Auto recognize outdoor bike says walking

[seaward]

When I ride my bike with the inspire 3 and my iPhone app with GPS, I cannot start an exercise session as outdoor bike on the app, so I use auto-recognize. When I get done it says I was walking. Your algorithm thinks I can walk 15 mph! 

If the app is willing to auto recognize Outdoor Bike how hard could it be to allow me to select the real type of exercise in the app instead of having to rely on an algorithm? The app only allows me to select from a static list of run, walk, and hike.

I understand that for folks with great eyesight they can start an outdoor bike session on the little watch but for my tired eyes I'm wondering why the app can't allow the user to specify the exercise type instead of having to rely on auto recognize which apparently has big flaws in the algorithm. 

At least why not let us fix auto recognition errors after the fact? Just let me change "Walk" to "Outdoor Bike" and then my history would make sense. That would be a lot easier than perfecting your auto recognition. 

TIA!

[Julia_G]

Hi, @seaward , have you checked whether your Inspire 3 is actually set to recognize “Outdoor Bike” automatically and also that the duration is set to the minimum time of 10 minutes?  To check this go to your Fitbit app and from the front page click on the gear icon top right to go to the Settings menu.  From the settings menu click on Exercise and make sure that Outdoor Bike is on the list of auto recognised activities and that it will recognise that activity as long as you are riding for at least 10 minutes.  

Whenever you make any changes in the app, be sure to sync your Fitbit.  

My personal experience with the Inspire 3 is that it is quite good at auto recognising outdoor bike as long as the Fitbit is set to recognise that activity.  As you have noted you can also track your bike ride manually on the Inspire 3 itself, using the exercise app on the device, but I appreciate the size of the font on the screen is quite small and you have difficulty for this reason.  It is a bit of a trade off - the small trackers look quite delicate and unobtrusive on the wrist, but the downside is readability to some extent!

[seaward]

Yes it is set to auto recognize and yes 10 minutes. And as stated it shows
up as walking at 11+ miles in 56 minutes. Yes I synched. etc.

It tracks using GPS and shows color coded zones. Walking at 12 MPH! Try it!
and it wasn't even at a cardio pace as it has heart rate data. Only 3211
steps in 11.63 miles. So that is a stride a little over 19 feet! My size
13's really allow me to move. I'm going to try it in NYC while reading the
paper and eating a folded slice. Take that you fast walkers!

Can you imagine writing an auto recognize algorithm and not having
reasonable guardrails on what might be a valid conclusion? Here you are
sort of blind but you know the pace you have the map and distance from GPS.
You have some motion from steps and effort and your conclusion is Walking!
Genius programming.

But don't let the app user change this to Outdoor Biking as we are Google
and we know better than our users.

Next time i'll bring reading glasses and tell it what I'm doing using the
itty bitty fitbit. Isn't it silly the app would be less capable than the
little wearable?

[Julia_G]

@seaward , I have to agree with much of what you say.  As I said, Outdoor Bike auto detect works really well for me, but for some reason it is not working for you.  it is ridiculous that you no longer can edit an activity that the algorithm plainly got wrong.