Active minutes vs Exercise

[SunsetRunner]

I seem to be having a problem with Active Minutes

For example yesterday the charge hr logged the following:

30 min on Elliptical avg bmp 117

38 min work out avg bmp 87

31 min on elliptical avg bmp 126

117 min on sport avg bmp 92

but only recorded 158 active min. My resting bmp is around 55.  All of these should have logged active min to about 216.  I have noticed this on several days.

From what I understand active min count is less than the excercise count, especially if my heartrate is up.

Is there a way to fix this?

thanks

[SprManKalEl]

If I am working out, I press and hold the button until it vibrates so the the C-HR knows that I am working out. It then tracks my HR and calories and I believe Active Minutes at the end of the workout. You just have to remember to press and hold the button again to deactivate workout mode. Then you have to open the app to sync.

[SunsetRunner]

Still does not explain why my active min are so low.

Just to check I downloaded my activity data from yeterday.

It recorded:

251 minutes lightly active

63 minutes fairly active

95 minutes very active

It does not appear to have added lightly active minutes.  I cann't even say how it came up the the totals in the 3 categories, where my ave bmp was 87 and above.

The strangest thing all my time yesterday was exercising.

If I go for a walk > 15 min my heart rate does not get that high and it all counts as activity.

Sorry but I am confused by this. 

[SunsetRunner]

Some more info.  I downloaded my data for the last month. 

I have found that fairly active and very active times only count towards activity.

Light does not.

I am not sure why some of my activity is counted as light when my heart rate is high.

What is the difference between light and fairly?

thanks

[SprManKalEl]

Have you read this article? It tells how active minutes are achieved.

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1379

[SunsetRunner]

Yes. But it did not answer my question. For example today I did not work out much.
16 min in the elliptical. Walked the rest. I have 80 min of activity. Does not seem to be consistent

[SprManKalEl]

Just because you work out vs. walking doesn't mean that walking can't give you active minutes. You're putting so much stock in how many active minutes you have. Every minute you work out and every minute you walk is an active minute and that's achievement in and of itself. You're already ahead of the game. To me, the active minute count is a fluff category. I don't even look at it. Achieve your hourly and daily step goals and weekly workout goals and you're set.

[SunsetRunner]

I was trying to use active minutes and calories burned to determine the results of my day. I may review the downloaded data and build my own.

[Baltoscott]

@SunsetRunner A few years ago Fitbit calculated active minutes differently than they do today.  They used the three categories you discovered when you downloaded your activity into a spreadsheet.  Those categories do not translate into the way active minutes are calculated today as described in the help article that @SprManKalEl posted.  One big difference (besides 3 vs 1 category) is that Your HR has to be elevated for 10 continuous minutes before the active minutes are counted.  

[SunsetRunner]

I do understand that it calculated on some algorithm.  But really was trying to understand how it works.

When excercise does not get added, when moving vigorously with heart rate up,

But walking does count when moving much slower, lower heart rate and not even sweating.  

Sorry but to me it seems backwards, and does not match the documentation.

I know my watch is picking up the correct data and sending it to the dashboard, because all the excercise I do gets notated.  

I think the algorithm for activity must be wrong on the dashboard.  

Sorry to all if I am making too much of this, but I am a software developer and we tend to be a little hyper focused.  

Over all the fitbit works for me, I was just trying to use activity minutes.  Maybe if I total my exercise and use it instead.

[Baltoscott]

Nothing wrong with trying to figure out how it works.  

The main reason I think that the total minutes of your exercise records may not = the total activity minutes for the day is that some parts of the exercise records may not have reached 3 METs or you may not have continuously exercised above 3 METs for the required 10 minutes during the exercise

I dont think recording exercises has any bearing on how many active minutes are calculated.  I just deleted two walks that were automatically added to my exercise list for yesterday (one was 16 min and th other was 20).  Total active minutes for yesterday remains unchanged.  You can test this yourself by deleting activities and seeing if a change registers. (Note though that you cannot undo the delete).

[RangerLady]

I just noticed the same thing today. I take the exact same walk twice a day at about the same speed. My morning walk (just over 14 minutes, 0.75 mi) registered no active minutes, but my afternoon walk (a little bit slower) registered 14 active minutes. It's also showing a difference of 40 calories burned between the 2 walks. My heart rate is about the same (115 BMP vs 117 BPM) for both walks. I don't understand why they're recording differently.

[SunsetRunner]

OK there is definitly a problem.

