Feedback about Zone Minutes

[WillowGarth]

Do you realise how many older people and people with mobility issues you have chased away from buying new Fitbit devices? We run a mobility improvement group for older people and have promoted Fitbit devices to replace pedometers because we personally prefer them to Apple. Preferred them… We are now advising our members not to buy any device that only shows zone minutes. You should have provided an option. Older people/disabled people cannot safely moved fast enough to earn Zone minutes. way to lose customers. We (all 37 of us) also have cancelled our FitBit Premium renewals. We have shared our great disappointment verbally and through local newspapers/magazines and on social media as you made no response to our many queries re Zone Minutes over the last month. Apple here we come.
Highly disillusioned with FitBit Policy…

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject/Word choice/format.

[LZeeW]

@WillowGarth   While I understand your concern for your clients with mobility issues, the CDC has guidelines for How much physical activity do older adults need? and Target Heart Rate for moderate physical activity.  Fitbit draws from CDC guidelines.  AZMs are consistent with the current CDC guidelines.  I agree that AZMs are difficult to impossible for some.  In addition to your clients with mobility issues, many older adults are on heart medications that make it hard to get to a faster heart rate.  There is a solution for you.  Please take a look at this.  Fitbit uses the 220 - age = max heart rate.  You can change a user's heart rate zones by setting a Custom Max Heart Rate.  Here is the path:

• Tap on the profile picture
• Activity & Wellness
• Heart Settings
• Heart rate zones
• Toggle Custom Max Heart Rate to On
• Reduce the max heart rate by 20-25% (this will take some trial and error) and the heart rate zones will be closer to the Active Minute zones.

You users can continue to use their Fitbits.  Android users won't need to buy new phones.

[WillowGarth]

Our Doctor and his whole medical team, supported by our Legal Dept., say that fiddling with people’s heart data would make us culpable in the eyes of the law if any of our members suffered physically because of such an ill-advised intervention. Morally wrong too. I hope no-one else read this “advice” and attempted to use it.
Zone Minutes and the new Fitbit trackers that only use such ridiculously unobtainable measures have been outlawed by all of our Fitness Clubs. 
I shall be presenting our misgivings at our quarterly meeting. The use of new Fitbit trackers, because of lack of provision of tracking of the old Active Minutes will NOT encouraged nor supported. Our elderly and disabled patrons were heartily dismayed and distressed by their inability to “earn minutes” as they previously had done! Their self image as improving walkers was shattered in many cases.
Fitbit Policy has become elitist and has drastically reduced its paying customer audience. Hopefully Fitbit will find a solution before this impacts their turnover. The bottom line…
Once our “old Fitbit trackers” die, we shall buy into the Apple experience.
  

[kedsten]

Finally! This post echoes my very complaint. I'm a 76 year old man who walks daily on a manual treadmill. Manual treadmills are powered by you instead of a motor, plus mine also has an elevation factor. Today, as usual, I walked 3 sessions of 12 minutes each giving me a total of 36 minutes which is slightly more than the 30 minute daily recommendation. During these sessions my heart rate averages between 80 and100 BPM. The organization, Heart.Org, recommends 75 to 128 BPM for my age group as a good exercise heart rate.
When I checked my Active Zone Minutes on my Fitbit at the end of the day I was "awarded" a total of 12. That figure is a whopping 10 minute shortfall from the fitbit recommended 22 minutes.