumptions to predict sleep analysis. I have actually adjusted the "normal" bed time a few times to see if this has an effect, but I continue to get very inaccurate representations of what is actually occurring at night.

In fact last night, it wasn't even the baby that was keeping me awake. I just couldn't get to sleep at the start of the night. I would say it took me 2 hours before I finally drifted off, and I was consistently shifting around every 10 mins or so to try to get into a comfortable position (my wife can attest to this... and she wasn't impressed). It was a pretty hot night, which is why I think it took me a while to get to sleep.

I have attached my sleep graph below. It shows that I was in deep sleep almost as soon as I hit the sack, but interestingly enough there were a number of pink spikes showing that I am awake in between the deep sleep. This is what is frustrating to me... clearly the device has detected my movements and can tell that I am awake, however it suggests that between those movements I am in deep sleep - which is so contradicting. I would understand if it showed light sleep, but for it to jump between deep sleep to awake so frequently is ridiculous.

I also note that every night it suggests that I fall straight into a deep sleep - is this something that has been written into the Garmin software assumptions? I noticed in other forums people have also mentioned this and a colleague of mine at work said he's graph shows it every night as well. 

In any case... I use my device for road running and observing my heart rate, so it does the job. But it does raise some questions about what other metrics on the device are accurate, as i am sure it uses my sleep data to calculate body battery, performance condition and recovery times.

It doesn’t record accurately for me either. I’m in my mid 50’s and the last year and a half of sleep has been terrible. I was awake the other night a total of 3 hours and Garmin said my awake time was 18min. Obviously, I don’t need my watch to tell me what kind of sleep I had. But I wear it to give me my resting heart rate. As an avid athlete, I use that info to help me discern if I’m heading into over-training. So I ignore the sleep stats

I've just moved from a Fitbit Inspire HR to a Garmin Forerunner 245, all for the running tracking. The sleep tracking is very clearly inaccurate, and not a patch on the Fitbit at half the price. It says I've started sleep when all I've done is sat in bed.

It is very strange that this functionality is so poor - you could say that the other tracking features make up for it, and they do to an extent. But if I was a Garmin product manager, I would worry that such a poor feature erodes trust in other aspects of the product. if the sleep is terrible, maybe other features are inaccurate too?

To make this at all valuable, I will have to write down the time I go to sleep just before I do, and then adjust the times when I wake up. 

Garmin sells crap. Check "The Quantified Scientist" on Youtube for good review on how bad it is compared to Fitbit.

Guys, I won‘t argue about the quality (or lack of it) of forerunners sleep tracking.

It is just one thing, I never get: What is the use of a good sleep tracking?? What will you do with that information?

To me it is simple: Yes, I wear my FR at night, because I want to get additional information about my regeneration after runs - this is done via HR and HRV and called „stress“ in the metrics. Less stress, better regeneration. I don‘t really care, if I was asleep or wake during that time and even less, which state of sleep I was in. And if I slept well or not, I can feel in the morning - no need for a watch telling me that.

So, what do you want to get out of „sleep tracking“.

What do I get out of sleep tracking? Like lots of tracking data: it's a target to work towards. Good sleep and enough of it brings huge health benefits. I know that, and yet I tend to stay up too late, and sleep 5-6 hours. Setting a target encourages me to go to sleep earlier, and I feel better for it. Looking back at - for example - a whole week where I've gone to sleep before 11.30 feels like an achievement. I found the Fitbit great for that. 

Also, I understand that the Garmin's sleep data informs body battery. Wrong sleep data, wrong body battery. So, it's good for that, too. Such a shame that  Garmin can't seem to track sleep properly - I have to go in and edit every day, which sucks. I would probably not have got this watch if I'd know it would be so poor in that area.