Ability to change daily goals without changing all past days

[msbroberts]

We should be able to change our goals without changing all of our past goals.
For example, on holiday break I was happy to lower my goal to 5,000 steps. Or converter, some days I want to do more and want to up my goal to 15,000 or even 20,000...but then It changes all the past days.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[johnpneumann]

The fact that goals are not set on a per day basis is ridiculous at this point. While I'm sure there's a reason, I cannot fathom that it's a technical one. Therefore it's a business case, so some PM has to care that it actually happens, so I'll provide one since it seems there's no interest in this despite the amount of folks interested. 

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Let's say you wanted to be able to track people's progress over time and how indicators of those things changed people's behaviors and exercise patterns. When people see that they achieved their goals they're more inclined to stick to their goals and continue to move them up. By disallowing it, people are not as likely to move the gauge for fear of not being able to see previous progress. I've witnessed this to be true, with gaming, when changing level requirements. By disallowing the current state to be the state, you limit the ability for people to engage in the application, thus driving down time in app, which means less revenue from upselling other services or new watches. Without this ability, it's much harder to test new colors and celebrations for achieving goals, because many users won't change their goals for fear of losing their previous progress. This also means they won't engage in the app as much, because they are no longer being incentivized to do so. 

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Done. Here's why it matters to me.  When I was recovering from back surgery my daily goal started at 650 steps (or something like that). I've gradually moved that up, however I am hesitant to continue to move it up because it changes every bit of hard work that I struggled through. So my goal remains low. At a certain point I no longer cared, ditched my FitBit and wore a regular watch because it no longer did me any good. I recently received a new FitBit and decided to give it another go. This still has not been resolved and it's still the reason that my goal stays low, which helps no one, least of all myself. It's also why I'm considering ditching it again, despite this being a much nicer watch than my previous FitBit. 

Of the top features requested, of the ones there are only about 6 that are actually related to health. The rest are customizations. This was requested in 2014, but the feature you decided to implement in October 2016 (after an 8 month wait on that feature request), was "more watch faces".

If this particular feature isn't a priority, I'll go back to using a regular watch  (with a customizable face in the form of having numbers that show me the time).

After re-reading my comment, parts seems snarky. They're intended to be. As Louis Sullivan said, "Form follows function." This is a function. Watch faces are form. 

[takajiinouye]

With any new updates, can FitBit add a feature to increase the hourly steps from 250 to 500 or even a 1000 for the Charge 2 and other models? 250 steps is a level set too low for some and causes them not to perform to their full abilities. Please consider adding this feature for some who are very athletic. I would like to be able to increase the 250 a little more, but I am not a super athletic by any means.

Thank you.

[Laneahope]

I am so glad I am not the only one. I would love to be able to customize step goals for different days. During the week I have a desk job so the 10,000 step goal is fine because I have to push myself to complete that goal, but on the weekend I'm always going and the 10,000 step goal does not push me. It would be great to be able to customize our goals for different days.

[Molly10]

deleted

[Dinman127263]

At least a response from FitBit would be nice.

[Molly10]

The lack of interest from Fitbit speaks volumes. Numerous people say they will stop using them and this has been pointed out since 2014. Page 10.

[Goosse1962]

I like this idea. A variation that would help me would be to set the hours and a target number of hours to reach. IE: I want to reach 8 hours sometime from 8 AM through 9 PM. This will cover the various times that I am up and about, not sitting in meetings, etc, while letting me reach 8 hours sometime during my active day without changing the time frame day to day and not seeing a history of days that I made it.

[Natali2244]

Being able to set different step goals on weekdays and weekends would be great. I obviously have a very different step count on work days (I work in an office) and days off.

[Adunn01]

The lack of this feature is discouraging progress. I left my step target at 8k when I set it up, but average way more than that so wanted to increase my target to 10 or 12k, but doing that makes it look as if I've missed my step goal loads of days when I've maybe done 9k or so against my previous 8k target. Ridiculous that we can't make efforts to increase our steps target without it looking like we've been failing in the past.

[Dinman127263]

The most amazing thing isn't that this isn't a feature, but that Fitbit has been ignoring us for years.

[Molly10]

And they changed my post to include what someone said. This is not right. Surprised they don't know not to do that as it legally changes content ownership. I'm getting a negative impression of Fitbit. They dismiss a very basic request and made my post into plagiarism which is unacceptable.

[j8cruzen]

I'm going to start research into other monitors. If another one allows customization I'm leaving Fitbit and going with them. 

