recording exercise on Fitbit Charge 3 and Strava

[HotSteppa]

This may have been answered previously, but I just signed up for Strava and have synced by Fitbit. Interestingly I had to do the sync through my computer because when I did it through the phone app it wouldn't save the sync. My question is which is the best way to record a run?

1. Record the run on the watch

2. Record the run on the Fitbit app

3. Record the run on the Strava app

4. Record the run through some combination of 1-3

I would like to be able to record on one platform and have it sync to the other. Preferably recording on the Fitbit as that measures heart rate. Thank you for your responses. 

[DutchGuy]

The only way to get both heartrate and GPS for your run is option 1, through the watch.

Option 2 gives GPS but no heartrate, this feature used to work for charge 2 and 3, but was broken after an app update last year.

Option 3 won't give you heartrate either since Fitbit doesn't support that.

Using multiple methods will give duplicate runs in strava. Also the charge 3 has automatic exercise recognition with GPS.  I recommend disabling that since it's super unreliable,  especially the start and end times of your run.

Oh and visit fitbit.strava.com to connect your accounts, before the first exercise

[Brunette_Brit]

I went for a walk using the charge 3 and logged it through my watch, not my phone,  assuming it would track my gps and sync to Strava later, but it has not. 

They are already linked prior my walk so I am confused why the info is not being synced to Strava. When I open the fitbit app I can see my walk with all the regular data but not the tracked gps route, like you would on Strava. As previously said I was trying to avoid duplicates. 

How do I get my activities from fitbit to upload to Strava? 

[DutchGuy]

The GPS exercise in Fitbit charge 3 is badly implemented,  so expect to lose some GPS data occasionally.

One thing you have to do is wait for the GPS connection to establish before starting the exercise.

After you press "start" on the watch,  you'll see a screen with "connecting..." and a play button.  If you press the play button immediately, no GPS data will be recorded.

Instead you have to wait for the Fitbit to vibrate and show "connected", then you can press the play button and it will record GPS data and synch with strava afterwards.

It's not intuitive, but it works for me most of the time now.