Questions about SmartTrack

[dbensmith]

The icon for Sport is a man playing soccer, but the icon for Soccer is a man doing aerobics.

This is preventing me from reaching my potential.

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject For Clarity / Format

[USAF-Larry]

@dbensmith, I am not sure what the icon image has to do with you reaching your potential. It is your exercise activity that allows you to reach your potential, not what an icon looks like. What am I missing?

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dbensmith, let me give you a warm welcome to our Fitbit Community! I agree with @USAF-Larry in the part that the type of exercise your tracker is showing, does not affect the activity itself for you to reach your potential.

I think I have a clear idea of what you mean, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Note that the icon shape are just representations of the exercise programmed in the firmware of your tracker to enable automatic recognition while you are doing an exercise. However the type of exercise your tracker is categorizing your exercise won't have a direct impact on your overall numbers. Your stats depend entirely on you, accounting how intense is the activity you are doing and how much effort you invest. 

SmartTrack is a set of exercise with an algorithm pre-loaded on your tracker to recognized certain patterns on your routine to log an exercise with the intention to remove the hassle you manually log or categorized your exercise.

Your tracker has the ability to read the following exercises:

• Walking
• Running
• Outdoor biking
• Elliptical
• Swimming (Fitbit Flex 2 and Fitbit Ionic)

Note that soccer is not a default activity that you tracker is able to detect within its unique category. So for this type of exercise It also recognizes two general categories:

• Sport—Includes high-movement sports like tennis, basketball, soccer, and others. Sports that might not be recognized include those without continuous movement or that vary in intensity level, like golf.
• Aerobic workout—Includes aerobic activities with continuous movement, such as Zumba®, cardio-kickboxing, and other dance classes. 

However based on your movements, your tracker may translate certain patterns like you are doing an exercise enclosed in the Aerobic category when in reality you are doing an sport. Nonetheless as I mentioned before, this does not impact your numbers and neither the calories you are burning.

Hope this helps and if you have other questions just let me know more details.

[dbensmith]

Sorry guys, my post was tongue-in-cheek. Of course I am aware that my own motivation is how I will succeed, not the icons for activities in the Fitbit app.

What I meant to suggest is that when naming a custom activity in the app, the app should attempt to match the name against its internal gallery of icons and then display the most relevant icon for the name. For example, if I give the activity the name "soccer," it should try to find an icon of a man playing soccer, and use that icon for the activity instead of the default icon for custom activities. This is a minor improvement but it would help the app look smarter about its understanding of the activities people use Fitbit for.

I didn't expect to be taken so seriously and both of the above responses are very detailed. Thanks for your input and I will continue to strive for my true potential! 😉

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dbensmith, I believe I have to offer you an apology then, since my intention was not to make you feel overwhelm by my response.

Of course I will rely your feedback to our teams and I really appreciate you have brought this to my attention. At the moment your exercise will be match only by the default activities pre-loaded, but rest assure we are always working to improve the Fitbit experience.

Stay awesome and I wish you the best to keep achieving your fitness goals.