New to Fitbit and had a few questions!

[SunsetRunner]

Hey everyone,

I'm new to Fitbit and was wondering how i could track a few things. For example:

My gym has a small indoor track in the building that i use to run, on the fit bit would i just use the regular run mode to track this? Should i use Strava? Something else?

For the stationary bike, fitbit cant really track this, can it?

I play a lot of soccer, to track this should i just use the running mode as well?

Thanks in advance for all the help!

[QammaQarsi]

Hey, I'm also new to fitbit, but I've been experimenting with this a little. I usually lift weights or do interval or fartlek training. I track my interval and fartlek training with the generic "Workout" option (I haven't used the interval timer YET, I've only just worked out how to edit the time intervals).

It tracked everything really well, including how many steps, and it gave me a pace based on my time vs my steps, so I would guess that you could just track it as a run if you want to know your pace.

I'm also interested in how it tracks indoor cycling, lol

[DramaQueenDiva]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

Hey everyone,

I'm new to Fitbit and was wondering how i could track a few things. For example:

My gym has a small indoor track in the building that i use to run, on the fit bit would i just use the regular run mode to track this? Should i use Strava? Something else?

For the stationary bike, fitbit cant really track this, can it?

I play a lot of soccer, to track this should i just use the running mode as well?

Thanks in advance for all the help!

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I'm not sure about the stationary bike, but as for the running, some trackers (including the Ionic) have what is called Pure Pulse Technology.  This allows the tracker to track your heart rate, which it then uses to automatically record your sleep and exercises....including runs!  To do this, all you need to do is put the tracker on, do the activity, and then sync the tracker (in this case, the Ionic) to your app.  Under the "Exercise" tile, you should see your exercise already recorded.  You can use Strava or the running mode app, but you don't have to.  I assume the same would be true for soccer, but I'm not sure as I don't play soccer and have therefore never tried it.

[SunsetRunner]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

My gym has a small indoor track in the building that i use to run, on the fit bit would i just use the regular run mode to track this? Should i use Strava? Something else?

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I'd use the run exercise but turn off gps in the settings of the run exercise on the Ionic. The Strava app is pretty useless at the moment and only shows previous runs. The is no recording function to it.

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nevesn wrote: 

For the stationary bike, fitbit cant really track this, can it?

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There is a spinning activity you could use our alternatively use the Bike exercise and then off the gps. You won't track gps but you will get HR, time and calories.

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

I play a lot of soccer, to track this should i just use the running mode as well?

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Really depends what your trying to record. Exercise will record your HR and calories. If you use run you'll also get a gps tracked but what benefit would this be? Distance covered could be estimated from your steps.

[Sports-lover]

Hi I am also new and I have my ionic on 29% and I want to do 250 steps each hour and I want to sleep with it. 

Shall I charge it now or when?

I allready did the 250 steps for this hour.

Thanks so much in advanced.

[USAF-Larry]

@Sports-lover, I would recommend charging it any time it is at 30% or lower. If you have done 250 steps this hour and you charge it, it will be fully charged before the next hour nears the end and you will be able to do 250 additional steps for that hour as well...

[Sports-lover]

Thnx so much 

this is to Fitbit 

'I have an ionic and I needed to charge it twice in 1 day and a quarter 

[WendyB]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

For the stationary bike, fitbit cant really track this, can it?

 @SunsetRunner

I just    use The Bike for stationary Bike and add what the Bike tells me for miles etc.

[WendyB]

@Sports-lover

Please clean the contacts
http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/My-tracker-s-battery-isn-t-charging/?q=not+chargi...

Then Do a Restart
http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1186/?q=restart&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1

Also See this thread for charging best practices. If you are not charging it correctly you could be damaging the battery
https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge/Fitbit-charge-battery-problems/m-p/1323307#M53291

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1799

If that does not help contact support
http://help.fitbit.com/?cu=1

[Sports-lover]

I just got it yesterday 

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

@SunsetRunner, as @SunsetRunner says for your indoor track runs the obvious solution is to use the run mode but turn off GPS.  In that case your distance will be computed by multiplying your running stride length by your number of steps.  You might want to make sure your stride length is correctly estimated using this help article.

For the stationery bike you should use the "spinning" exercise mode.

Depending on what you want to capture for your soccer (that's football to most of the rest if the world!) there isn't really a good solution, especially if you would like to know how far you have travelled during your game.  If it were me, I would definitely not use the automatic exercise detection ("SmartTrack") that @DramaQueenDiva is suggesting.  That is okay for lower level devices which don't have a workout mode, but if you want to be sure to have a record through the start and finish, and since you have a device that can you do it, why would you not use the workout mode on your tracker?

In that case your obvious options are "workout" or "run".  If you want the distance covered, you will need to choose "run", which is a shame, because a couple of years ago Fitbit decided that distance would only be recorded if your activity was "walk", "hike", "run" or "golf".  An alternative (in my view whacky) workaround would be (assuming you don't play golf) to record your soccer games as golf (with GPS on).  You could do the same with "hike"... Then you would know that whenever it said "golf" on your record it would really mean soccer...

If you don't care about seeing the distance, then choose "workout" mode.  That mode is designed for renaming later.  Once it has synced to your app, rename your "workout" as "soccer".  All your heartrate, steps, calorie, data will be there and your record will be accurate.  Nothing missing except distance.

[SunsetRunner]

@Julia_G Thanks for your reply!

I have a few more questions. Where is the spinning exercise mode on the Ionic. I see multiple modes, like Run, swim, bike(outdoor) but no spinning. Am i missing something?

Also how can i rename a workout? On the fitbit app it seems to only give me a delete option if i select any of the workouts i did, like for example Run.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @SunsetRunner, you need to go to "Exercise shortcuts" on your app.  (Click on Ionic and then scroll down to exercise shortcuts).  You can only have 7, so if you don't see spinning, and you have 7 already, you will need to delete one before you can add.  If this is not clear, please let us know if you are using iOS, Android or Windows app.

You can only rename activities that you track as "workout" .  If you track as a "run" as you have seen the only option is to delete.  So if you are doing an activity not on the list that you would like to rename, always be sure to track it as a "workout"

I hope this helps! Let us know if you have any more questions.

[SunsetRunner]

@Julia_G Got it! Thanks so much for the help!

[Julia_G]

@SunsetRunner, my pleasure!  Please do post again if you have any more questons or if you feel any of your insights or tips could help another user -- that is what the Fitbit Community is for!