Stationary Period

[Ali31]

How many steps does it take to break a stationary period. I have a four hour stationary period this evening during which I got up walked to the kitchen made cup of tea for my family members and brought it back into various rooms in the house. Is that really stationary?

[SunsetRunner]

Hello @Ali31 

I’m not really sure by what you call a stationary period. (I assume that your walking but you get no credit for steps so you call that stationary) If that is what you mean it’s most likely because you were holding a cup of tea carefully in your hands and very still most likely so you wouldn’t spill it so your arms are not moving. Your Fitbit is technically not in motion at that time so there will be no steps credited to your step count. The Fitbit detects movement like your arms naturally swinging as you walk. I hope this answers your question 😃

[WendyB]

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@Ali31 wrote:

How many steps does it take to break a stationary period. I have a four hour stationary period this evening during which I got up walked to the kitchen made cup of tea for my family members and brought it back into various rooms in the house. Is that really stationary?

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Well You really did not walk a lot. You made tea. Handed it out. I dont think it really sees how many steps to not be stationary

[Ali31]

I still don’t see an answer, so walking 50-60 steps is stationary? I don’t think so. But is there a trigger. Getting up and moving should not be counted as stationary.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello again @Ali31 

it all depends on your movements. The Fitbit measures your steps based mostly on the movements of your arms (normal swinging motion of your arms while walking). So if your holding your arm still, like carrying a cup of tea as you described, or moving your arms lightly your Fitbit just doesn’t know your getting your sweat on. As it starts to recognize a patterned movement it will begin registering steps. Otherwise the slightest movement of your arm would measure a step which would be inaccurate. (Example your sitting in a chair watching TV and you reach up yo adjust your glasses then continue to watch TV it won’t count that movement as a step as it shouldn’t) Fitbit devices have a finely tuned algorithm for step counting. The algorithm is designed to look for motion patterns that are most indicative of people walking. The algorithm determines whether a motion's size is large enough by setting a threshold. If the motion and its subsequent acceleration measurement meet the threshold, the motion will be counted as a step. If the threshold is not met, the motion won’t be counted as a step. 😉

[Ali31]

Ok thanks but moving backwards and forwards between different rooms should have triggered motion right? I’ve this a few times but still it seems it’s not clear what actually counts as the end of a stationary period

[SunsetRunner]

Yes it should if your waking with some sort of “purpose” for a lack of a better term. Walking slowly and barely swinging your arms will register zero (or very few) steps till the Fitbit registers a more consistent pattern of walking which in turn will begin counting steps. Most peeps casually walking across the living room may not register enough pattern.....that would change if you decided to start walking all over your house. I hope this makes sense.  

[Baltoscott]

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@Ali31 wrote:
Ok thanks but moving backwards and forwards between different rooms should have triggered motion right? I’ve this a few times but still it seems it’s not clear what actually counts as the end of a stationary period

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@Ali31 Are you talking about the number of steps needed to get hourly activity credit?  If so, it is 250 steps over the course of the hour.  If you haven't gotten that many by 10 minutes til the next hour, your tracker should vibrate reminding you it is time to get up and move.

[JordanShep]

I think that @Ali31 is referring to the "Longest Stationary Period" chart in the Hourly Activity section of the app.  My assumption would be that it references off of the 250 steps in an hour, but I do not actually know for sure what is the trigger for the end of that period.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello again @Ali31

I “think” I know what your looking for now:

Stationary time can only be detected by devices that can automatically detect sleep. This means Fitbit One and Fitbit Zip customers don't have an hourly activity goal.

WHAT IS MY GOAL?

Your goal is 250 steps per hour, equivalent to a few minutes of walking. By default, your goal is tracked from  9:00 am - 6:00 pm, seven days a week, but you can choose the consecutive hours per day you want to track your activity.

WHERE CAN I MONITOR MY PROGRESS?

The Hourly Activity tile on your dashboard shows the number of hours you met your goal so far today.

Open the tile to see a graph showing whether each hour tracked was active or stationary for the last week. Swipe to see a second graph showing your longest stationary period. Note that time asleep is not included in this graph, and you must be inactive for at least 10 consecutive minutes before that time is considered stationary. 

'Longest stationary period' is just what it sounds like, the longest stretch with no steps, excluding time asleep. It looks at ten minute intervals to see if any steps during it, again just for awake time.  If you took any steps during the 10 minutes, that ten minutes as considered 'Active' and every 10 minute stretch with no steps is 'Stationary' time. If you got up and took a few steps every 9 or 10 waking minutes, you would be 100% active. 

So so with that said a stationary period is done in 10 min intervals....So if you register at least 1 step during that ten minutes interval you are not considered stationary. The “four hour stationary period” that you spoke about in your original post is a accumulated time and added up to four hours for that particular day you spoke about.

So my answer to your question “How many steps does it take to break a stationary period.” The answer is 1 step provided it’s taken during each 10 min interval.

[cookielover]

Certainly not 1 step for a Charge2... my graph of steps taken in each 15 minute period suggests 40 steps in 15 minutes was during a stationary period, but 50 steps ended it. My charge 2 measures heart rate too, so I suspect the algorithm is more involved than just steps. 

[MysteryTW]

I would guess it looks at steps and heart rate. I have a lot of chronic health problems, so I’m typically lying in bed. Getting up and going to the bathroom is enough to break a stationary period for me. However, just standing up raises my heart rate into the fat burn zone. I can also move my arms energetically while lying in bed (which also pushes my heart rate up) and that will break a stationary period for me. (I haven’t tried to experiment to see if a certain number of “steps” or a certain heart rate is required though.)

I look at the data because it’s interesting & tells me something about my day. I’m happy if I do well (for myself) based on regular activity, but I don’t set a goal to try and meet anything. I do wish it would allow us to look at 24 hours though. There are plenty of times I get steps outside the 14 hour window. There is no way to adjust only 14 hours and see everything. 

[vee]

I know this is an old thread but I just found it. I asked support the same question and they said you just have to move, but clearly that's not the case.  This question is NOT in regards to the 250 steps per hour, it is in the breakdown on the hourly steps chart where it has the "longest stationary period". Most people probably don't even realize this is there. I recently started tracking it in order to shorten that time and noticed logged times in which I purposefully got up and walked some. Which according to support should cut off stationary time.  i have gotten over 100 steps in so-called stationary periods. Frustrated.