When-and Why-you Should Drink Water: Insights from FitBit Data
Staying Hydrated is critical for energy, focus, and recovery—but who knew that when you drank your water at a certain time of day, that it would improve those factors as well? I had the chance to analyze two months’ worth of minute-by-minute Fitbit Data (steps, heart rate, sleep) from 30 users to pinpoint the best windows for hydration. Below, I summarize the key takeaways for the marketing team to promote and encourage hydration with a Bellabeat water bottle, and I invite you to explore the full slide deck of my findings, where you will also see my skills using Power Query in Excel and Tableau Public.
Methodology
Data Collection & Scope
Source: 30 Mechanical Turk–sourced Fitbit users, March 12–May 12, 2016
Raw files: 11 CSVs per survey wave, covering minute-level steps, calories, heart rate, and sleep flags
Cleaning & Aggregation
Power Query in Excel to standardize timestamps, remove nulls/duplicates, and truncate to an hourly grain
Why hourly? It overcomes Excel’s row limits, smooths out noisy minute-by-minute swings, and aligns perfectly with real-world reminder windows
Feature Engineering
Daily tier buckets: “Low,” “Medium,” and “High” activity days, based on total steps
Flags & metrics:
Average heart rate per hour
Minutes asleep per hour
High-exertion hours (calories burned >150)
Visualization & Insight Generation
Built interactive dashboards in Tableau Public to answer three key questions:
When are users most active or sedentary?
How do sleep/heart-rate patterns signal dehydration risk?
Which cohorts need tailored messaging?
Ready to Dig In?
📊 Explore the full methodology and slides:
View the Presentation on Google Slides🔍 Interact with the live dashboards and data:
Visit my Tableau Public profile
Whether you’re in health tech, fitness coaching, or any field where timing matters, these insights can help you build smarter hydration nudges—and healthier habits.
Stay hydrated, stay informed!
