Sleep tracking issues on Galaxy Watch?

[frankf10]

Is the fitbit sleep tracker more accurate? i feel i'm getting more motionless (or deep sleep) than I was getting with my charge 2.

I did notice i got less steps on day 1 with galaxy watch than i do with fitbit(maybe the fitbit is too sensitive and tracks hand movements as steps.)

How much of a battery drain (slight?significant?) is it to have continuous heart rate on vs the frequent every 10 minutes?

 

[arunma]

I've just recently started experiencing sleep tracking issues as well. Three nights ago my watch simply didn't track my sleep, and again last night it happened. I'll keep an eye on it and let you guys know if I can find a solution.

 

[arunma]

How much of a battery drain (slight?significant?) is it to have continuous heart rate on vs the frequent every 10 minutes?

It's not significant. Maybe a couple extra percent over the night.

 

[arunma]

Last night my watch tracked my sleep correctly. I'm glad of course, but this is a weird and non-reproducible issue.

 

[Chrismlaw]

Had the same problem but solved it by tightening watch strap one notch overnight to keep back of watch closer against skin.

 

[Chrismlaw]

I take it back. Did everything I usually do last night (continuous heart rate on, tighten strap) and got the unable to get consistent heart rate message. Bother!

 

[arunma]

I take it back. Did everything I usually do last night (continuous heart rate on, tighten strap) and got the unable to get consistent heart rate message. Bother!

Dang, but at least it tracked your sleep and gave you the restless/light/motionless breakdown right? If so, that might just be dirt on the heart rate sensor or something.

I haven't experienced this issue since my last post. I wonder if my watch was loose due to the magnetic watch band I was wearing. Still, it's the same band from my Gear S3 and I never had this problem there. Perhaps the Galaxy Watch is more sensitive and checks that you are actually wearing the watch all night?

 

[EMGSM]

I have the 46mm and so far everything seems to be fine. However, I just got it last week.

 

[RiddleN]

I have had the 42mm version. for about a week. I noticed that the sleep tracking was either innacurate or was saying that the heart rate did not track during the night so detailed analysis couldn't be made. I found this on the Samsung forums, and I'm trying it today/tonight to see if it helps:
1) Set HR tracking to ALWAYS
2) In the S-Health app on the watch, disable Elipticle and Rowing Machine trainers (under Settings>Workout Detection>Activities to detect)
3) Reboot the watch.
4) Make sure the watch is tight on your wrist when sleeping. I tightened mine one notch from how I wear it during the day.

I'll report back if this worked for me.

The Samsung tech on the forum mentioned that this is a known issue that will be fixed with the next update of Tizen, but he didn't say when that would be.
UPDATE: The steps above Did fix the sleep tracking for me. However, it only made the sleep details show up on my watch (after about 1.5 hrs of being awake) but it did not ever sync the details to the S Health app. It did make my heart rate monitor more accurate and cause my battery to drain because it was running constantly. Oh well.

 

[SpyglassSally]

We have two 46 mm and use them for sleep tracking too. We didn't know at first that you had to turn on Continuous heart monitoring to get the REM data. It doesn't take up much battery life so I just leave it on during the day and have a widget to check my heart rate easily whenever I feel like it.

Sometimes it got the time I went to bed wrong but on the Track tab of the Sleep screen, under Sleep details I think, I could click on it and change the times.

What I can't figure out is if having REM display takes the place of Deep, when you have Continuous turned on. I wish there were better documentation on it.

 

[DenisSamsungGuy]

Does the Samsung tracker log the time (say 11:15 pm) when I fall asleep and when I wake up?

 

[SpyglassSally]

Does the Samsung tracker log the time (say 11:15 pm) when I fall asleep and when I wake up?

It will log it but it's not always accurate. Sometimes, I guess based on movement or heart rate, it gets the time I went to bed wrong. I have edited that in the past but sometimes it won't let me and, honestly, I'm not sure why. I'm still working on that. I believe you can also manually enter sleep time.

You can either let it make it's best guess or you can also manually turn on/off Good Night mode which turns off the screen while you sleep so you don't have the light and also can't accidentally input via the watch screen.

 

[DenisSamsungGuy]

Ok, thanks for clalrfying that @SpyglassSally
The feature is there at least. I read somewhere that it only tracked the hours that you slept and not the time, but they might have reviewed an old version of the software.
And I assume that you can go back and look at you sleeping-statistics? Either from the watch or the phone.

