Exercise Tracking assumes you've gone a distance

[TashL884]

After renaming a pre-tracked workout from my Blaze to a custom activity, how do I keep the stats in the Exercise section of hte dashboard as: time, cals, average BPM and HR graph/bar?

I use the 'workout' exercise tracking on my Blaze every time I'm at the gym doing an exercise class. When I first view this when its listed as 'workout' on the app on the main screen it shows time, cals, average BPM and then the HR graph/bar at the bottom. I think this is great and all the info I need without needing to click in for more details.

HOWEVER, when I click into this and rename it using the pencil icon to change it to one of my custom activities so in the future i know what class it was that gave me those stats (e.g. my classes are called Balance, Jam, Combat which are not exercises that are already provided by fitbit, so i created my own custom workout), the main screen will change to show **km**, **kmph**, average BPM and then the HR graph/bar at the bottom, no calories are provided anymore. I find this very inconvinient as I've done a gym class which is effectivly standing in one spot for an hour, definately not travelling a distance, and the 2 main things it is showing is distance and speed calculations. The distance must be estimated based on steps taken.

The only way i have figured out how to work around this was to note down all the details from the tracked workout, delete it, then log it manually afterwards as the custom activity. This is also inconvinient as then the steps are no longer tracked towards the activity and the calories/min arent tracked properly etiher.

How can I make it that when I change the name of hte pre-tracked workout, all the stats on the main exercise list stay the same as when it was 'workout'. Or, how do I make the custom activity know that its not a distance based activity?

Help please!! This has been bugging me for over a year, on my Charge HR and now my Blaze. Think its more the app, rather than the tracker itself.

[Brad.]

Hi Community, can anyone answer or explain,  (I've seen some users wish distance to shows while others don't) Either way, I'd love to know the answer to the question posed above. Thanks.

[Rich_Laue]

Hello @Brad., there are 3 ways to track exercise with the Blaze. 

1. Using smart tract. This is where you do nothing and let Fitbit decide what you are doing. This will not report a distance. 
2. Using the manually tracking function with the connects GPS. This will give a distance. 
3. Using the manually tracking function without the phone or its connected GPS.. This also will give a distance, but it is calculated from your stride. 

[TashL884]

I agree, when you use Smart Track or you manually track a workout (not a run or bike with connected GPS), at first it will not show distance. However, when you rename it to a custom activity it will update to show distance every time. How can you stop this occuring?

My custom activities are not distance based. There does not seem to be an option when creating custom activites to advise if it is distance based or not.

Also, on another note - connected GPS does NOT work, completely inaccurate. Well, doesn't on my Blaze anyway.

[Rich_Laue]

I find the connected GPS works great at showing a map, in run mode the distance is pretty accurately reported. In walk mode I'm not convinced that it uses gps to measure distance. 

[Brad.]

Hi @Rich_Laue Thank you for your response ! (it's enlightening to understand how it's designed). Based on @TashL884's comment "When you rename it to a custom activity it will update to show distance every time" 

- Does this mean that renaming a custom activity is almost the same as manually logging an activity, and it's engineered to always give distance, regardless of if your activity is distance based or not ?

Thanks.

[Rich_Laue]

Yes I believe it does, it takes your step count and stride then comes up with an in theory distance. 

To. Update my last post I did two walks tonight with the Blaze and connected GPS. One with my normal stride and 2670 step for a reported1.44 miles. The second one I made my stride smaller without changing anything in the app, 3360 steps for a reported distance of 1.43. Conclusion is that the GPS works(

[Brad.]

Ok thank you - I guess if that's how it's designed - nothing you can do about it, except know what's the expected outcome when renaming. Thanks.

[Aej86]

Hiya i know this is old but did you ever find a solution to this...ice o ky just figured out about custom activities all this time everything was workout...but now I'm renaming for classes such as body attack combat etc and don't know why it's changing the stats that it shows ..I only wanted to rename it not change anything else 

[Peachesbff]

I would also love a solution to this!  I manually track using the "workout" option, and it reports calories burned, but as soon as I change the name to the custom workout I did, it stops showing calories and shows distance instead. I'd really like to be able to just change the name!

[Aej86]

Lol..u just reminded me of this lacking feature..I gave up everything is either workout or weights. ...I just did a test workout and as before time changed to distance and calories changed to speed.its so annoying as I want to record my classes by name

[flipjump0130]

The main post is so old I don’t understand why the question hasn’t really been addressed.  I find this issue very annoying as I also want to save my stats as class names, and I feel your pain! 😂 

[carringtondl]

This ridiculousness is still going on in 2023.