Comment by brlewis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by brlewis | Hacker News Reader

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I work for Fitbit. Even though I don't speak for Fitbit, usually I try to keep my personal tone consistent with the friendly, positive tone Fitbit's branding wants to use. But I feel driven to respond to one part of the article in a way that's bluntly critical.

One cautionary tale from the case study: A woman came in reporting that she had an average sleep efficiency of only 60 percent, according to her tracker. She was given medication for restless leg syndrome, tested negative for disordered breathing, and underwent a formal sleep study. But after being told that she had slept deeply in the lab, she was not reassured.

“Then why does my Fitbit say I am sleeping poorly?” she asked.

The "cautionary tale" part seems to be saying that this is an example of irrational anxiety caused by home sleep tracking. That's a stupid assumption to make. A sleep study does a precise measurement of how well you sleep in a lab. The words "in the lab" are right there in the article. Did this article really have to be rushed to press so fast that nobody could take 2 seconds to realize that there could be issues present in her nightly sleep environment that aren't present in the lab? Her question is valid.

Yeah, it would be interesting if she had worn her Fitbit during the lab study, and we knew whether the Fitbit score during that time was the same or different. Otherwise it's kind of a meaningless anecdote. Maybe there's additional relevant detail that was not included in the article.

It could be as simple as "you sleep badly because your cat jumps up on the bed". No cat in the lab.

Or a bright blue LED of one of her bedroom appliances, noise, temperature, blanket, night owl neighbors, etc. Never had one of these studies, but I suppose the lab strives towards an ideal sleeping environment to identify pathological causes.

Btw, it's also possible for the lab environment to be unrealistically bad. You have all these electrodes and wires attached to your head and other body parts, sleeping in an unfamiliar environment, if you need to use the bathroom then you have to tell the technician to come unhook you from the wires and then re-hook you when you're back... and on the subject of bright LEDs, there were a couple in the room that I covered up with spare items of clothing the last time I got a sleep study.

But yes, there might well be much worse problems at home. I think a lab sleep study is best suited for detecting problems like sleep apnea, where it doesn't matter when you fell asleep as long as you did eventually. Though even for that, you'd probably have to make sure your sleeping position is about the same.

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