Active minutes disappeared after manually logging the activity

[Claire-a-belle]

I went for my usual lunch time walk today, which was for around 30 minutes - this usually shows as one of my days of weekly exercise but it didn't show up today (I've got this as showing an auto-recognised exercise - if I walk over 15 minutes).  I manually added this but doing this removed the active minutes I had already achieved for that walk (17 minutes). It didn't do this last week so I'm not sure why this is happening now.  Is there a way to get the active minutes back?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[MarreFitbit · Accepted solution]

It's nice to see a new member around, welcome @Claire-a-belle! Typically, your data will be recalculated if you manually log an activity as the manually logged activity takes precedence over the data you tracked while wearing your tracker at that point in time. For example, if I am wearing my tracker and walking and I reach 10 active minutes, 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 active minutes I earned and it may bring my active minutes to something below 10. To clarify, activities should only be manually logged when you forget to wear your Fitbit. If you want the active minutes back, you'll  need to delete the activity you manually logged. 

However, based on your post I assume that you're using SmartTrack to track your lunch time walk, right? 

As you know my friend, SmartTrack recognizes activities based on the continuous movement of your arms. Sometimes, motions such as pushing a stroller while you walk, may interrupt SmartTrack.

Additionally, stopping in the middle of an exercise may interrupt the activity tracking. By default, SmartTrack recognizes an exercise that lasts at least 15 minutes. If your activities aren't being recognized, lowering the time auto-exercise recognition setting to 10 minutes may help ensure they record properly. 

If your walk activity is not being recognized after lowering the Auto-Exercise Recognition setting. Let me tell you that we've found that some customers have a better experience with SmartTrack if they try wearing their tracker on a different wrist. In some cases, changing the wrist that you wear your tracker on can improve activity recognition.

Remember that if you change your wrist, you should also change your handedness setting. 

Last but not least, I'd like to make sure that you've tried restarting your tracker at least 3 times in a row by following these steps. 

Also, can you confirm to me that you your "Walk" on the SmartTrack feature is not set to IGNORED by mistake?

Hope this gets you back on track! 

[Claire-a-belle]

Thanks for your help with this - I think my band was sitting on my wrist incorrectly (too high and tight)! Luckily I didn't have to restart my Fitbit 😄

[MarreFitbit]

Great news @Claire-a-belle!  I'm glad to hear that everything is working now. 

Hope to see you participating in the Community more often since I think it would be awesome for you to explore our Community. You can go ahead and log to any of the topics that might be of your interest in our Discussion boards. Feel free to comment and contribute with your knowledge and experience.

Thanks for the update my friend, hope you have an amazing day! 

[Cfinseth]

The mechanics make sense, but what is the reason they were created. If I have two goals, one to be active for 90 minutes per day and the other to exercise 5 days a week... why do i need to choose which one i accomplish? For instance, I just jogged for 30 minutes. This was added to my active minutes, bringing me a third to my goal! However, my Fitbit didn't log the exercise, so i did it manually. Even though that exercise was 30 minutes in during which I was active, those active minutes were taken away. To me, this isn't something that needs to be explained, but an opportunity to fix it. ☝️

[Cfinseth]

One more detail. Adding an exercise during a time when the active minutes have NOT been registered ADDS more active minutes.

[Allisonsd]

I wore my tracker, logged dancing after. The tracker has my heart rate details of fat burning/cardio times, but then it took away my activity minutes. I erased dancing, as an exercise, and it gave me back those activity minutes. I don't understand why. My goals are to exercise x times a week, and have x active minutes a day.

Thank you for clarifying 😊

[Allied96]

How do you check if an activity has been ignored by the smarttrack feature?