Ionic Incorrect Active Minutes

[Lmrphy08]

I have done spinning with a heart rate over 100 for 30 minutes and only show 7 minutes of Active Minutes.  I track it on my Ionic Spinning exercise with the start & finish. The Ionic shows my resting hesrt rate at 69-70 so with a heart rate over 100 showing I am in the Fat Burning Zone shouldn't I have Active Minutes! I contacted FitBit live chat, he couldn't figure it out & said he would email me but I haven't heard back it's been 2 days.

So I got s reply, didn't answer the question which makes think he didn't read the transcript of my live chat!

Hi Lisa, 

Thanks for waiting for our reply, we appreciate your patience.

I'm part of the Ionic department team and I'll be happy to continue assisting you regarding your Ionic not calculating active minutes. We'd like you to check some information about active minutes in our help article at the following link: http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1379​. Essentially active minutes are a measurement of time spent doing activity that is more intense than regular walking. If after reading the article you want more information on how metabolic equivalents (METs) are calculated, we recommend the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent. 

Also, I was able to confirm that yesterday your Ionic tracked 21 active minutes during the day.

Please let us know if we can provide additional information.

Sincerely,

Benjamin V. and the Fitbit Team

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

I found what you are talking about for custom activity.  In looking over my recent activities I realized my chair cardio is auto-tracked as an Aerobic exercise in which I received 26 out 27 minutes.  One of my Spinning sessions I did 15 min with avg 113bpm & received 0 Active Minutes. 

[Cyclonetog]

I wonder how the watch would know you were doing spin? 

If your arm was stationary due to handlebars, maybe the ionic just thought you were excited or watching a scary movie lol. 

[Lmrphy08]

@Cyclonetog

Lol. Spinning I use the start/stop feature in my Ionic.  

[Cyclonetog]

Interesting, in that case then surely that should count towards active mins. 

Probably just some sort of software flag somewhere needs to be activated. 

[Lmrphy08]

@Cyclonetog

I hope so. 

[Lmrphy08]

@WavyDavey @Colinm39

I just used the workout mode. I received 15 Active Minutes out of a 36 minute session. Some of the workout was on the floor so my HR did go down to 100 give or take a couple points each way. As for the fat burning part of it my HR was up over 110 (lowest I noticed while exercising).

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08Thanks for the graph.. What does the calories graph look like on the PC or the Phone because 60 calories  = 4 cals/min average.?

It's important you look at that graph, because those calories only has to drop below 3 cals/min and you would lose active minutes.. maybe not enough continuous 10 minutes.... My guesstimate using my daughters physicals into the BMR calculator.

I set my Ionic to Spinning to ensure we were getting the data to ensure there was a graph. This was domestics for 15 minutes, hence steps only 12/min....  I also screen shot the phone calories to compare.

---

@Lmrphy08wrote:

@Cyclonetog

Lol. Spinning I use the start/stop feature in my Ionic.  

---

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08 Thanks for replying.... I presume your calories graph.  But nothing there in your post.

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

Sorry yes it was the calorie graph. Here is the BMR results 1,511 calories/day 

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08The graph was perfect and here is my breakdown..

Is this the activity you only had about half the Active minutes..? and my graph accurate enough ?

The irony of this, if you were to overwrite that with a Custom Activity it would average the calories and give you 35-36 Active Minutes... But if you were to do this on every activity it would not go towards challenges etc.. Especially if step based..

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

So because my hr went down the device thinks I stopped exercising? 

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08. Not necessarily when your HR went down... 

We now need to look at the step side of the Activity because the clue will be there.. The combination of activity and HR..

If you go into your your Fitbit Activity Log on your PC or the Internet on your phone. Tap on the Activity Record and input the same Start times, date etc for the same 35 min workout.  Then tap on the very small icon next to the description

Was that workout a Chair Cardio and relying on arm movement or similar to record the step count. ?  You had an average step count for that activity @ 33 spm.. Much more than my example which had 100% AM.

Maybe the "spurt" type activity had Fitbit think you didn't exercise heavily enough.. I did an Interval Timer workout recently and it was set for 2:30 Move and 0:30 Rest but I kept walking slowly and my HR  kept constant.

I will try the Interval Timer and stop when the rest occurs  this evening..

