How Fitbit Developed the Sleep Profile Experience

Fitbit is at all times in search of methods to assist customers sleep higher. You might already concentrate on some methods your Fitbit can assist you get a greater evening’s relaxation, particularly in case you commonly verify your Sleep Score, however do you know that we’ve dialed even deeper into sleep insights that will help you perceive your sleep well being in a complete new approach? 

The customized Sleep Profile with Fitbit Premium goes past nightly monitoring to investigate your sleep over a month-long interval. It consists of three elements: your month-to-month sleep evaluation based mostly on 10 key sleep metrics, schooling and steering, and your Sleep Animal. Curious about how Fitbit researchers went about creating this essential new function? Keep studying to study extra—direct from the supply.

We chatted with Karla Gleichauf, a analysis scientist on the Consumer Health Research Team, which leverages Fitbit biometric knowledge to assist customers sleep higher. Her latest work consists of research on inhabitants developments in sleep and well being outcomes, along with inventing and growing the Sleep Profile. As a Fitbitter with almost 7 years beneath her belt, Karla has labored in a number of analysis areas together with bodily exercise, diabetes, and now sleep. Prior to Fitbit, Karla bought a PhD from Stanford in Environmental Fluid Mechanics, engaged on boats in coastal environments and modeling their flows. Karla has gone from working with sensors within the water to sensors on the wrist.

Where did the thought for Sleep Profile come from?

KARLA: We needed to assist customers study their sleeping patterns and perceive how they might sleep higher. This meant growing an expertise that assessed customers’ sleep well being with their Fitbit knowledge. Healthy sleep will not be the absence of sleep issues however as a substitute, it promotes bodily and psychological well-being, and is related to optimistic well being outcomes. 

If we might measure customers’ sleep well being, we additionally had the chance to see if there have been distinct sleeper sorts, a query that’s an lively space of analysis in sleep science. We thought that telling a person about their sleeper sort can be a enjoyable, approachable, and nonjudgmental option to study their sleep. It would additionally present a benchmark of people that sleep like them. With Sleep Profile, we’re in a position to present scientific rigor packaged in a pleasant approach, to offer perception and steering to customers.

Why is Fitbit properly positioned to tackle this problem?

Fitbit has been pioneering sleep monitoring since 2009, together with metrics like Sleep Score to assist customers get a extra granular take a look at their total sleep, and incorporating suggestions for the right way to change into extra rested and recharged. Using a Fitbit to trace sleep has key benefits, even over a sleep lab. For one factor, you’ll be able to see a holistic view of sleep metrics courting way back to you’d like. Thanks to Fitbit’s historical past, and the prevalence of gadgets, we set about analyzing 22 billion hours of sleep knowledge.

What have been some challenges the staff confronted?

There is not any phenotyping in literature that’s inclusive of knowledge we seize at Fitbit. Aside from acquainted sleep patterns—like evening owls and morning larks—there aren’t universally accepted wholesome sleeping patterns that we might reference, so we turned to the info to see if we might discover distinct patterns.This was a cross practical effort with folks from Google and Fitbit’s knowledge visualization, Product, Design, User Research (UXR), Clinical, and Research & Development groups. 

How did the staff set about characterizing sleep?

Fitbit researchers initially engineered hundreds of options impressed by tutorial analysis and observations made with Fitbit’s largest longitudinal sleep dataset obtainable. For instance, we developed a number of metrics describing a person’s problem falling asleep, equivalent to a person’s likelihood of a wake occasion within the first hour of sleep, and the time it takes them to achieve “sound” sleep, impressed by sleep literature’s latency to persistent sleep. We additionally developed options characterizing sleep structure, equivalent to common sleep cycle size and the way lengthy it takes you to get to varied levels of sleep. 

We then decreased the options right down to an important utilizing unsupervised machine studying and statistical methods. We experimented with dividing the inhabitants into subpopulations, discovering that there have been 6 sleeper sort clusters. We then investigated what traits have been most associated to every sleep cluster, and labored with sleep specialists in home (sleep neurologist, clinicians, and researchers) and in academia (equivalent to Dr. Michael Grandner and Dr. Allison Siebern, in addition to Dr. Logan Schneider) to outline which metrics have been most essential to getting higher sleep. We in the end landed on 10 longitudinal sleep options within the “Monthly Sleep Analysis.”

Five of those metrics are fully new to Fitbit, which describe customers’ sleep habits (sleep schedule variability, days with naps), sleep upkeep (nights with lengthy awakenings, sleep stability), and sleep onset (time earlier than sound sleep).

What did the staff uncover?

We have been shocked to seek out {that a} greater prevalence of quick awakenings, that are 30 seconds or longer, have been related to higher well being and health, equivalent to decrease BMI, decrease RHR, and better lively minutes. We found that awakenings three minutes or longer was the brink for when well being outcomes started to show extra detrimental. In addition, we discovered that there are 6 distinct sleeper sorts. The most typical sleeper sort, the Giraffe, tends to not get loads of sleep however sleep solidly after they do. The least frequent sleeper sort, Dolphin, usually goes to mattress at variable instances, they generally have lengthy awakenings, and so they take naps extra typically than most.  

How did you flip the learnings into sleep animals?

Once we recognized the sleeper sorts, we needed to resolve: what’s the applicable metaphor? How will we convey metaphors in a culturally delicate approach in a globally obtainable product? We examined animals versus different choices and determined that animals have been essentially the most relatable. Then, we had to determine which animals to make use of. Our UXR staff spoke to lecturers and specialists in spokescharacters, animism, totemism, and animal sleep patterns. 

Did you recognize?

• The animal with the very best proportion of ladies is the Tortoise, who tends to go to sleep extra slowly and get an inexpensive quantity of sleep total.
• The sleep animal with the oldest customers is the Hedgehog, who usually will get decrease quantities of deep and REM sleep. The Hedgehog additionally has the very best proportion of males.
• The most typical sleeper sort is the Giraffe, who tends to not get loads of sleep however sleep solidly after they do.
• The least frequent sleeper sort is the Dolphin, who usually goes to mattress at variable instances; they generally have lengthy awakenings, and so they take naps extra typically than most.  

What can customers do with this info?

Users might discover ways to sleep higher from their Sleep Profile. Your Sleep Animal highlights total developments in your sleep and can assist you perceive the way you sleep relative to others. Your Monthly Sleep Analysis assesses the ten dimensions of your sleep well being and exhibits you areas of sleep that you simply’ve been doing properly and areas you could possibly enhance.

For occasion, final month my Sleep Animal was a Giraffe as a result of I tended to go to mattress late, get much less sleep than most customers, however didn’t have a lot time spent awake. My Monthly Sleep Analysis confirmed that my “Sleep Start Time” and “Sleep Schedule Variability” have been greater than the best vary, highlighting that these have been the areas I might enhance.

Fitbit continues to innovate in sleep monitoring. From analysis, design and past, we see sleep as one a part of a broader set of well being and wellness patterns. The quantity or timing of train impacts sleep, vitamin interacts with sleep high quality, long-term modifications to every day habits can have an effect on key sleep metrics, and Fitbit helps deliver all these areas collectively to assist our customers dwell their greatest lives.