Should record active minutes like Garmin

[Nkehoe]

Hi changed from Garmn to Fitbit. However I think I’m a bit disappointed by my choice. The Iconic. The Garmin showed active minutes and set a weekly goal. 150 minutes a week. This was all the exercises recorded in a week. Am I missing something. Does the iconic provide this. It shows rather days of exercise is a week. I think Garmin have IT the right way. If you knew you were going to be busy at work 3 days over the reading four days you would stretch yourself to reach your weekly goal of 150. Minutes for example. 

Can fFitbit please work in this

[AspiringRunner]

Hi Nkehoe,

Fitbit does have active minutes. In the Fitbit app on your phone, below the step count to the far right, you will find a tally of the number of minutes you were active for the day. You will also find it available for viewing on the website dashboard as well. I'm not sure if you can specifically view it on the Ionic or not, but I'm guessing that someone out there has created a watch face with the active minutes listed (I'll search for one and update this post if I find one).

*update* Took me less than a minute to find one. There is a watch face called Flash Ring that has it available(It's the lightning bolt symbol). I suspect there are far more watch faces that have it as well.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Nkehoe, as mentioned by @AspiringRunner, Fitbit definitely lets you set an Active Minutes goal and it will automatically track your progress toward that.  The default goal is 30 minutes per day, but you can change that.

Actually there is a wide range of goals you can set: Steps, Active minutes, calories burned, floors climbed, food, water, amd sleep.

Most of these are daily goals.  The exception is exercise sessions, which is a weekly goal.  

I used to have a Garmin but gave it up because I found the Fitbit app so much more intuitive and easy to use, so I can't quite remember how the Garmin worked.  But from what you say it sounds like the difference is that the Garmin's active minutes goal is weekly and Fitbit's is daily.

[Nkehoe]

Great. I’ll take a look. Thanks for the reply.

[Nkehoe]

Ok had a look and the active minutes is 1.  Daily and 2. Doesn’t seem to take the activity done that day into account. I did over an hour swim today that didn’t show up under active minutes. Also on the Garmin activity minutes were added in two ways. Low intensity like walking counted 1 walking minute = 1 activity minute. ANd high intensity like running 1 minute running = 2 activity minutes. So you were rewarded higher for high effort exercise. 

[Marc_PL · Accepted solution]

@NkehoeHaving previously owned a Charge 2 for 10 months prior to buying my Ionic a couple of weeks ago, I definitely agree that the Ionic does not record active minutes for my activities and exercises like the Charge 2 did.

Since I have owned my Ionic it has consistently under-recorded active minutes: for example, today my active minutes according to my Ionic is 52 minutes for a long cycle ride, however, a further 68 minutes has not been logged for a walk and 2 shorter cycle rides.

When I posted this thread on this subject last week another user advised that active minutes is calculated on a "MET" value for calories burned per minute based on your BMI etc.  Apparently my MET value is 3 calories per minute, so according to this formula provided I burn at least 3 calories per minute during my activities and exercises those minutes should count as active minutes.

That is the theory.  However, during the 68 minutes my Ionic failed to record as active minutes today I exceeded the 3 calories per minute MET value.

I would greatly appreciate a response from Fitbit on this matter to give clarification of exactly how the Ionic records active minutes and why this is inconsistent with other fitness trackers.

[Nkehoe]

Not sure why this is showing as accepted solution. This has not been solvec

[Marc_PL]

Well I certainly did not mark it as an accepted solution.

[Colinm39]

@Marc_PLThe minimum MET value has to also include 10 continuous minutes at that rate. When you get some pauses it needs another 10 continuous active minutes.. This applies to all Fitbits and the example below from earlier this year is a heavy shopping day in a large shopping mall.. I tend to burst walk between the shops that I need, and this mall has inclined walks across where it's built across a highway which helps me push the HR up and travelators in the flat sections between floors where you can walk at speed when the clientele is sparse....  I even got 3 floors

[Marc_PL]

@Colinm39  Well that undoubtedly applies to the Ionic, but I can assure you that my Charge 2 recorded active minutes for connected GPS activities of less than 10 minutes in duration, with or without pauses.

The screenshot below is of a typical cycle ride home from town, which is 1.52 miles (not 1.46) and always takes less than 10 minutes.  My Charge 2 consistently recorded active minutes for this ride, whereas the Ionic never records active minutes for the same GPS tracked cycle ride.  This is just one example of the discrepancy between the way my Charge 2 and Ionic registers active minutes.

[bbarrera]

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@Nkehoe wrote:

showed active minutes and set a weekly goal. 150 minutes a week. This was all the exercises recorded in a week. Am I missing something. Does the iconic provide this.

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@Nkehoe I agree with you, this is the "right way" as it supports taking recovery days in between hard efforts. Daily goals are designed to get people moving. Weekly goals are designed for active/fit people. The standard answer on the Fitbit forums is to search the request forum, and if you find a thread then vote for it, otherwise create a new request. But don't get your hopes up, there are so many good ideas that haven't been implemented in years its somewhat of a "feel good" forum.