What changed when no phone connected?

[jlg2]

When I hike, I do not take my iPhone with me. I believe my Inspire 3 used to record the steps and exercise then sync that to the app later when they reconnect. Yesterday, I walked 8 miles over rough terrain and climbed 2000 feet. My heart was pounding most of the way. So I was surprised today when I looked at my Fitbit app after it synced to see that my only exercise was 13 minutes of walking. I did not start a workout on the Fitbit yesterday. I expected it to recognize that I was exercising. Was I wrong? Or did something change in a firmware update? Was it just a fluke?  I assume the 13 minutes was about the time I was near my car where the iPhone was. 

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @jlg2 , your assumption that your Inspire 3 is designed to detect your activity and record it even if you do not have your phone with you is correct.  This was not changed in the recent update.  It sounds like your Fitbit was not working as expected when you hiked with it yesterday.

As you did not start a workout you were relying on SmartTrack to detect your activity.  As I expect you are aware, SmartTrack will not calculate the distance of any activity.  My feeling is that although SmartTrack does work very well under most circumstances, it is not 100% reliable - also I have occasionally experienced a bug in which a later SmartTracked walk overwrites a previous one.  That being the case I always advise that if a record of any particular activity is important to you (like an 8 mile rough hike!) it is worth starting an activity using the app - you should also get your distance stat doing that.

Of course, without your phone with you you will not be able to get a map of your hike using GPS, as the Inspire 3 does not have a GPS chip and needs to rely on the phone’s GPS.  Also the Inspire 3 cannot calculate elevation gain.

It is also worth periodically checking while exercising vigorously that your Fitbit is detecting that - if your heart is pounding, have a look at your Fitbit now and then to see if it is showing an elevated heart rate - if not, it may very well not detect your activity.  If you find that the HR is not accurate you may need to wear your Fitbit a little higher and a little tighter on your wrist.

My guess is that it is just a fluke - as I said the auto tracking algorithm sometimes fails.  But do keep an eye on it and post again if you continue to have difficulties.  Meanwhile if you like you can manually log your hike.  Instructions are here .

[Rich_Laue]

Walking through rough hilly terrain may be the source of the non recording. 

Fitbit looks for a consistent 10+ minutes of arm motions to determine the exercise being done. While biking up and down hills, over rocks, fallen trees etc, the arm motions may not be continuous or consistent for Fitbit to detect a single exercise 

[Julia_G]

Although it does sometimes mistake arm motions for footsteps, what the Fitbit is actually looking for is forward motion and vibrations which travel from the feet through the body and along the arm to the wrist worn Fitbit. That is what the algorithm is trying to detect. I can walk with my hands in my pockets and the Fitbit consistently detects a walk so arm motions are not required. Agreed that the motion needs to be consistently detected for a minimum of 10 minutes before SmartTrack will auto detect a hike.