The Fitbit Inspire 3 is the latest in Fitbit’s line of affordable fitness trackers. Known for its sleek design, user-friendly interface, and wide range of features, the Inspire 3 offers much more than just step tracking. It also monitors heart rate, activity zones, and sleep, making it a versatile tool for users looking to improve their overall health. Here, we'll explore its key features and examine its performance as a sleep tracker, comparing it with more advanced sleep tracking technologies.
Key Features of the Fitbit Inspire 3
Pros
- Affordable (under $100)
- Easy to use
- Sleek design (not bulky)
- Comes with 6 months of Fitbit Premium
Cons
- Heart Rate is often inaccurate (This is a very common problem for wrist based trackers)
- Unable to connect a heart rate strap to the device
Features
- Heart Rate Monitoring: The Inspire 3 provides continuous wrist based heart rate tracking, allowing users to monitor resting heart rate, heart rate zones during exercise, and cardiovascular health trends over time.
- Activity & Exercise Tracking: Fitbit’s SmartTrack automatically detects activities like running, swimming, and biking. You have the ability to set 6 workout shortcuts to make tracking easy.
- Sleep Tracking: One of the standout features of the Fitbit Inspire 3 is its sleep-tracking ability, which offers insights into sleep stages, sleep duration, HRV, resting heart rate and provides an overall Sleep Score.
Fitbit Inspire 3 as a Sleep Tracker: Reliability and Validity
Fitbit has invested significant resources into improving its sleep tracking algorithms, and the Inspire 3 benefits from these advancements. It uses a combination of movement data (via the built-in accelerometer) and heart rate variability to estimate sleep quality and duration.
Reliability and Validity Compared to Polysomnography (PSG)
Polysomnography (PSG) is considered the gold standard for sleep assessment, measuring brain waves, eye movements, muscle activity, and heart rhythms. Wearable devices like the Fitbit Inspire 3, while convenient, use indirect measures to estimate sleep patterns. Several studies have been conducted to determine how well Fitbit devices, including models similar to the Inspire 3, match up with PSG data.
Research shows that Fitbits generally perform well in measuring total sleep time and sleep duration, but there are some limitations when it comes to determing the different sleep stages. This is a common finding amongst many wearable sleep monitors, including Oura Ring.
Comparison to Other Sleep Trackers
Compared to other consumer-grade sleep trackers, the Fitbit Inspire 3 is generally on par in terms of sleep stage detection and sleep duration estimation. In a study comparing multiple fitness trackers, Fitbit devices had similar performance to other wearables.
Conclusion
The Fitbit Inspire 3 offers a great set of features for an affordable price, making it a popular choice for users looking to monitor their overall health and wellness.
As a sleep tracker, it performs reliably for general users who are interested in gaining insights into their sleep patterns. For the majority of users, though, the Inspire 3 provides a convenient and reasonably accurate tool for tracking sleep trends over time.
Overall, at this price point, you get a great set of features and quality tracking method for exercise and sleep.
Interested in purchasing a Fitbit Inspire 3? Check out our shop.
Citations
- de Zambotti, M., Baker, F. C., Willoughby, A. R., Godino, J. G., Wing, D., & Patrick, K. (2015). Measures of sleep and cardiac functioning during sleep using a multi-sensor bracelet: A comparison to polysomnography. Physiology & Behavior, 151, 176-183. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.07.027
- Toon, E., Davey, M., Hollis, S. L., Nixon, G. M., Horne, R. S. C., & Biggs, S. N. (2016). Comparison of commercial wrist-based and smartphone accelerometers, actigraphy, and polysomnography in a clinical cohort of children and adolescents. Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, 12(3), 343-350. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.5580