Since the day I strapped on the Google Fitbit Air, it’s been my go-to fitness tracker. Thanks to its featherweight build and week-long battery life, I can leave it on my wrist 24/7 or track my sleep all week.
Naturally, I’ve become serious about monitoring my night’s rest, a job my bulky old Huawei Watch GT 4 smartwatch always made a hassle.
However, I reached a major snag right out of the gate when using Fitbit Air, which frustrates me. The sleep tracking felt completely hit-and-miss.
Initially, I was convinced my Fitbit Air was defective and nearly boxed it up for a return. Then I stumbled on a single setting that fixed the sleep tracking problem.
Google Fitbit Air is a solid tracking device (almost)
It’s better than my smartwatch
One of the main reasons I picked up the Fitbit Air was that my smartwatch felt unbearable in bed.
It was overly bulky, and its metallic casing would occasionally clobber the wall, or worse, my wife, in the middle of the night. On top of that, the heft strained my wrist and left deep indentations by morning.
The Fitbit Air offered a lighter package than my smartwatch. Its screen-free design means little to no distraction, and it’s remarkably lightweight.
After two nights of wearing it, I adapted to the size and weight, often forgetting it was on my wrist.
Battery life was another huge selling point. The Fitbit Air easily stretches through a full week, unlike my smartwatch, which barely lasts four to five days.
That frees me from constantly monitoring its battery level. I pop it on the charger for a few minutes while taking a shower, and it adds a quarter to a third of the total battery or even reaches full sometimes.
Everything seemed great on paper, but actual sleep tracking turned into a total headache. The very thing I bought the Air for wasn’t working reliably.
Sleep tracking on the Fitbit Air was a struggle
It stopped tracking in the early hours
Aside from the annoying wee-hour sleep alerts and insights, the primary problem was how wonky the sleep logging in the Google Health app was.
On multiple mornings, I’d wake up to find the band had only recorded a fraction of my sleep.
For example, when I got up at 5:25 AM for a quick trip to the bathroom, the tracker stopped recording my remaining sleep. It logged five hours of total sleep and slapped me with an abysmal sleep score.
I attempted to force a sync via the Google Health app on my Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, but it was no use.
It outright refused to log or show the rest of my sleep after I climbed back into bed and woke up at about 7 in the morning.
At first, I wrote it off as a temporary glitch, but the exact same issue hit me two nights later.
The tracker kept failing at the same time I stepped out of bed in the wee hours, which finalized my sleep results prematurely.
On another occasion, I woke up at 6:30 AM to drive my son to school and went back to sleep at 6:50 AM. I assumed the Fitbit Air would pick back up and log the extra hour and a half before I got up at 8:30 AM, but it logged nothing.
A similar thing happened when I woke up at 5:00 AM. Even though I went back to sleep until 7:52 AM, those hours weren’t recorded.
I was well within my return window and came close to sending the Google Fitbit Air back. I decided to wait for a software patch, hoping Google would address the bug.
But no luck. Even after a firmware bump, the tracking remained unreliable for many nights.
The fix is surprisingly simple
I swapped wrists
Before completely giving up, I dug into the settings to see if any toggles might fix my tracking experience.
While I didn’t spot a direct fix, I stumbled across the Wrist preference setting under Device preferences in the Google Health app.
It’s a standard configuration for selecting whether you wear the band on your dominant or non-dominant wrist.
As a right-handed user, I have always worn the Fitbit Air on my left wrist with the app set to non-dominant.
Without much thought, I strapped the Fitbit Air band onto my right hand and toggled the setting to Dominant. The change in performance was immediately noticeable.
Over the next several nights, the Fitbit Air captured my entire sleep without dropping a session, including when I got up in the middle of the night.
It properly tagged those early-morning bathroom trips as either “awake” or “restlessness” time, while keeping the entire sleep session intact.
The accuracy of other metrics improved alongside it. Where the app previously showed an empty awake gap, it now accurately tracked my deep sleep and REM cycles within those interruptions.
My theory is that since I’m right-handed, my dominant arm makes more subtle movements during sleep.
Wearing the tracker on that side gave the sensors better motion cues to differentiate between waking up for good and simply rolling back over into bed.
To find the Wrist preference, open the Google Health app, tap your Fitbit device icon in the upper-left corner, then choose Device preferences.
Alternative fixes for Fitbit Air’s poor sleep tracking
Check your strap fit and positioning
Switching wrists might not be the perfect fix for everyone dealing with janky sleep logs. If you aren’t keen on moving your tracker to your main hand, a few basic adjustments are worth trying.
First, check how tight you wear the band. I suspect that strapping the Fitbit Air on too tightly chokes the sensor and reduces motion detection accuracy. Wearing it snugly is fine, but avoid strapping it too tightly.
Testing different bands can also pay off. I swapped to a third-party rubber strap that worked as well as the stock fabric band.
Even better, it’s sweat- and water-resistant, so grime or dirt won’t easily accumulate over time.
Sliding the tracker slightly higher up your forearm or away from the wrist bone can also result in more accurate sensor readings.
If you’re still missing hours, you can use the in-app manual logging feature. It’s a raw workaround that only lets you input start and end times, though. You can’t manually edit sleep stages or import data from other smartwatches.
Why the Google Fitbit Air stays on my wrist
Beyond tweaking the Google Health app settings, wearing a watch on your dominant hand takes some getting used to.
After years of rocking watches on my left wrist, having the Fitbit Air on my right felt weird at first.
Fortunately, its featherweight design made the adjustment period smooth, and I frequently forget it’s there. It’s a minor trade-off to get reliable, accurate health data from the device.
Still, users shouldn’t need to swap wrists to get basic functionality out of a fitness band. I hope Google eventually brings a definitive fix to this.
8.5/10
- Battery Life
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7 days
- Health sensors
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Optical heart rate, 3-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor
- Dimensions
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35 x 17 x 8.3mm (Module)
- Water Resistance
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50 meters
The Google Fitbit Air is the company’s screen-free fitness tracker. Order one from major retailers.