Active minutes/Zone minutes

[Suepicky]

Just got the Charge 6 and so far it's ok except for not displaying active/zone minutes correctly on the watch.  The dashboard on my laptop shows active minutes but no zone, and they're different numbers.  Anyone have any ideas???

[Daisy1972]

Active minutes and zone minutes are different things which is why there are different numbers. The active minutes are how much you've actually exercised so saya 30 minute walk will reflect active minutes. Zone minutes are more to do with heart rate and I've found things like stress can affect this.

[RiekoC · Accepted solution]

Hello @Suepicky 

In addition to @Daisy1972 great explanation, you might find this page helpful: What are Fitbit Active Zone Minutes or Active minutes

[LZeeW]

@Suepicky   I looked at your public profile and see that you are a long time Fitbit user.  Fitbit is a US company and uses CDC activity recommendations.  Older model Fitbits gave active minutes because they were consistent with CDC recommendations at the time.  The CDC updated their activity recommendations a few years ago.  Active zone minutes are consistent with current CDC activity recommendations and are on every Fitbit since the Charge 4.  Your Charge 6 is working properly.

Fitbit stopped updating the web dashboard some time ago, as it moves to being mobile app based.  The web dashboard was never updated to show active zone minutes and it won't get updated.  All of Fitbit's newest features like Health Metrics, Daily Readiness Score (premium), Stress Score, and Mindfulness are only on the mobile app.

[Suepicky]

Thank you so much for this information.  Yes, I had one of the original fitbits that used the dots to indicate steps!

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Thank you. I'm going to check out the article you suggested.

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Thank you for your answer to my question.  My charge 5 always showed lots of active minutes and I couldn't understand what was wrong with the charge 6.  Now I understand!

[RiekoC]

Hi @Suepicky 

Thanks for letting us know that we seem to have answered your question. Let us know if you would like help with anything else. 

[rroeder]

I have the Charge 6 and the Active Zone minutes don't work at all. I can do the almost identical activity on another day and the Active Zone Minutes show wildly different results. Useless.

[LZeeW]

@rroeder  Active zone minutes are weighted, based on intensity.  You get 1x the number of minutes in the fat burn zone and 2x the number of minutes in the cardio and peak zones.  If your activity level has you close to the heart rate value between fat burn and cardio, you can do almost the same activity every day and get different results.  I also looked at your public profile and see that you also used a Charge 5.  Fitbit states that the heart rate accuracy is improved with the Charge 6.  You can expect very different results between the Charge 5 and the Charge 6.

[rroeder]

Thank you

[Dschmadtke]

I have charge 6 and the active minutes don’t work at all. I have reset it and done all the troubleshooting. Contacted customer service and their solution was to recommend to turn off the heart rate feature at that point the device is useless to me.