Here is the composite graph of your activity.. All we need do is at the step count Graph..

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08With my Interval test I'm more confused than ever.. I received 12 minutes of Active Minutes for this and at the end I was just ambling getting my breathe back.  The HR was lower than yours in parts, my RHR is 52-53.. Cardio 42-46..

What exactly is your Chair Cardio.. so that we can address the workout for others what's happening.. 

You and I have a similar BMR, mine gets closer to your because the BMR Calculators drop of 5 calories/day off the daily BMR for year you are older..... So results should be similar.  But, have you double checked your physical settings in the Dashboard because any discrepancy there has a large bearing on your BMR.

Here is my 12 minute effort. and the first 2-3 minutes are interesting.. Hardly in fat burning and I have earned 3 active minutes..I have a feeling the accelerometer , impact and steps have a bearing on that.. At end, the same thing, HR dropped to the same as the start and I still received an Active Minute..

@MatthewFitbitI don't like asking, but in your team is there a Moderator who is more skilled on the Active Minutes concept.. Not just 10 minutes and 3 MET's, but how the Accelerometer with Impact etc can reflect in the Active Minutes. In the early days we experienced that impact effect with the clip on Fitbits and in this Topic we have Lisa, because of a foot problem is doing chair cardio and we are getting interesting comparative results..

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39  the Hurt Foot Total Body Workout is the one I did yesterday. I did enter it manually also. I think what happened is tracking the workout live doesn't take into account the floor portion (kinda like the vacuuming). I do wear my device on my non-dominant wrist. the Chair Cardio has no floor activity. Oh, I stopped the tracking before doing the stretching at the end. I hope I have included all needed info for you. Once again I really appreciate the time you have taken to help me. I think you are correct about the accelerometer.

Hurt Foot Total Body Workout  

Challenging Chair Cardio Workout    This one I did the other day I posted about.

Ionic logged in & Workout is the tracked with start/Finish

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

I did Spinning today keeping my hr at or above 115. It took 1.5 minutes for my hr to reach 115, so for my 15 minute session I received 13 Active Minutes. After I ended Spinning I walked around my driveway ( nice enough day here in Cleveland) to bring my hr down to 100 & received 12 more Active Minutes. 

[Colinm39 · Accepted solution]

@Lmrphy08 Our collective input into this topic will help others.  Your earlier posts definitely show the relationship between HR and the Ionic detecting little physical activity at the end.. and your walking and spinning definitely proved that.  I used 12 minutes for my test last night to confirm the 10 minute continuous and your have achieved that with your Spinning, have the HR elevated and then "cool down" walk..

A few weeks ago when I did some heavy gardening the auto tracking came up with Aerobics, Sport and Outdoor Bike. When I thought through that, I was doing overhead pruning, kneeling and weeding, sweeping, raking and putting the greens into our recycle bin.. 2 hours of non stop. So one could image Tennis, Field Hockey etc so when you take that into account you can see how the Accelerometer with effort can be confused.  I have set all of my Auto Tracking to the minimum of 10 minutes..

I did some research on Fitbits active minutes and finally after going though many that only discussed 10 minutes and 3 METs I found these para's in two research papers. This would suggest the Accelerometer. Many of us with early Fitbits found that was occurring. One of the Fitbitters found they were getting more calories burn going down long flights of steps than going up them and a few of us put that down to impact.

9:15am here and 2:15pm yesterday for you.. So breakfast for me... and answer some more posts..

---

@Lmrphy08wrote:

@Colinm39

I did Spinning today keeping my hr at or above 115. It took 1.5 minutes for my hr to reach 115, so for my 15 minute session I received 13 Active Minutes. After I ended Spinning I walked around my driveway ( nice enough day here in Cleveland) to bring my hr down to 100 & received 12 more Active Minutes. 

---

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08One interesting article from, the NY Times from 2014..... in this link

If you view this link on your PC it gives a better understanding because the videos are interactive. On the phone I found you need to activate each in turn.

[Lmrphy08]

@Colinm39

Thank you.

[Colinm39]

@Lmrphy08Thanks for being so proactive on this.. The last few years it hasn't been as detailed and there isn't any explanation on the "how" rather than the "Time and MET's".

Even in Fitbit's help it's very general where it mentions Accelerometer.