At launch, Sleep Sensing on the 2nd-gen Nest Hub was available as a “free preview” that was later extended to 2023. As 2024 starts, Google has so far not delayed when it “plans to integrate Sleep Sensing into Fitbit Premium.”
Sleep Sensing uses Soli radar, branded as Motion Sense, to analyze your movement (like flailing limbs) and breathing (chest moving up/down). Movement graphs are generated, with the Nest Hub not actually seeing, like a camera would, anything. In turn, you’ll get info about sleep stages (light, deep, REM, and awake), when you feel asleep, and breathing rate.
Meanwhile, the microphone is used to identify coughing and snoring, while other sensors track light fluctuations and temperature changes in your bedroom. (Annoyingly, Google has still not surfaced that temperature sensor in the Home app for general use.) All this data is processed locally and does not leave the Nest Hub.
This information is ultimately presented on-device as overlapping circles, with Google noting your overall sleep quality. The last update to Sleep Sensing came in August when Google tweaked the sleep tracking UI for respiration data.
In November of 2021, Google said Sleep Sensing would be free through 2022 and that the plan was to make it part of Fitbit Premium. In December of 2022, Google pushed it to 2023.
As of January 2, the Google Store listing and various support articles are unchanged:
If you already have a Fitbit Premium subscription, the integration will be nice, but I’m having a hard time seeing a Nest Hub owner subscribe from both value and expectation standpoints. On the latter side, too much time has passed and people will feel that Google is now charging for an existing feature that they’ve had for years. Yes, the “preview” text has been there from the beginning, but it’s easy to miss/forget.
At this point, I somewhat expect Google to just make Sleep Sensing free and migrate the experience to the Fitbit app (since Google Fit looks to be in maintenance mode at this point). Meanwhile, Fitbit Premium customers might get the added ability to collate Nest Hub and smartwatch/tracker data, which is presumably easier said than then.
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