Fitbit wearables have been able to track your sleep for quite a while now. In essence, they use heart rate and movement sensors to measure your sleep cycles, providing insights as to how well you’ve slept. The company is working on further improving these measurements by monitoring ambient noise and even telling if you’re a heavy snorer. This data could then be used to assess what type of or what “sleep animal” you are.
These upcoming features were identified by 9to5Google after decompiling the latest Fitbit APK.
Snore & Noise Detect
The first is Snore & Noise Detect, which will use the microphone to record any noise that may trouble your sleep, as well as your potential snoring. The system is able to qualify the noise level and automatically detect whether it’s an external noise or snoring. Unfortunately, it can’t assess whether you’re the one snoring or if the noise could be coming from someone else.
Regardless of who is snoring, the Fitbit app will calculate how much you’ve snored, potentially ranking it:
- None to mild, if you’ve snored less than 10% during the night
- Moderate, if you’ve snored from 10 to 40% of the time you were asleep
- Frequent, if you’ve been noisy more than 40% of your sleep time
Similarly, Fitbit will assess the ambient noise in your sleeping environment on a similar scale:
- Very quiet (30 dBA or lower)
- Quiet (30–50 dBA)
- Moderate (50–70 dBA)
- Loud (70–90 dBA)
- Very loud (90 dBA or higher)
As you might expect, using this new feature will increase your battery consumption, and it’s recommended that you have at least 40% charge remaining before sleeping.
Your sleep animal
Another sleep-tracking feature Fitbit is working on is “Your sleep animal,” which, you might have guessed, will match your sleep pattern to an animal, namely:
- Restless Sleeper
- Segmented Sleeper
- Shallow Sleeper
- Short Sleeper
- Slow to Fall Asleep Sleeper
- Solid Sleeper
- The Bear
- The Dolphin
- The Giraffe
- The Hummingbird
- The Kangaroo
- The Tortoise
Sadly, this feature seems to be in the early development stages, and not much information is available yet.
It’s unclear when either feature will become widely available, if ever. However, given how the Snore & Noise function is extensively built, it could roll out relatively soon, and probably before Fitbit turns you into a Bear or Giraffe — I’d be curious to see how someone could sleep like a hummingbird versus a dolphin.
