Tracking walks

[DragonflyShimmr]

Do I need to have my phone with me while taking a walk to track the walk? Or can I leave it at the house and the Fitbit Alta HR will synch if I tell it first I'm going out to take a walk/run? Also, if I am walking, how close must I be to my phone if needed for it to work?

[MakMak · Accepted solution]

Hi, @DragonflyShimmr! With your Alta HR, you don't need to bring the phone at all. Assuming the walk is long enough for your auto-detect settings,  your tracker will auto detect the walk as an activity and upload it next time you sync. If you would like a GPS track of your walk, you need to bring the phone along and start the walk activity within your phone app. However, this will not log your heart rate for calories, just the walk as an activity with GPS. It's up to you which you would prefer.

[DragonflyShimmr]

Hi MakMak thank you for the reply. I'm just starting to use and trying to
figure out things lol. That is good to know, thanks! I have another
question. I did take my phone and looking at the GPS map in walks, I see a
thing on the top menu called "splits". Do you know what that is for? Is it
used to add time later or is it a function you set up before you walk?
Again thank you for the reply 🙂

[MakMak]

Absolutely! I don't know that at this point you can modify what you use your splits for (maybe someone else can correct me if I'm wrong), but the split tells you the time for each "segment" of your walk, the segments currently being set to a mile or km, depending on what your distance is set to.

[DragonflyShimmr]

@MakMak Thanks again for the reply. I'm really not even sure what this "splits" function is or how one uses it but hopefully someone can comment. Appreciate your input 😊

[MakMak]

I'd say it's helpful or insightful if you're doing some training, say with running, or repeating the same route multiple times. You can use it to compare your pace for different segments of your activity within the same activity or between times when you repeat the same path. You get the same splits when you use the run or hike activities, where I think it's a little more insightful.

[DragonflyShimmr]

@MakMak Ok I think I have some idea of how to use. Not sure I'm going to need but good to know. Thanks again!

[LanuzaFitbit]

Welcome to the Forums and to Fitbit @DragonflyShimmr!  Thanks for helping out @MakMak! 

@DragonflyShimmr Feel free reach out with any questions you might have, we all would be happy to help out.

If you have the time, maybe you could visit one of our Discussion boards. Lots of different topics to talk about there with other users.

Let us know if there is anything we can help you with.

[DragonflyShimmr]

Great thanks much!