Active minutes aren't exercise?

[Heather3879]

I'm trying to learn how to use my new Fitbit Charge. It appears that my "active minutes," even when in over my goal of 30 for the day, don't count as "exercise" toward my three workouts a week. Is this correct? Will it be remedied if I use the timer next time?

[Uva25]

I woke up this morning and had 98 minutes recorded as soon as i got up.  I walked for 30 minutes at lunch (office job during the morning) and it now shows 308 minutes and its only 2pm.  It just started about a week ago.  

[straighttalk44]

The concept behind FitBit is outstanding, the execution deeply flawed, and the results totally unreliable. Whether it be recording steps, active minutes, or sleep time and sleep patterns, virtually nothing it does is accurate.

[Paula1968]

I agree. My exercise tracker was working fine until I did an update for it. Since then it hasn't logged my daily exercise despite doing well over 30 active minutes a day

[jbenz]

So... when I manually add 2 hours of water aerobics, I don't get any active minutes - only credit for an exercise session? I can't wear my fitbit in the pool, right?

[Maddy5656]

But I am using the timer. I set my watch for workout and turn it off when I’m done. In the details it says I have 30 minutes of cardio and 29 minutes at fat burn and yet the dashboard only shows 21 minutes of activity. According to fitbit’s own explanation of what an active minute is, that makes no sense. 

[TDGARDENS]

I am having the same problem. This morning, I had 112 active minutes after a 45-minute weight workout and a 60 minute cardio workout. 

That it doesn't exactly match, I get. There were warm-ups and warm-downs involved. BUT when I manually added the cardio workout my active minutes dropped by 60. Clearly FitBit went back and matched my exertion level because the HR was noted. BUT for the active minutes to drop when I was actually "very active" (45 min in cardio / peak zones) makes no sense whatsoever.

[Catizhere]

So, folding laundry?  cleaning up around the house?

[Shanna_S]

So, I understand the theory or, rather, the guidelines, but if I’m walking for over an hour every day and getting >10,000 steps, it doesn’t count as exercise unless I log it manually? That seems counter intuitive to using the fitbit as an automatic tracker..

it seems I now have to rethink my definition of exercise..

[RIIO2]

My fitbit doesn't seem to record cycling, tennis, circuit training, yoga - all of which get my heart rate up and make up my weekly schedule. Nor running up tube escalators/for buses/trains and lots of other stop start activity that makes up my day and raises my heart beat. Something for Fitbit to further develop before they go selling our exercise data to health insurance companies.  In the meantime it's a bit demoralising and means the calorie type stuff is likely way out of kilter.  I'm trying it on hockey at the weekend. Steps should be okay but will be interested to see if it records 70 minutes of hockey as active minutes given that it is stop start running rather than continuous...

[grebewatcher]

Yes, something odd is hapoening that I didn’t previously have an issue with. I just did 45 minutes on my treadmill, with five minute warmup and cooldown—expecting to log 20 active minutes. I was sweating and flexing my leg muscles as well as swinging arms or doing arm lifts at least part of the time. Result (using my Charge HR):3,724 steps, and zero active minutes!! What?!

[Scarruth]

Hi there! I logged 50 minutes of working out today using my workout mode, but I only have 13 minutes of active minutes on my Fitbit App. Is it possible to get the app’s active minutes to reflect my actual activity? It always has in the past - just not today and I’m wondering why this is. Thank you! 

[TammyDee]

I can't believe all of the condescending and complicated answers to this. Let me give an example. I went to a 60 minute dance class. It was highly aerobic. I was granted 60 "active minutes" for the class but it did not log it as "exercise". I went back and mannually logged it as an 60 min " aerobic workout". But I lost all of my active minutes. Are you saying that I can't use the same 60 minutes as both exercise and active minutes? I have to chose?

I can't believe all of the condescending and complicated answers to this. Let me give an example. I went to a 60 minute dance class. It was highly aerobic. I was granted 60 "active minutes" for the class but it did not log it as "exercise". I went back and mannually logged it as an 60 min " aerobic workout". But I lost all of my active minutes. Are you saying that I can't use the same 60 minutes as both exercise and active minutes? I have to chose?

Moderator edit: merged reply

[Saan42]

Yes, it's ridiculous, the concepts are not that difficult.

I understand that not all exercise is necessarily active minutes, because depending upon the type of exercise you do, it may not get your heart rate up high enough etc.

However, surely all active minutes should count as exercise. If your heart rate is up enough to count as 'active' then this is exercise.

I go for a walk/run with my dogs every day, it always counts as active minutes, half the time it randomly counts as exercise too, the rest of the time it doesn't.

I have no interest whatsoever in manually logging exercise, as I didn't buy something that is supposed to track by itself to enter things manually. I could do that on a spreadsheet if that's what I wanted to do.

Like the person above said, why on Earth would you have to choose between active minutes and exercise? If it fit the definition of active minutes originally, it doesn't suddenly stop fitting that definition because you tell the device that it was a workout.

These things are quite costly, and this stuff doesn't seem that hard. Pretty disappointed in this product.

[melissam714]

Hello, here's a question for you !

How is it that my active minute's show 30 min of activity when iv been sitting at a desk for 3 hours and I have only gotten up for a bathroom break once.?

is it counting steps as I type??

[SunsetRunner]

I’ll give you one better. I rode a stationary bike, recorded it as spinning. 43 minutes of cardio and 17 minutes of peak only logged on the dashboard as 52 minutes of activity. 

Somehow the math the dashboard does is incorrect. 

[Bee1950]

It sounds like you type fast with much animation of your wrist such that the
Fitbit is sensing the movement.

[wetninic]

Perhaps you don’t have your settings set on “auto recognition “ under activity settings ?

[SunsetRunner]

I'm just going to vote this as the worst answer. Who the hell marked it the best?

[Rossi13]

Because Fitbit is a mood ring

[SunsetRunner]

I don’t get that then! I used my tracker and it’s registered as a daily exercise but hasn’t given me active minutes even though I was in my workout zone for 50 minutes continuous.