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Garmin Sleep Tracking

mjcall2015
over 5 years ago

I purchased the Garmin Venu 4ish months ago, after using the original Garmin vivoactive for 3 years. With the original vivoactive, you could push a button and tell the watch to go into sleep mode, OR you could just go to sleep and the watch would pick up your (approx) sleep time. 

Sometime in 2018, the sleep function was changed in an update, and became less accurate at detecting sleep. If I didn't manually set the sleep, the watch would not detect when I was sleeping. I was getting readings saying I didn't start sleep until 145am, when I actually went to bed at 1130pm.

Now that I have the Venu, I am experiencing the same thing. Detecting sleep is awful. For some reason, they have you set a regular sleep time in the device settings. But I am one of millions, that does not have a regular job schedule. So I don't have a regular sleep schedule.

Bring back the manual sleep on/off.

Improve sleep detection/movement etc

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I don't have the Venu, I have the FR245. I would like to have the manual on/off you refer to as it would be an easier way to get an accurate sleep time at least.  As I detail below, there is a lot wrong with Garmins implementation of sleep tracking.  However, I am not sure it is any worse than other wearable devices?  

    My 245 has you set a sleep window so the watch knows when you are apt to be sleeping. I set mine for 10 pm to 9 am even though I will only be sleeping during 7-1/2 to 8-1/2 of those 11 hours.  Then the watch senses how much I am moving around and determines when I am asleep from that motion. Less motion equals deep sleep, more motion equals light sleep.  I am not sure how it is determining REM sleep.

    Problems are numerous though.  For example, if it is 10:30 pm and I am sitting in a chair reading, the watch will record me as sleeping lightly.  When I get up out of the chair, it changes to awake.  Then if I get in bed and read some more, it records me asleep.  So every night when I really turn out the lights, I note the time and add 10 or 15 minutes on to that in my mind.  In the morning, I go into Garmin Connect and adjust the time to when I actually went to sleep.

    Also, because I tend to move my arms around quite a bit when sleeping, most of my sleep is recorded as light.  A fair percentage is recorded as REM although as I said, I don't understand how that is being guessed at.  Virtually none of my sleep is recorded as deep. I think that is because I move my arms every so often and the watch figures I must be sleeping lightly.  Someone told me that REM sleep is determined by periods of no movement.  I don't know if that is correct but if it is, I wonder how the watch would then differentiate REW from deep.  I have been told by Garmin that movement is the main thing sensed during the sleep window you set and my observations would seem to go along with that.

    My watch also shows me as having many brief moments during sleep when my pulseox drops to the low 80s. I am not confident that is accurate either especially since I am told I am a quiet sleeper, no snoring, loud breathing, gasping or anything like that.  Just rhythmic, quiet breathing.  I am also never tired during the day so I believe I get enough healthy sleep. 

    My watch also records several brief moments of a respiration rate down around 6bpm with highs of 18bpm and an average around 11bpm.  If that is accurate, you may think the low respiration would correspond with low pulseoox, but it never does. My heart rate when sleeping is average 55 to 60 bpm with occasional highs in the low 70s and an occasional low around 50-52.  Overall the heart rate trace when sleeping is pretty much a flattish line.

    So in summary, I would say I sleep well even though the watch would seem to indicate otherwise.  I think the sleep tracking features of these devices is more entertainment than science.  I would not rely on the information at all. Maybe future software updates will improve the functioning.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    They did not take usefull logarithm to analyze anything about sleep. The venu with 5 firstbeatfeatures is on the lower end of this.

    Garmin dosent care, sorry. Sleep? Naps? Naps, yeah. A 50€ Device from Amazfit or Huawei can detect naps like a boss. Garmin? Nothing of this.