Daylight Savings Time causes inaccurate sleep tracking on Fitbit devices

Daylight Savings Time strikes again, and this time it is messing with our fitness trackers. It’s that time of the year when we (at least here in most of the United States) must roll back our clocks exactly one hour and lose that precious hour of sleep, all in the name of saving daylight. However, because of this change in our clocks, your Fitbit smartwatch or fitness tracker may have given you the wrong information about how much sleep you got this week.

According to 9to5Google, many Fitbit owners have noticed in the last couple of days that their sleep tracking results were a little off on Saturday night when DST (Daylight Savings Time) kicked in. In particular, the app is off by an hour when it comes to the time it says users slept. This is also affecting Pixel Watch users who use the Fitbit sleep tracking feature.

The information is coming directly from users’ posts on Fitbit forums and Reddit, with users stating that their sleep tracking results show different times. In one post, a user reported the following:

After the time change, my daily activity hours have shifted from 7am – 9pm to 6am – 8pm. I tried to change the hour range in settings, but the change doesn’t save and goes right back to 6-8.

Source: Jennifer Hulgan / Fitbit Forums

It appears, from the responses on both threads, that this is a common occurrence on Fitbit every time the time changes or when the user travels across time zones — a long-time issue that has been acknowledged but not fixed for years. However, it does tend to sort itself out after a day or two, as confirmed by Fitbit Support via Twitter:

Hi, John. We're aware of the recent shift to standard time affecting Fitbit data. This usually resolves itself when your Fitbit resets next midnight, while some settings may need manual adjustment to compensate accordingly. We're working to address this & appreciate the feedback.

— Fitbit Support (@FitbitSupport) November 6, 2022

I noticed the same thing on my Pixel Watch when it reported that I woke up at 5:36 am on Sunday, which was definitely not the case. While the reading for last night was pretty accurate, Saturday night’s reading still shows up with the incorrect wake time. As someone who has only used Fitbit for sleep tracking, I was actually surprised to find this out. I’m guessing I just never noticed it, as is surely the case with many Fitbit users as well.