Tracking Shabbos

[Noah773]

Do you manually enter your Shabbos steps? If so, how many steps do you put in for Shabbat? 

I'm always a solid 10,000 behind half the people on my non-demoninational, friends leaderboard since I don't wear my fitbit on sabbath. 

Someone suggested just manually putting in 10,000 steps or doubling Sunday but I don't really want my numbers to be to low or high. The same goes for Yom Tov, Chaggim, yuntiff, any chag and other variations on the words for "Shabbos" and "Yom Tov" stuffed into this post to make sure your seach finds this discussion. 

How do you roll on Shabbos?

[Noah773]

Ben,

You say good. The automated aspects happen irrespective of walking or not and (as far as I know) are not an issue on Shabbat. For example, my Charge HR records and syncs "my" sleep (my nightstand's sleep) Friday night (sometimes my nightstand apparently sleeps for 18 hours!). Then on Saturday night (after Shabbat ends) I go and delete that erroneous log.

The real question with Fitbit is not the act of stepping but the act of recording the step with an electronic tracker. Walking is not considered 'work' unless you leave a populated area. Once you leave a residential area walking a distance more than ~3,000 feet is not permitted. This article has a good summary: How far am I allowed to walk on Shabbat? - Chabad.org

Noah

[sidran32]

I do know that the Surge has, in its settings screen, an option that lets you turn Notifications on or off. I leave it to on, but I wonder if turning that off would disable text/call notifications only or also include reaching your daily goal? If it also covers your daily goal, then perhaps you can turn them off during the night before and that should be fine.

I do know that the screen that appears when you reach your goal will disappear after a short while without you having to push any buttons on your watch, so if it buzzes, you can just ignore it and it will go back to the watch face.

Whether you feel guilty or not depends on whether you feel you should've done something differently, which then depends on how you decide to set your standards of living. While I'm not Jewish, I am religious (Catholic) and I can see it similar to when we have fasting days. You're giving something up (or changing your behavior) in an effort to give something to G-d, gain a closer relationship with Him, and so forth, and if you sacrifice some amount of exercise or eat a few more calories because of the nature of how you spend your Sabbath, then it is a righteous sacrifice that will be rewarded by Him. On the converse, if you neglect your observance of the Sabbath for whatever reason, then I might understand the feeling of guilt.

Nothing should come before G-d, and so I don't think you should feel guilty for things that happen as an unavoidable consequence of serving Him.

Besides, calorie differences or exercise differences one day a week can be made up for, or may be inconsequential anyways (depending on the nature of those diffences), so I don't think it should be that much of a problem for your fitness goals, anyways. 🙂

[Noah773]

Side note: This is all coming from the Orthodox Jewish point of view. 

[sidran32]

Interesting.

Then perhaps using the Surge during the Sabbath would be permissible according to the laws regarding watches but only if you don't have a watch that doesn't act as a fitness tracker on hand to wear instead?

[John1234]

I don't think there is a single clear answer. To Noah773's point there is an orthodox view, a reformed view, views within those views, etc. The watch just needs to be more customizable. It's advertised as a "smart watch." A pedometer with a clock on it is not a smart watch. Hoards of Apple developers will figure out how to solve these problems on the Apple Watch. FitBit should solve these problems too. We're just talking about software here. It's not too hard to improve it.

[Noah773]

My fitbit (charge HR) is not my watch. Having to tap or click or whatever is more effort than glancing with my eyes at my Timex (I love this watch. Pure function). I can get the time with a glance in about 50/100st of a second. Unless you have a Surge your fitbit is a pedometer first and a watch second.

As far as the Apple watch...

Apple, Shmapple.

[SunsetRunner]

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@John1234 wrote:
I don't think there is a single clear answer. To Noah773's point there is an orthodox view, a reformed view, views within those views, etc. The watch just needs to be more customizable. It's advertised as a "smart watch." A pedometer with a clock on it is not a smart watch. Hoards of Apple developers will figure out how to solve these problems on the Apple Watch. FitBit should solve these problems too. We're just talking about software here. It's not too hard to improve it.

---

Actually it is billed as a "superwatch". Fitbit has been very up front tat this is not a "smartwatch" nor do they expect it to perform as such.

[John1234]

The box clearly says "Smartwatch."

[SunsetRunner]

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@John1234 wrote:
The box clearly says "Smartwatch."

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Take a look at the description here  and here in the store. It clearly says "Fitness Super Watch". Did you buy yours here? If so, you certainly didn't buy it based on a description of "smartwatch".

Edit: I found an image. It says "smartwatch notifications + music control". That is a function and is listed right next to some of the other functions. It does not call it a smartwatch. On the side in big, bold letters it says "Fitness Super Watch". 

