Active Zone Minutes, Active Minutes and Virgin Pulse

[joekarter]

Recently you changed from active minutes to active zone minutes.  This has created an issue with Virgin Pulse which reads active minutes, not zone minutes.  On my Ionic clock face, it says I have 59 active minutes.  When I log into my dashboard with my laptop, it says I have 42 active minutes.  Since Virgin Pulse pulls the active minutes from the web page, I am always coming up short of my 45 active minute goal because my watch says I have 59 active minutes so I assume that I have all of the active minutes I need for the day (you can only get 45 active minutes a day on Virgin Pulse).  Since the company I work for has tied our insurance deductibles to meeting specific goals in Virgin Pulse, it is critical that I meet these goals.  I used to be able to depend on my Fitbit for this information, but now unless I actually log into my dashboard, I have no idea how many active minutes I have.

Do you have any suggestions on how to fix this?

[SilviaFitbit]

@joekarter Welcome to the Fitbit Community. Thank you for getting in touch about this. 

I appreciate the detailed information shared. I understand where you're coming from. 

The reason why you're seeing more Active Zone Minutes on your device is due to the way, these are tracked, you're receiving 2 Active Zone Minutes for each minute you spend in the cardio or peak zone. Learn more about it in this article. 

I've noticed that other users around the Community have decided to install a clock face that shows Active Minutes instead of Active Zone Minutes, this way you don't need to check your online Dashboard. 

I'll be around if you have any additional questions. 

[Susanhigh]

I have the same issue, however, I have an Inspire 2.  I don't see a clock face with the Active Minutes option.  Can you elaborate on this?

[joekarter]

The clock face I am using (Clean Cut by John Boy Software) was available before there were zone minutes.  The only thing that existed when I selected this clock face was active minutes.  So I would hope that this would show active minutes, which it is not.  I am going to reach out to the developer and see if they can assist with this issue.  

[joekarter]

Just heard back from the developer.  Their response:

Thanks for the email, and for using my clock face.

Unfortunately, Fitbit doesn't allow showing what was previously called active minutes. The current SDKs only provide for active zone minutes, and clock face updates are required to use the current SDKs. I'll keep an eye on SDK developments and will revert back to active minutes if it ever becomes available again.

JB

So, this is a Fitbit issue. It sure would have been nice if Fitbit had made Active Minutes vs Active Zone Minutes a user selectable option instead of making the decision for us.  It really kills the whole reason I purchased a Fitbit in the first place.

[SilviaFitbit]

@Susanhigh It's nice to see you on the Fitbit Community. Thank you for letting me know that you have a Fitbit Inspire 2. 

Fitbit Charge 4, Fitbit Inspire 2, Fitbit Ionic, Fitbit Sense, and Fitbit Versa series track Active Zone Minutes. All other devices track active minutes. 

@joekarter Thank you for getting back. I appreciate the time you took to contact the developer. Your feedback is appreciated, we're always striving to improve our services offered.

Have a great week. 

[RoyaYaz]

Hi Silvia,

Here we go again, a canned answer about "active zone minutes" that doesn't answer the question asked. The question is not what "active zone minutes" is or why we use "active zone minutes" now (as the article you provided the link for answers).

The question is, regardless of whatever method of "active minutes" you use, why are we getting different results in Virgin Pulse. I am also an employee of a company that uses Virgin Pulse as their Fitness app and my Fitbit is linked to it. So when I collect active min on my Charge 4, it is sent to Virgin Pulse.

My problem is I get very random active min values coming to my Virgin Pulse. One day, I can have 40 min of "active zone min" on my Fitbit, while my Virgin pulse app shows 54 min of active minutes. Then the next day, I can have the same 40 min of "active zone min" and my Fitbit will show only 17 minutes.

As I said, I am fine with whatever active minutes method Charge 4 is producing, but I need to know what it translates to when it gets to Virgin Pulse app. Is there a formula I can use to calculate my Virgin Pulse "active minutes", from my Charge 4 "active zone minutes"?

Thanks in advance,

Roya