Newbie here. Need a little help

[Chasboro]

Just got a Inspire 2.    I play a lot of senior softball and wondering what exercise I can use to track that.  Should I just use Walking or what?   I also play and teach a lot of Pickleball and I'm thinking I can go ahead and use the Tennis activity for that.

Curious that softball or baseball is not a activity/exercise selection.

Any help, suggestions appreciated.

[JohnnyRow]

First, realize that your have about 20 choices to choose from in the Exercise App, not just the ones you see one your tracker as defaults.

See How do I track my workouts with my Fitbit device? 

And from the same linked article

Ultimately, what you choose for activity is just a label for your own use/record keeping.  It doesn't affect stats such as calorie burn or steps.

[Julia_G]

Hi @Chasboro , welcome!  You can, of course track your activities any way you choose, but if you are like me you might want to keep your softball sessions separate from your regular walks.  And it might also annoy you to see all those tennis entries when you knew it was pickleball…. But if that doesn’t matter to you, yes, go ahead and just track as walk and tennis.

If you would like to have more accurate labels for your activities, for “softball” you just need one extra quick step.  When you are are ready to start your game, swipe to the exercise app, but instead of choosing “walk” choose “workout”.  .(The workout activity, unlike the other ones, is especially designed to be editable.)

Track and end your softball game.  When you sync your new Fitbit to the app, it will appear on your exercise screen as “workout”.  Click on the workout activity, and then at the top of the screen you will see the option to “categorise” the exercise if you are using iOS, or, if you are using Android you will see a pencil icon.  Click on categorise or pencil.

On the next screen you will see a box and begin typing s-o-f…. Softball is an activity built into the Fitbit database so it will immediately come up in the search box.  Choose it and you will be done.  Your exercise record will now correctly show that you were playing softball.  Job done!

Tracking pickle ball takes one extra step to set it up, because it is not in the database, but once you have set it up the first time it will work exactly the same as the steps outlined above.

The extra set up step is that first you need to create “pickle ball” as a custom activity, to be added to your personal data base.  This cannot be done in the app; it must be done in the web based Fitbit platform.

The easiest way to get to the web based platform is via this Community forum.  On the top right hand side of every page as long as you are logged in, you will see a link to “dashboard”.  Click on that.  On the next page, top left you will see a tab to go to “log” click on that and then on the next page select “activites”. On the activites page scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to find “create a custom activity” . Type “pickle ball” into the box, save and job done.  This sounds like a bit of a faff, but only because I have written out every step so (I hope) it is super clear.  Once set up you do not have to do this again - pickle ball will be available as an activity in your app.

Once all set up just do as I have described above.  Track your pickle ball match as “workout” on your Inspire HR.  (Don’t forget to end your tracking when the match is over!)  Sync, go to the workout, click on categorise (or pencil if you use Android) start typing “p-i-c… in the box and pickle ball will pop up.  Choose and save.  Job done.  

Note that a workout can only be edited once.  

I hope this helps!  Please post again if you have more questions about how to get the best out of your new Fitbit.  There is always someone here to answer questions.