[John1234]

Patruns- I think you have correctly described the confusion. Is the watch smart? Super? Neither? Both? IMHO if it's going to have a 1980s style black and white LCD screen, then it needs to make up for it by being really smart. The software can and should be a whole lot better. It can't even show the moon, tide, etc. Mechanical watches are more "super" and a heck of a lot more attractive than this one. I just bought 2 of these and I expect much more for my $500. Like Apple and Microsoft, Fitbit should release a lot of software updates to impress, satisfy and retain its customers. Or else many of us will switch to the Apple Watch in a couple years when Apple realizes that an 18 hour battery life is unacceptable and relocates batteries to the band, to probably surpass the 7 days of the Surge.

[Noah773]

Oy gevalt! This is way off topic. I'd recommend someone create a new thread
to discuss "Is Fitbit a " smart watch".

[John1234]

No no no- it's on topic. I need to know when the lunar month starts so I can blow my shofar. I'm serious. Now I have apps, a wall calendar, this smart / super watch, nice watches including Cartiers and Movados which I'm not sure what to do with, etc. I would like one device to cover my basic time related needs. The Surge has sufficient hardware. Now it needs better software.

[John1234]

Psalm 81:3-4.

[MikeF]

A line I often use in a number of environments seems appropriate here and that's 'If it doesn't do what you want out of the box, don't buy it'. Buying something based on promises or maybes will surely lead to one destination only and that's disappointment.

[John1234]

What I really wanted the watch to do when I bought it was to help me lose weight. But it isn't working. Every day I have a 1,000+ calorie deficit and I have still gained 2 pounds. It says I walk enough and that my heart is fine. But I already knew that. I might as well throw the watch away and live in the gym, eating nothing but protein shakes and dry salad. This is all that has worked for me in the past.

I have added multiple new feature requests per above and will eagely await software updates.

[SunsetRunner]

"I have added multiple new feature requests per above and will eagely await software updates."

Sorry John but I fear you are in for a long wait. This is first and foremost a fitness tracker. It has a couple of extra bells and whistles such as notifications and music control, but at it's core it is simply a fitness device. Looking out at the other devices in the market I don't see any that have all you have wished for. I do wish you luck in finding one though and hope you will come back and share if you do.  🙂

[John1234]

Something like this (watch in Jewish mode):

http://postimg.org/image/d424icb3t/

[jklein59]

I'm using the surge, and i'm willing to go through all hallacha issues with competent rabbanim (chasidic) on this issue. provided that fitbit is willing to add a shobbos mode...

first and foremost, the turning on the backlight when tapping or turning the wrist - can be remedied by having backlight on off.

Q to rav #1: Step counters - is it allowed or not - (how fitbit achieves it may make a difference)

Q to rav #2: Accelerometer - is it allowed or not - (how fitbit achieves it may make a difference)

Q to rav #3: is the HR mechanism a problem - (this can be shutoff manually as well )

Q to rav #4: is the watch a "Tachshut / Jewel" - in that case you would be allowed to where it even w/o an eirev

Q to fitbit #1: would you create a shabbos mode that would make the face and the button response-less. as well as the "wrist turn - feature" set to off, and the communication (Bluetuth etc.) turned off as well.

since no no functionality needs to be invented, (only the interface in the app) i think we can get fitbit to work on a shabbos mode (as GE and SAMSUNG and many more) 

Let me know - if you are willing to petition Fitbit for it to together with me.

[Noah773]

You raise a good question with "is it permitted to be worn if it isn't a watch" (because the screen [motion to show clock] would be deactivated). I wonder what the halachic impact is if you wear your fitbit (on your wrist) everyday. Maybe wearing a colored band makes it more of a "jewelry" type item? Just thinking aloud here.

Personally, I'm not looking for a "Sabbath Mode" (or Shabbos mode, or Shabat mode). I think the real challenge is the accelerometer. If that is a no go then the whole show is off. The HR monitor, clock, etc. can all be turned off anyway. I much prefer being able to customize my experience (adjust settings) over having a specific Sabbath Mode that may or may not actually achieve the desired result and would certainly take development time (read: money) that no one wants to spend.

[John1234]

JKlein- very interesting that GE and Samsung already provide support for shabbos / shabbat / "Jewish Mode." I think this information can help to articulate to FitBit that this is a real problem with real users / customers and not just a corner case. Do you have some references to GE or Samsung's specs or advertising? If you can post it here I think it would be interesting for other users.

On the technicalities of a solution, I would agree that 99% of the customers who would be interested in these features only need a software update that allows more controls, or more specifically a group of settings in the form of a mode. It's not really a hardware problem; anyone who is this concerned can choose to take the watch off.

How does the petition work? Is there a form? You know it would be nice if FitBit had an open source platform. I could probably code the changes myself. I suspect many of us in this forum could. Maybe for a little extra flair the watch face could turn to a Star of David at the exact moment of sundown on Friday (based on GPS coordinates) and come back to life at the exact moment that 3 stars should appear in the sky on Saturday night (again based on GPS coordinates). In between these times, the watch screen would be completely frozen. And the watch would have to be smart enough to check the GPS coordinates periodically so that in case you are traveling and cross time zones it picks it up and adjusts.