Stats on Fitbit do not match the Fitbit dasboard

[goots7]

The active minutes on my Fitbit Ionic do not match the active minutes on the Fitbit dashboard. For example I did a 30 minutes of rowing this morning, my Fitbit shows 9 active minutes, the online dashboard shows 33 active minutes.

This started happening a couple days ago.

Any ideas how to bring them back into alignment?

[MarreFitbit · Accepted solution]

Hey there @goots7, thanks for stopping by! Are you comparing the same activity since this started happening? Usually what I do is to compare my graph steps against active minutes. When the amount of active minutes increase is when you have a higher amount of steps in a short period of time. Let me explain this better, the step graph accounts the amount of steps for 15 minutes interval. So if you have more steps than you got with a regular walk you will achieve active minutes. So, take a moment to review your graph and if the amount of steps is lower and does not match with your active minute then is something else. Essentially, as I mentioned, active minutes are a measurement of time spent doing an activity that is more intense than regular walking. So, if you walked or have too many steps with high intensity you will awarded with active minutes.

As you may know, Fitbit devices calculate active minutes using metabolic equivalents (METs). METs help measure the energy expenditure of various activities. Because they do so in a comparable way among persons of different weights, METs are widely used as indicators for exercise intensity. For example, a MET of 1 indicates a body at rest. Fitbit devices estimate your MET value in any given minute by calculating the intensity of your activity.

You earn active minutes for activities at or above about 3 METs.  Minutes are only awarded after 10 minutes of continuous moderate-to-intense activity. You can view the CDC’s recommendations on the CDC website. 

If the same activity gives you active minutes one day and fewer active minutes the next day, remember that the intensity of exercise is key. Often what seems like the exact same amount of effort over the same distance in fact differs slightly enough to change your active minutes total.

Essentially active minutes are a measurement of time spent doing an activity that is more intense than regular walking. If you want more information on how metabolic equivalents (METs) are calculated, I recommend the wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent. 

Last but not least, I was wondering if those 9 active minutes that you mentioned were showed after completing your rowing activity? I mean, they were showed in the summary workout? You saw that in the total stats on your Ionic? By any chance, did you manually log any activity? Typically, your data will be recalculated if you manually log an activity as the manually logged activity takes precedence over the data tracked while wearing your tracker at that point in time. For example, if I am wearing my tracker and walking and I reach 10,000 steps, then I go to the computer and manually log an activity that starts and ends at that point in time for say 1 hour, Fitbit will calculate how many steps you took and it may bring my step count to something below 10,000 steps. To clarify, activities should only be manually logged when you forget to wear your Fitbit.

Give this a go and let me know how it goes!