Charge 3 activity tracker not recording active minutes

[Evandood3]

Anyone else having this issue? After a 3 mile hike up a mountain, I look down and see I have 7500 steps, 24 floors, and zero active minutes. 

[Evandood3]

Oh... the device is a charge 3

[Optom76]

Same here, my swims, walks & pilates show as exercise but not active minutes 

[Kristahaws]

This is my first day using it and that’s happening to me as well! I don’t understand! And earlier, it had active minutes showing (only 13 though) and then went down to 0 and has stayed that way all day!   Not showing active minutes throws my  myfitnesspal calculations for calories earned out of whack as well. Not good! 

[Evandood3]

Yep! That’s my major issue too.. everything is thrown off

[jenn346]

My charge 3 is not recording active minutes and I have been workingout/climbed 18 floors etc.

[julieh108]

Mine is showing active minutes but is not registering exercise! I swam for 30 minutes & it still shows 0 days exercise 

[Optom76]

Yep. . 2 hard pilates sessions for an hour each, plenty of cardio and fat burning, no active minutes!

[noactivity]

My company pays us money to have 45 active minutes.  When is Fitbit going to address this?  BTW - re-starting your fitbit causes all your minutes to be wiped out.  

[SOOZIEQUE55]

Same here,  I had 55 minutes earlier in the day showing on the Charge 3. Later this evening I went to check my dashboard results, no active minutes and the ones that had been on the Charge 3 disappeared.

[ShannaS]

I just got my Charge 3 and swam with it for the first time yesterday.  The laps were pretty close, but it did not record any active minutes all day long.  I thought maybe I had done something wrong in my set up but it looks like others are having this problem too.  Any solutions yet?

[YouGotIt]

Handsup . Got this issue as well. My previous Charge HR2 didn't have this issue. The active minutes had gone down while steps have gone up 😓

[ShannaS]

This is the reply I got when I contacted their chat help on the issue of the tracker not recording active minutes.....

Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:40:08 AM): Shanna, as you may know, your active minutes also will depend on your tracker's heart rate monitoring. From what I can see on my end here, your swim activity which started at 5:57 A.M. and lasted for 1 hour and 6 minutes, the intensity did not meet a high level.
Me (10/20/2018, 7:40:35 AM): And as you know, the heart rate monitor does not work while swimming.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:40:37 AM): I can also see that there were lapses on your heart rate data recorded that time.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:41:25 AM): Yes, I understand that, Shanna. So we would consider this as a non step based activity.
Me (10/20/2018, 7:42:05 AM): I understand. So you are telling me that my new charge 3 will not record my activity of my primary exercise, swimming.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:43:21 AM): It is recording your activities, though you may experience inaccuracies with the active minutes in relation to the swim activity. But let me check on my resources here on what is the best resolution for you.
Me (10/20/2018, 7:43:38 AM): That was my whole goal.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:45:07 AM): I know that this experience may be not ideal for you, Shanna. Let me continue to review what steps we need to perform so you can get the best of your Charge 3, specially working on your swim activities.
Me (10/20/2018, 7:46:00 AM): I am sure that you are aware that the swimming feature is why many of us purchased this. If it isn't going to work, I may return it. If they are trying to fix this feature I am willing to wait.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:47:04 AM): I appreciate you considering our Charge 3 for your swim workout, Shanna. We did design this tracker for this type of activity and much more.
Bryan (10/20/2018, 7:47:46 AM): Specially with the advancements of the available trackers in the market right now, we do want to stay competitive with the other brands and even try to exceed them.
Me (10/20/2018, 7:48:05 AM): It has not happened with swimming.

[Optom76]

Same here  60 mins is of pilates  No active minutes 

[SOOZIEQUE55]

So basically, if there is not a significant change in heart rate, it doesn't register as active minutes?  This didn't happen with my charge 2.  I guess I will have to manually enter in the exercise, which messes up the step count.  Ugh.

[SantiR · Accepted solution]

Hello everyone! Thanks for your continuous participation on this thread regarding active minutes. Thanks for taking the time to post the details about the experience you are having. Thanks for the feedback too.

Active minutes start counting after 10 minutes of constant moderate to intense activity. It depends more on the intensity of the workout. Check this helpful article for more details on this.

Also, check if your heart rate is being tracked correctly. I'd recommend wearing it using the recommended wearing tips when doing exercise. You can find them here as well as a graph showing how to wear it.

If you had active minutes and they were erased; try restarting your Charge 3. Feel free to sync your tracker before doing this.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted! 

[Evandood3]

You are not understanding us. It is not working properly. That is the issue. It is not operator error.

[tonjelyng]

I have this problem to! Went for a walk, got the active minutes but not registering as an exercise for today. If I add the exercise manually it screws up the step count in the app 😩 

[tonjelyng]

How do I solve the problem of active munites logged but no daily exercise registering? I know I exercised more than the required amount of time, the active minutes show that but it still does not give me credit for daily exercise. And if I add it manually I screw up the step count .. 

[ClarisseG]

Hello Santi, 

Let me try to add some more details about this issue that it seems we are a lot to encounter.

 So we know that while swimming it doesn’t take into account the heart rate. This is not the issue we are asking for a resolution here, but it explains why the Fitbit considers that we are not doing the activity at a “constant moderate to intense” activity. And this is an issue.

Trust me, I am not a pro but I think I can say that I am swimming at a moderate to intense level, so this is kind of insulting that the only answer we receive from everyone trying to answer this question is “you do not make a sufficient effort!”

I think we could fix this issue if the app was letting us to edit some details of our activity (when in the activity details, on the top right when we select edit, would be possible to let us edit not only the duration of the activity but also the active min count?? Could you propose that to the people working on the improvement of the app?) it would not be ideal but it could be a temporary solution while the Fitbit team is trying to improve the app. Thanks for your help!