Add "Rock Climbing" in the exercises shortcuts for Versa 3

[J-Tipps16]

Is it possible to add a rock climbing option to the Fitbit exercise selections?

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[SunsetRunner]

It's not possible. What you can do is to use a Workout exercise and change name after the session.

[t.parker]

@J-Tipps16 impossible and to be honest I wouldn't recommend wearing the watch during climbing (scratches easily, not chalk friendly).

What @SunsetRunner proposed may work (this is what I used to do) but you won't be able to track total ascent (no use of altimeter in that mode). Just calories and HR. Bad news is, however, that HR isn't the strongest point of Versa 3 and Sense. In this post I have tested the Sense (same HR sensor as Versa3) while bouldering (second chart):

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Sense/Heart-rate-inaccurate-on-Fitbit-Sense/m-p/5023675/highlight/true#M38626

I used Workout mode.

To be honest, there is very little choice for rock climbers in the sports tracking space. My Garmin watch has mode for Bouldering and Rock Climbing but they are so badly designed (as if by somebody who doesn't quite understand climbing) that I never use them as I see no point. There is still space to fill for this sport (recently Samsung advertised their watch with bouldering so I'm planning to check how good or bad it is).

[J-Tipps16]

@t.parker thanks for the reply! Not going to lie, my watch has already taken a hit while climbing so I got a screen protector off of Amazon that day. It has done an amazing job so far. I took a look at your chart and it’s impressive work, although it’s a shame to discover the inaccuracies of Fitbit watches. I may take a look at that Samsung watch you were referring too. Hopefully climbing will be better understood in the future. 

[J-Tipps16]

@SunsetRunner thanks for the reply! I’ll give the workout option a try. It’s a shame they haven’t included rock climbing. My buddies have other watches such as the apple series and they have rock climbing exercise options. Not sure how accurate they are but at least the option is there for them. 

[t.parker]

@J-Tipps16 Before Sense, I had Ionic and also got plenty of scratches but the worst came when being several meters up suddenly the strap broke and my watch fell down. Lucky, there were crashpads so it was rather a soft landing but since then I stopped taking it on the wall. The toughest watch I had was Suunto Spartan. I remember one time when I was climbing a vertical crack and put my forearm in to make a bar (of course, I forgot I had the watch) and heard some scraping noises. It sounded really bad, I expected the worst but there was not a scratch on it. I wish all the watches were made like that.

With Samsung, I have to yet see whether it's any good. I don't get my hopes high as most of the non-climbers think that climbing = speed climbing  (because of the Olympic Games, seriously, I see people got more interested in climbing but they think speed climbing is the major discipline).

Out of curiosity, what do you expect from the Rock Climbing mode? On Garmin, I have logging where I can select the grade of climb and it later gives me some stats (like highest grade I climbed, number of attempts, etc.). The thing is, sometimes I just don't want to select grade (and sometimes I don't know it, it's like in bouldering gyms you got V6-V8, so what should I log? Average V7? :D). if I want to log grades and attempts I can't mix different grade systems (in the UK, bouldering usually is V-scale, ropes f-scale) or can't just climb ungraded. To me, it looks like somebody read some stuff about climbing but never went to the climbing gym (and neither to the outdoor crag) to see what it really looks like.