[Brenda1212]

I spent a month in the hospital, and of course, my goals changed upon release.  As I moved  up, I was "punished".  Also, I keep getting messages to go to 10K as the American Heart Assoc goal.  I'm on doctor's orders to stay at 6000 now.  It would be good to somehow control this. 

[JerseyGirl519]

Yes!!! This a great idea.  As I usually take more steps during the week while at work. I would love to be able to adjust my step count for the weekends or other days off.... Hope there is a solution VERY SOON😊

[janefrogged]

I agree! Working in a school, I regularly exceed my daily target Mon to Fri, but at weekends, my activity patterns are very different - gardening, for example, which doesn't show as steps. I'd like to be able to vary my goal to reflect my lifestyly.

[takajiinouye]

Good you are with all of us on these changes. One thing they need to fix is
the sync process. The FitBit I am wearing will prove I completed my 14 out
of 14 hours of 250 Steps, but the software will show I missed one or two
hours, which is BS. It tough when we all work so hard to try to achieve our
daily goals and FitBit software screws us showing a let down for our
efforts.

[SunsetRunner]

I agree. Changes to goals should not be retroactive. It doesn't make sense to apply current & future goals to past achievements.

[daleylife]

It's been three years... any response from Fitbit yet?

This is a no brainer... step goals should be "remembered" by the tracker as you slowly increase your goal.

As it stands now, progress is discouraged because if you had your step goal at 6000 but then went up to 7000 next year, all the previous 6000 step goals would be seen as "not met." 

It's really silly this has yet to be addressed.

[SunsetRunner]

I just got my Charge 2 a couple of weeks ago so I set my goals low because I was new to the whole tracking thing and had no idea where to start.  Now that I have kind of figured out where my goal should be I increased it, but now all my past days of meeting my goal show I am under goal. Seems this conversation has been going on for some time. Hopefully, FitBit will really put some thought into an option to change goals going forward and not changing the historical data. 

[JMCINUK]

I 1000% agree. I came on this forum to make the same suggestion after having been in contact with Fitbit through their twitter channel. I was in hospital recovering from surgery. I knew my 7+ monh streak of 10'000 steps a day was out but decided I could use my Fitbit to get me back to strength and mobile. If I set a goal for 500 steps one day and 1000 steps another and progressively increase. And I MEET that goal on the day that should count. When I went to increase the goal, the previous stars were eliminated. This is wrong and illogical. It is a daily goal. If you make it on day it should stand. Please change this. 

[Mishachka]

Once a day is done, leave it alone. It is such a mess right now if I were to change my goals for anything (exercise, calories in, active minutes... Etc.). At best, it shows that I never met my goals or always over-ate. How encouraging and accurate!

At worst, it throws off my entire week. Example: travelling to a different time zone and coming back. Not only does every single calorie bar (in and out) for example changes in a different direction and proportion, the numbers recorded don't even match. Say on the dashboard it shows I burned 1000 calories but when I got to the Calories section, it states that I burned 2000 and ate 650 while the graph shows I ate somewhere around 1.5k and burned over 2000. Yes, this is actually the case right now. COMPLETELY OUT OF WHACK. It's ridiculous how such a glitch is there in the first place. Turning the auto time zone on and off is a good way to see everything go crazy for the past week and neither option is accurate at this point. 

Also, turning of the automatic time zone is not an acceptable solution as it would still throw off the dates and times. It would be better and I will do that for my upcoming trip but my past week away has no accurate record and I was wearing my Fitbit around for no reason. Thank you Fitbit for that. 

By the way, my husband's Garmin tracker did not have this problem at all so Fitbit, please step-up your game. 

Also, I was going to include more details and pictures, and I had things phrased better, but switching from the browser app to the Fitbit app erased my initial suggestion/ post. So again, thank you for that waste of time.

[Cheryl1825]

There's a lot of features I would love to see but one of the easiest fixes (for me) is goals. I would love to be able to change my goals, whether step counts or times for movement goals without deleting the ones I've already met. 

I worked hard for those little green stars. To see them disappear when I change my step goal or my schedule changes and I change my times is just disheartening. 

Seems like it'd be an easy thing to change....

[nickap]

I would also welcome this feature. I have more time on the weekend and would like to be able to set higher goals.

[Daisy-D]

Glad I'm not the only one that has thought this would be a nice feature. Disappointed that it seems to be a conversation that's been going on for too long. 

[Alysha7742]

I love looking back and seeing all the days I hit my step goal, but when I recently raised my goal it no longer shows I completed my goals in the past when my step count was lower.

=( 

It's rather discouraging to see all those lovely green circles of achievement in my app have disappeared.