Can Fitbit Track BBT (Basal Body Temperature)?

A Little About BBT!!!

BBT or Basal Body Temperature is your temperature when you are the rest. You can think of it as the Resting Heart Rate. Remember how it is only tracked or should be tracked when you are in an idle state? Well, the same principal applies here your BBT is all about resting temperature of your body. So, to no surprise it is better suited that you measure it when you are sleeping or just right after waking up. Because at that time your body is still in a state of staleness.

While both genders should keep an eye on their BBT readings it plays even crucial role for the women. Through phase tracking your BBT can give you a good picture regarding your period, ovulation, and fertility window.

According to the studies conducted by major health care bodies it is now considered a fact that just before your ovulation begins (2-3 days before it) your BBT temperature begins rising. Which means that with daily measurements you can actually predict your next cycle date as well as when would be the best time to have intercourse – if you are planning to conceive.

How Fitbit Tracks Your Temperature!

While Fitbit trackers do not have a button that explicitly states that you can track BBT from there, your Fitbit can help you out if your aim is to get a vague view of what’s happening. Through core body temperature your Fitbit can alert you about different conditions that your body is going through. Although you would have to log about it manually in your Fitbit device.

For instance when you have the fever it is well known fact that your immune system increase the core temperature of your body to combat the bacteria infecting you. The same way time of the day plays an important role to determine your temperature at certain period. According to the study conducted by Mayo Clinic your core temperature is typically lower in the morning and rises during the late afternoon and evening – Samsung Galaxy Watches uses it in its sleep tracking!

However, this is not the only metric which Fitbit keeps track of there is also skin temperature and this one here takes into consideration the surface temperature of your wrist. So, logically if you think about it your skin temperature varies more than your core temperature. The reason for which is that your body’s natural response for warming up or cooling down the skin is one way for it to regulate itself and keeps core temperature stable.

List Of Fitbit Trackers That Can Track Skin Temperature?

Both Fitbit Sense and Sense 2 have actual dedicated sensors to track your skin temperature daily. So, if you are owner of these two then you have nothing to worry about. Just do the following every night and you would be good to go:

• Wear your device for at least a full day, including to sleep at night.
• In the morning, open the Fitbit app and tap the Skin Temp Variation tile .
  You will see a history of your sleeping skin temperature variations, along with any core temperature readings you manually input.
• Tap the tile to see a history of your sleeping skin temperature variations, along with any core temperature readings you manually recorded.
• Tap a log to see a minute-by-minute record of your skin temperature variation throughout the night.

However, if you have other Fitbit trackers like Versa 4 or Charge 5 then you can still track skin temperature but keep in mind that they don’t have dedicated hardware for it. So, the results that would be generated can be subjected to debate of accuracy. As for the remaining Fitbit devices that can do it (track BBT) this is them:

• Fitbit Versa Series
• Fitbit Charge 6, Charge 5 and Charge 4
• Fitbit Inspire 3 and Inspire 2.
• Fitbit Luxe.

BBT Can Be A Good Indicator But Not Great!

As we mentioned above that while BBT can help you out in figuring out the method to predict the likely period data or the ovulation period. It should be noted that it is not accurate on its own. The primary reason for which is that your BBT can be influenced by the other factors:

• Illness or fever
• Stress
• Shift work
• Interrupted sleep cycles or oversleeping
• Alcohol
• Travel and time zone differences
• Gynecologic disorders
• Certain medications

Which means that even though it can get you far just using your BBT record as the potential protection plan or catalyst to get pregnant is not adequate. You would have to incorporate other methods and to do so in a manner that is approved by your doctor.

There Is Another Kind Of Natural Cycle!

To stay one step ahead the best you can do is to record your BBT readings everyday and then log them somewhere which can generate insights about your cycle in a helpful and competent manner. This method is both cheap and doesn’t require any kind of special preparation.

“Will Fitbit help in this case?”

– anyone can ask

Unfortunately, Fitbit despite its glory and fame cannot do that at this period. Fitbit application has the tiles and data charts which will show you trend of your last night skin temperature in comparison with baseline temperature (it would have set for you) but in practice it is not quite feasible. Or at least not very useful.

Although, there is hope that perhaps with Versa 5 or Sense 3 this will change, for now it is not the case. Because both Sense & Sense 2 does have all the required hardware in place so all it needs is a software to back it up. But for now it is safe to say that Fitbit has not begin its work on women fertility tracking, at least not like its competitors Samsung & Bellabeat is doing.

However, there is one application which is even approved by the FDA in U.S and it is called Natural Cycle. By using an algorithm to calculate the days during your cycle when you’re more likely to be fertile. This app calculates your fertile days based on daily temperature readings as well as other information you input about your menstrual cycle. Once again, we would like to remind you that it is not going to give you 100% accuracy but it will help to plan ahead.