Add snow shoveling within the Luxe exercises

[Maryrca]

On behalf of those of us living where snow is a fact of life, it's HARD WORK. It would be great to have a way to really count it.

Yes, I can add an exercise with something generic like "sport" and even use the slider to make it hard. BUT... it doesn't count toward my zone minutes, which is what I'm tracking. 15 minutes of serious shoveling leaves me as winded as 15 minutes on the bike (which has to count as elliptical bc it's a stationary bike with handles that move, but whatever). 

Think about it, please?

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Maryrca , you can create a custom activity and then track it as an “outdoor workout” using the exercise app on your Luxe.  When you have finished, just rename your outdoor workout to snow shovelling and it will be recorded in your app and will give you active zone minutes just like any other workout you track.  

The only slightly complicated step is that you cannot create a custom activity in the app - you have to do it in the web based platform.  However, once you have created the activity it will be available in the app and only will take seconds to rename.

You can access the web based platform to create your activity via the community - there is a link on every page.  On the top right of the forum pages please click on “Dashboard” and then from the top menu choose “log” and then “activities”. On the activities screen scroll down to bottom right and click on “Custom Activity” and enter “snow shovelling” in the box.  That’s all you need to do.

When you start your snow shovelling session, as mentioned above, using the exercise app on your Luxe, track it as a “workout” in the usual way, making sure you end the tracking when you are done.  When you are ready, sync your Fitbit, click on your “workout” and choose edit (pencil icon in Android) or categorise exercise on iOS.  Start typing “snow...” in the box and it will come up immediately.

As I said, when I describe it it sounds a bit cumbersome, but once you have created the custom activity it is super quick and means you can track all kinds of things that aren’t included in the Fitbit database, even things that aren’t even exercise!  For example I have a custom activity of “resting” so I can keep an eye on my heart rate when I am at rest, and I know people who track “anxiety” as a custom activity.

Workout is specially designed to that you can categorise it.  Note that you cannot categorize activities automatically detected (not using the exercise app).

I hope this helps!

[Rich_Laue]

On behalf of the fitbit users, that your addressing @Maryrca have you added your vote? 

Add Snow Shoveling as exercise shortcut

[SunsetRunner]

Unfortunately the proposed feature request is labelled not planned by Fitbit hence I recommend to follow the procedure very well described by @Julia_G