Sleep has become a crucial factor in overall health over the past few years. In fact, doctors and other medical professionals have changed their blanket from 8 hours a night to a more general 6- to 8-hour range. As our understanding of sleep develops, so too has our appreciation of its role in health. This has become so crucial that we have been seeing more and more companies gather data for research and develop ways to measure and monitor the quality of sleep.

Fitbit has been one of the few fitness trackers and smartwatches which allow you to track your sleep in detail and view a breakdown of your sleep quality in a visual way. They’re also upping the ante when it comes to tracking by introducing a new feature for Fitbit Premium users called Sleep Profiles.

After much research and study of over 1,000 features of sleep, the company has determined that there are 10 key metrics that are beneficial to the user. Using these metrics which include pre-existing ones like sleep duration, restfulness and REM sleep, Fitbit has been able to develop a more holistic view of sleep. Additionally, they’ve also identified new metrics such as schedule variability, the time before sound sleep and disrupted sleep that help paint a better, month-long picture of overall sleep quality. Users will have access to a monthly report which breaks down each of these 10 key metrics with their personalised metrics as well as their ideal ranges.

In analysing over 1.87 million sleep logs, Fitbit was able to isolate numerous sleep archetypes. They’ve chosen six major archetypes which describe a vast majority of the profiles studied. To better communicate a user’s sleep pattern, Fitbit has chosen to represent each of the six profiles with an animal. Fitbit Premium users will be able to get their profile each month which will categorise them into one of six chosen animals: Giraffe, Bear, Hedgehog, Turtle, Dolphin and Parrot. These animals share similar traits to the six archetypes that Fitbit has identified.

There is no perfect profile, nor is a sleep profile fixed. Users will see it change from month to month. More importantly, Fitbit is also giving some feedback to help improve sleep quality with their profiles. This feedback can take the form of addressing REM sleep or sleep times to improve sleep quality.

Fitbit users with a Fitbit Premium subscription will begin to see these profiles starting on July 7. After the first report, profiles will be reported on the 1st of each month. However, the feature will only work with the Sense, Versa 3, Versa 2, Charge 5, Luxe or Inspire 2 at launch.