It will log it but it's not always accurate. Sometimes, I guess based on movement or heart rate, it gets the time I went to bed wrong. I have edited that in the past but sometimes it won't let me and, honestly, I'm not sure why. I'm still working on that. I believe you can also manually enter sleep time.

You can either let it make it's best guess or you can also manually turn on/off Good Night mode which turns off the screen while you sleep so you don't have the light and also can't accidentally input via the watch screen.

 

[SpyglassSally]

Ok, thanks for clalrfying that @SpyglassSally
The feature is there at least. I read somewhere that it only tracked the hours that you slept and not the time, but they might have reviewed an old version of the software.
And I assume that you can go back and look at you sleeping-statistics? Either from the watch or the phone.

Yes, you can go back, using Samsung Health app on the phone, to review historical data. You can do this on the watch also, but it's not as much info.

The sleep chart shows your sleep based either on your movements (restless, light and motionless) or stages of sleep (awake, light, deep and REM). But if you want the stages (i.e., REM) then you need to enable Always for heart rate monitoring because that's part of the way in calculates.

It also shows you a graph of time and sleep stages which I think correlates with what I observe. For example, if I get up at 2 am to go to the bathroom, it will show me as awake at that time.

 

[arunma]

Regarding the "awake" state, my watch seems to detect me as being awake very intermittently throughout the night. Now I'm a light sleeper, as you can tell from the attached image from last night, but I'm pretty sure I'm not awake at all the times indicated. Back when I used the Gear S3, it detected me as "motionless" for the bulk of the night. Is this how everyone else's sleep is looking in terms of the awake state?

 

[Greymire]

After turning on continuous heart rate monitor, I've received more detailed sleep information. Funny thing is I haven't had any deep sleep recorded. Just awake, light and REM. Don't know what qualifies as deep sleep, but my watch doesn't think I get any.

That is my issue as well. I leave heart monitor always on and while it tracks it records zero deep sleep. Coming from a Fitbit Ionic which was super accurate in sleep and heart rate (but sucked in too many other areas) its disappointing and I hope it's fixed. Especially since I only get about a day and a half battery life with HR always on. The Ionic got a minimum of three days even with battery sucking watch face.

 

[Greymire]

Is the fitbit sleep tracker more accurate? i feel i'm getting more motionless (or deep sleep) than I was getting with my charge 2.

I did notice i got less steps on day 1 with galaxy watch than i do with fitbit(maybe the fitbit is too sensitive and tracks hand movements as steps.)

How much of a battery drain (slight?significant?) is it to have continuous heart rate on vs the frequent every 10 minutes?

The Ionic sleep tracker is much better as is the heart rate. But it has serious sync issues. Especially with Apple and Samsung phones. I switched be a use notifications and such hardly ever worked with the Ionic and sync issues. I would look and the Ionic hadn't synced for a day. I would have to remove the watch from the app and add it or sometimes just removing it from Bluetooth and detecting it again worked.

 

[Greymire]

I have also noticed it doesn't track heart rate well with certain bands. It seems to need a real good fit that doesn't move. The Ionic said it worked best if you could get a pinky in the band. With the Galaxy it needs to be tighter.

 

[arunma]

I have also noticed it doesn't track heart rate well with certain bands. It seems to need a real good fit that doesn't move. The Ionic said it worked best if you could get a pinky in the band. With the Galaxy it needs to be tighter.

I realize we're talking sleep tracking here, but strangely I've experienced the opposite when jogging. When I wear a tight band during exercise, my watch will stop tracking my heart rate after awhile, likely because it's getting blocked by sweat. When Ioosen the band a bit, I have fewer heart rate dropouts.

 

[Greymire]

I realize we're talking sleep tracking here, but strangely I've experienced the opposite when jogging. When I wear a tight band during exercise, my watch will stop tracking my heart rate after awhile, likely because it's getting blocked by sweat. When Ioosen the band a bit, I have fewer heart rate dropouts.

That is possible. I really don't know what all it detects for sleep. It seems to me that sweat was the reason they said to leave a pinky space on the Ionic bands. I haven't seen anything definitive, other than not to wear it on the wrist bone, with the Samsung.