I did exactly the same routine yesterday as I did on Monday.

Except my sport time would have been a little less because we had more players, so I did not spend 100% of my time on the floor (maybe about 90%)

The only difference is that I pressed the timer on my watch before starting activity.

So on Monday I had 158 min of Activity (216 min of excercise) recorded on my dashboard and yesterday I had 232 min - all my excercise was counted towards activity.

So why does pressing the button change how excercise is added as activity?

[SprManKalEl]

Pressing the button tells the C-HR that you are being active so it counts all of those minutes into the Active Minutes. Not pressing the button, you are depending on the algorithm to try determine if your level activity will fit into Active Minutes. Just as I put in a response earlier about pressing the button before the workout.

[SunsetRunner]

I have no problem with pressing the button.

The only problem that I have is that it counts exercise correctly, but it can not export the activity from it correctly.  By not pressing the button it can tell me exactly what activity I was doing, When I press the button I also lose that functionality, Unless I start and stop between each session.

A difference of 74 min is very significant.

And I can say with absolute certainty that the 74 min that was not counted as activity was much more active than me walking down the road (that it did add).

What is stopping me from pressing the button sitting at my desk and pressing the button.  There must be an algorithm behind the button as well.

Again I am just trying to figure out how it works, and how it works right now does not make sense.

Also as a software developer I have no problem with a bug in the system.  Just looking for a resonable explanation.

[RangerLady]

I made sure to press the button for my walk today and it recorded my 13 minute walk as 36 minutes as active time. I hadn't pressed the button any other time and it's only 11am where I am. Is it because I also take my phone with me to use the GPS? Is it recording my walk twice?

[SprManKalEl]

Pressing the button will log the time as Workout. You can then change the label afterwards. I just changed a label from Workout to Spinning and it didn't effect the data recorded at all.

[LucyAP]

Awesome help @SprManKalEl! It's great to see you in the Community @SunsetRunner and @RangerLady! @SunsetRunner Please keep in mind that active minutes are only recorded for activities that last 10 minutes or longer. 

Because our trackers primarily track movement through the use of an accelerometer, they more accurately detect active minutes for step-based activities (brisk walking, running) than non-step based activities or activities that require more than steps (yoga, tennis). Trackers with a heart rate monitor detect active minutes most accurately, since heart rate data allows us to better estimate caloric burn and, in turn, exercise intensity. If you're unhappy with your active minutes total, we recommend logging the activity manually as described by @EdsonFitbit. Manually logged activities override your tracker's data. Sometimes customers report a decrease in active minutes after logging an activity, which can occur if what your tracker recorded was more intense than what you logged.  

@RangerLady I'd just like to add this post by @EmersonFitbit with a detailed explanation about the Mobile Run feature.

I hope this helps, keep me posted! 😉

[Baltoscott]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

I have no problem with pressing the button.

The only problem that I have is that it counts exercise correctly, but it can not export the activity from it correctly.  By not pressing the button it can tell me exactly what activity I was doing, When I press the button I also lose that functionality, Unless I start and stop between each session.

A difference of 74 min is very significant.

And I can say with absolute certainty that the 74 min that was not counted as activity was much more active than me walking down the road (that it did add).

What is stopping me from pressing the button sitting at my desk and pressing the button.  There must be an algorithm behind the button as well.

Again I am just trying to figure out how it works, and how it works right now does not make sense.

Also as a software developer I have no problem with a bug in the system.  Just looking for a resonable explanation.

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Pressing the button while you are sitting at your desk won't get you active minutes because you won't be moving and the HR won't elevate, but it does increase the HR sampling from every five seconds to every second.  

Here's a theory for you -- Some users experience loss of HR monitoring while working out hard -- probably  because sweaty wrists and violent motion make it harder for the sensor to get a read.  Pressing the button compensates for this somewhat because the sensor takes readings more often.  (You can also improve the HR readings by moving the HR up your arm away from the wrist bone but mind that it doesn't slip back and forth while you work out).  Anyway, if you get a lot of missed readings during the workout the algorithm may not see continuous activity resulting in fewer active minutes recorded.  My thought is that this is less likely to happen when you press the button to start an activity because of the increase HR sampling.  As to why you don't see the same thing on walks -- that movement is much more rhythmic and easier to identify as activity, and even the normal HR sampling is good because the tracker usually gets a reading every time it tries.

[SunsetRunner]

LucyFitbit thanks for the response, but you did not read my concerns.