Walk vs Hike?

[TheSaint001]

Hi Fitbit community... can anyone tell me what the difference is between a walk and a hike with regards to Fitbit activities... thx

[AlvaroFitbit]

@TheSaint001 Welcome! It's good that the community is growing! 

Thank you for your inquiry. Selecting the type of activity will help the system better calculate the caloric burn for your activities. You can read more about this here.

Let me know how it goes.

[TheSaint001]

Hi Alvaro - thank you for your timely reply...yes, I understand the mechanism working behind the scenes... my question relates to the actual  activities themselves.

What does Fitbit think the difference is between a walk and a hike? For example, is a hike a long walk or is a hike a fast walk? Or is it based on some other criteria?

Many thanks...

[Rich_Laue]

I would call a walk as something done oh relatively flat or solid ground usually three party has begun constructed A hike as a walk through the woods or unpaved path, with many large changes in altitude.  A hike I would say lasts longer than a walk.  This it's just my thoughts,  whether right or wrong. 

Since your question is nor about a particular tracker but looking for opinions in moving your post to the Lifestyle Discussion Board called Her Moving

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

I have never seen an answer from Fitbit that totally explains this, but here's my take:

Hiking is assumed to be in woods or on hilly terrain, therefore more strenuous.  On older model trackers without heart rate monitoring or when manually logging an activity, this is taken into consideration for estimating calorie burn.  But when using heart rate tracking, I wouldn't think that it should make any difference in calorie calculation, though I have not tested this.

[TheSaint001]

That's a great answer, JohnnyRow and many thx... it would indeed be useful to have an answer from Fitbit but yours seems to fit the bill and makes perfect sense!

[emili]

@TheSaint001  hey there. if you feel that Johnny gave you the answer, please consider marking his reply as the solution to this thread. This way others can benefit from his answer.. enjoy the hike and the walk 🙂

[Colinm39]

@TheSaint001  To add to the other posts I have created 2 x manual activities as seen in the image..

Manually, Fitbit follow the CDC guidelines because when I back calculate with my BMR I get a similar number of  METs..  IE Hiking is just over double the calorie burn to walking in the example..

If you use a HR tracker, as @JohnnyRow  mentioned it should make no difference.. but examining the CDC link you can see the effort factors (METs) for the different exertion levels.  Here is the link for all types of activities.

😋When I do my aggressive type gardening my Ionic auto tracks me as Outdoor Bike or Sport.... with a Massive calorie/Active Minutes.

[beetlebug]

I've noticed big discrepancies between walks and hikes recently in terms of distance. Is there any reason why the GPS is less accurate on a hike Vs a walk? For example I did a 21.5km hike in the lakes on sat. Strava corrected my Fitbit data based on GPS coordinates , the Fitbit hike showed a mere 6.5kms for a 7 hour hike! Walk mode is accurate but hike mode is not. Why is this? I had good mobile data for the whole walk and my Fitbit was connected at all times to my phone with the app running. As I said, walk mode is fine but hike mode is not working properly.Incorrect Fitbit data

Corrected Strava data

[kreitz0601]

I've read a bunch of posts and what not and I just can't figure this out. Today is especially puzzling. I need to really dig into making my own activity but the ones I've made didn't seem accurate at all. 

I've been rucking, running and walking out here and I get major discrepancies. Today really made that apparent though as I tracked my ruck as a hike (assuming, like most, that it accounts for a higher burn rate, and since rucking isn't an option it's going to be more telling than walking). Apparently I was wrong. 

I started the Hike on my phone and went at it. I clocked in 2.39 miles in 43:22 with a pace of 18:08. This is on some pavement, but mostly uneven gravel/dirt roads with minor elevation changes at a high altitude. The calories burned according to the app was 425.  Which I know is low as I had a 60lb pack on, but it's better than nothing. (From calculating it myself it should be closer to 700 calories burned). 

When I went into the app, I also had a walk, for the same time. It's since apparently auto deleted itself. So I don't know if it tracked the same mileage or just based it off of steps (I assume it's an auto detected walk from my crappy inspire), but the walk burned 514 calories. 

Luckily I don't need this to be super accurate, and I mostly just like using it to challenge myself and sift through data, but for people that actually need accurate results I can't see fitbit winning. Way too many discrepancies.

[JohnnyRow]

@kreitz0601  You left out an important piece of information: which Fitbit tracker you are using.

If it is one without a heart rate monitor, all it can go by is how you categorized it.

If it is one that measures heart rate, it can judge intensity from that.

[TheSaint001]

JohnnyRow it's the Versa

[kreitz0601]

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@JohnnyRow wrote:

@kreitz0601  You left out an important piece of information: which Fitbit tracker you are using.

If it is one without a heart rate monitor, all it can go by is how you categorized it.

If it is one that measures heart rate, it can judge intensity from that.

Actually I didn't. The auto-detect would be done via my Inspire. As it's auto-detect I categorize nothing.

The hike is GPS'd via phone app, also as mentioned. A default exercise type so again nothing categorized.

Even based on steps I'd expect a hike to be more calories than a walk. 

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[beetlebug]

And HR has nothing to do with my lack of kms as surely that's linked to the GPS? I still don't understand why there is such a discrepancy between distance in hike vs walk mode. Other than there's a bug that needs to get sorted.

[Rich_Laue]

With the Versa and Hike users feel, through experience, that GPS is not used in determining distance. We haven't been able to get an official confirmation or denial but auto detect of stride only works in the run mode. 

While hiking over rough terrain the users stride varies a lot more and usually is shorter than when simply walking on flat land. 

Fitbit is depending more on HR for caloric burn 

[kreitz0601]

If the fitbits DEPEND on HR, there shouldn't be non HR fitbits.

[Rich_Laue]

Did I say that they only depend on HR or that they are depending more on HR. 

If Fitbit did not offered a non HR model it would rule out a large group that doesn't care to have a heart rate. 

All I wanted the Fitbit for was to see how many steps I got during a job with a particular customer. I arrive at 3pm and often do not leave until 6-8 am and it could be as high as 30k since I helped setup and take down. 

On other days step count was used to monitor activity and for food I made portions smaller or cut back on seconds. 

Lost 35 pounds without counting a calorie. 

[kreitz0601]

Good for you. 

Maybe they should just not estimate calories then unless you buy an HR model? I don't know what the answer is. This thread alone has brought up multiple discrepancies. 

I don't care either way. I think the data is interesting it is by no means an important part of my day/life etc. But for some people it does matter. I have my phone on me pretty much all the time currently and also have some other apps set up. Fitbit is routinely the highest estimated calorie burn, has the most discrepancies between GPS use, and step count. For people that live that as gospel and make life choices based on that there is an injustice. 

What I really find weird is viewing GPS results in different apps. All of them run off of my phones GPS. Yet fitbit can't seem to interpret the data correctly. Or the other apps doctor the data and make it make sense. Fitbit will routinely get the path wrong. 

If fitbit were correct, esp my results, I'd be at about a 1300 calorie deficit daily. 

[Rich_Laue]

When it comes to measuring calories. The best way is to have the runner in a sealed room. Then measure the chant in percentage of Oxygen concentration. 

The second best way is to have the wear a mouth piece /mask that measures how much oxygen the user has converted to CO2. 

Any other method is simply a quests Marion based on heart rate and or amount of activity, the users weight age, gender, etc and a bunch of math to come up with a educated guess. 

[Ult1mat3X]

For myself, a walk is on a sidewalk, a paved road, or a well- used farm road. A hike is in a natural setting, be it beach, forest, or desert. Hiking involves uneven terrain, and a connection to nature