Want to track total daily active time, distance for all activities

[JonathanKamens]

My fitness goals are centered around the total time and distance I am active each day in any any activity. Specifically, my typical activities are walking, biking, running, and treadmill running.

Before acquiring my Ionic, I tracked my fitness goals with a combination of Pebble Time, Google Fit, and RunKeeper. Pebble tracked my routine steps, I used RunKeeper to track exercise walks, runs, and bike rids, and I entered treadmill workouts into Google Fit manually. Since both Pebble and RunKeeper sync into Google Fit, I was able to see all of my activity in Google Fit, and Fit supports aggregating all active time and distance into goals.

Now, I can theoretically track all of those activities with my FitBit, which is great. HOWEVER, and here is where it gets problematic, FitBit doesn't sync to Google Fit (despite over 4,600 votes and 900 comments going back four years asking for this to be supported!), AND as far as I can tell, there's no way in the FitBit app to view total distance covered by all activities (including, specifically, both steps and biking).

It looks to me from searching around like other people have run into the same issue, but I haven't seen any actual solutions to it.

Am I missing something, or is there really no way in FitBit to accomplish the simple task of setting a daily distance goal that encompasses all activities?

I just bought my Ionic as a replacement for my Pebble Time, because its battery is holding a charge less and less well nowadays, and FitBit just sent out a promotion offering a $50 discount on the Ionic. But if I can't accomplish this seemingly very simple thing -- tracking a daily total-distance goal -- then the Ionic isn't even a base-level replacement for my Pebble, and that's really disappointing.

[Heather-S]

When you set up your FitBit, you can set your own daily distance goal.  If you want to change it, simply click on the distance tile in the FitBit app, then click the little gear in the upper right hand corner, and from there you can customize your basic goal stats, including distance.  This tracks distance of any activity.

As far as breaking down the distance per activity, I don't believe that is possible.  However, you can see your TOTAL lifetime distance since owning your FitBit by logging into the dashboard.

[JonathanKamens]

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@Heather-S wrote:

This tracks distance of any activity.

No, it doesn't. I biked 8.65 miles this morning, tracked as a bike ride with GPS by my Ionic. This 8.65-mile bike ride shows up in the app when I tap the "weekly exercise" tile, with the correct mileage, so clearly the FitBit correctly tracked the bike ride. Nevertheless, the distance tile right underneath the steps tile in the app (which is, I assume, what you mean by the "distance tile") only shows a total distance of 1.19 miles so far today, which is the total of my steps, without the bike ride included.

[JonathanKamens]

In fact, not only does the distance tile not include tracked activity distance, there's no way whatsoever that I can see to view tracked activity distance on the app home page, and no way to view total tracked activity distance. The best you can do is tap the daily exercise tab, view the distances for each individual tracked activity displayed there, and then add up their distances yourself.

[Heather-S]

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@JonathanKamens wrote:

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@Heather-S wrote:

This tracks distance of any activity.

No, it doesn't. I biked 8.65 miles this morning, tracked as a bike ride with GPS by my Ionic. This 8.65-mile bike ride shows up in the app when I tap the "weekly exercise" tile, with the correct mileage, so clearly the FitBit correctly tracked the bike ride. Nevertheless, the distance tile right underneath the steps tile in the app (which is, I assume, what you mean by the "distance tile") only shows a total distance of 1.19 miles so far today, which is the total of my steps, without the bike ride included.

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I see what you mean.  The FitBit tracks distance of steps, walking, running, etc. to your total daily activity, but I don't believe it'll track the bike ride in your total distance for the day since your tracker did not register physical steps made during that distance -- if that makes sense.  You could put your FitBit on your ankle while you're riding and it's possible it will register those steps and therefore track the distance.  

Edit to add: I know that's not the answer you probably want to hear, but it's the only one I can think of, unless someone else in the community has an idea for tracking distance of bike rides.  I don't ride a bike, so I can only assume because your FitBit isn't sensing any steps, it's not going to register those miles as part of your daily activity.  

[JonathanKamens]

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@Heather-S wrote:
The FitBit tracks distance of steps, walking, running, etc. to your total daily activity, but I don't believe it'll track the bike ride in your total distance for the day since your tracker did not register physical steps made during that distance -- if that makes sense.

Yes, it makes sense in the sense of "you've just described exactly the problem I'm complaining about and trying to fix."

It doesn't make sense, at least not to me, in the sense of "this is the correct behavior." It's not the correct behavior for me, which is why I'm asking how to change it.

You could put your FitBit on your ankle while you're riding and it's possible it will register those steps and therefore track the distance.

It will be rather, um, difficult for me to check on my progress during a bike ride if my Fitbit were on my ankle.

[Heather-S]

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@JonathanKamens wrote:

In fact, not only does the distance tile not include tracked activity distance, there's no way whatsoever that I can see to view tracked activity distance on the app home page, and no way to view total tracked activity distance. The best you can do is tap the daily exercise tab, view the distances for each individual tracked activity displayed there, and then add up their distances yourself.

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When I tap on the distance tile in the app, I can see my total distance for the day, but you're correct, it doesn't break it down by activity.  It just gives me a total for the day and when I select the day, it'll show the distance for every 15 minutes.

[JonathanKamens]

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@Heather-S wrote:

When I tap on the distance tile in the app, I can see my total distance for the day, but you're correct, it doesn't break it down by activity.  It just gives me a total for the day and when I select the day, it'll show the distance for every 15 minutes.

Does this include biking activities tracked on your watch? If not, then your experience is not relevant to the problem I'm trying to solve. This is the problem:

[Heather-S]

What I'm telling you is that it's not possible to track those miles in your overall daily distance if you did not walk or run those miles.  At least that is my understanding of how the FitBits work.  This isn't an Ionic issue, this is overall how FitBits work.  

[JonathanKamens]

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Daily-distance-goal-that-includes-tracked-activi...

[bbarrera]

@JonathanKamens

Fitbit distance tile only includes step based miles. That means no biking miles, swimming miles/yards, rowing miles, etc, etc. And as you've discovered, it doesn't provide a breakdown between walking, hiking, and running.

[PaalMRT]

I am trying to use Fitbit Ionic to record cross country skiing. I was recommended to select BIKE execise.

Distance recorded was around 20 km which seems correct, about 14000 steps. but in the daily distance it looks like i didnt get out of bed, only 0.8 km. So it looks like it ignored both the GPS distance and the steps distance. any way to correct this?

Paal in Norway

[nealix]

I understood that FitBit keeps a daily history of one's accomplishments. This is listed on a 

separate page for your convenience. 

Not true?

nealix

[nealix]

This is what I would like. I thought there was a FitBit page that contained this for our

convenience. No?