Add Canoeing/Kayaking/Paddle Boarding as an Exercise Shortcut

[Bits]

Hi,

Just taken delivery of my Surge and am loving it! One thing I'd like to see is Kayaking/canoeing added as an activity on the Surge. As it is water resistant and splash proof (and you shouldn't be getting that wet!), this should be OK. I am particularly interested in the tracking opportunities offered by the repetitive arm movement - this should be easy for the Surge to recognise and would enable some really great stats - strokes per minute, strokes taken etc, and combined with the GPS function you could work out stroke efficiency, distance per stroke and maybe even give feedback on how well the stroke is done (e.g. more vertical entry v's sloppy strokes).

Could be a quick win for the developers?

Many thanks!

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity and labels.

[K-Tejas]

Tracking number, length, and timing of strokes while Kayaking, using GPS, so I can look afterwards at all the details of going out on the Bay, on Bayous, and off the beach, would be very useful to know how well I did, and to track where I went Kayaking.

An app like this could also be used for Rowing, Canoeing, Paddle Boarding, or maybe even on a Rowing machine in the gym.

Old guy in Texas near Galveston Bay

[BKArtichoke]

Definitely eager for a Kayak feature. If this is a feature offered by Garmin, I'll definitely make the switch this summer. 

Disappointing to learn that FitBit has been sitting on this feature add for years...

[ramstadt]

I've been wanting to track my kayaking as kayaking for a long time.  Please add this.

[Nyneva]

Please add tracking for SUP/kayak/paddling! I go every other day and want to track myself.

[jpvieau]

Avid kayaker with over 300 miles a year. GPS has confirmed in calm water, with nice easy strokes, it takes~ 100  strokes for me to go a tenth of a mile. Love to figure the calorie burn. Happy to be  beta tester for that firmware upgrade to my brand new Fitbit Versa.

Thanks for listening.......

John Vieau , Milwaukee.

[fairfit]

Why so slow !?   It's now over 3 years since this great idea was proposed (and now of course it makes even more sense with waterproof fitbits).   It really seems that it should be a trivial change.   Can someone on the Fitbit side please push on this ?

[Water-rat]

Do what I did…buy a Garmin.

[Summerman]

Kayaking or just paddling activity would help a lot for those of us who love the water and mingling with the gators.

[katiepiepoo]

Please add kayaking to fitbit flex2

[BrianHoward]

Another vote for kayaking. I recently replaced my old HR with an Ionic thinking it would be good not to be taking my phone out on the water. I tried using the Ionic on Walk and on Hike each while kayaking approximately 10 km. The results are so far wrong as to be ludicrous. Although the GPS map shows the correct map of where I went, the distance recorded was 1.38 km and 1.69 kms. I will try Bike next (per Jeepwolf) but PLEASE can we have Kayaking as an option. It seems a bit odd that it would calculate the distance by the number of steps it thinks you have taken when it has a perfectly good GPS map of the "track" covered.

[Karaberlin]

Please add this feature I don't see why it cannot be added as Kayaking, Canoeing and paddle boarding are all popular outdoor sports and are good exercise and should fit in with the same platform as swimming and Yoga if there is a function for Yoga there should be one for this as your working 3 main (if not more)  muscle groups! 

[Karaberlin]

Hi could you make an exercise feature for Kayaking / Canoeing / Paddle boarding using the past exercise setting on the app just doesn't cut it I find you spend too much time trying to log the correct hour/time stamp and the app shows steps but doesn't add it to your step count i'd like to since I've put in the work i'd like it to show!   I'd also like the GPS feature as well since when your Kayaking like me you go great distances i'd like to see exactly where I've been & how far you can do this on bicycling feature but that's not accurate for water sports.  

Please add this feature I don't see why it cannot be added as Kayaking, Canoeing and paddle boarding are all popular outdoor sports and are good exercise and should fit in with the same platform as swimming and Yoga if there is a function for Yoga there should be one for this as your working 3 main (if not more)  muscle groups and the majority of the USA is water and water activity based.

Thanks so much!

[Matcha79]

Hello, I would use this app for dragon boat too. I would need to  measure strokes and distance as well as the usual calories etc. Please add this app ASAP!

[jgenov]

Your community has been requesting Canoeing and Kayaking to be add for 4 years, guess I don't understand why it should take so long to react to  requests from your community/supporters.

I believe it has been over a year ago I asked support to add number of carbs consumed in a day same as calories are tracked.

I gave up waiting for number of carbs. I now use a different app to track my carbs.   If I remember there were several requests for carb tracking also.

MY QUESTION IS, IS IT TIME FOR ME TO STAT LOOKING FOR A DIFFERENT DEVICE  TRACKING EXERCISE.

[Michaelearley]

I just manually added 70 minutes of kayaking into the log portion of the online dashboard. It gave it a value of 96 cal. The true value is around 555. So doing a log is not a good alternative.

[SunsetRunner]

At least my Polar A370 had kayaking as an exercise, took it with me on my last trip and left the fitbit at home

[Addicted2]

4 years and counting waiting for a solution.

Garmin and Polar have been suggested as alternate devices, any others that have kayaking?  If Fitbit will not support us, let's use this site to help each other find the best solution.

[Addicted2]

Thanks!


Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone

[Summerman]

Maybe Fitbit will stand up and take notice if people are talking about other devices that will get the job done where Fitbit doesn't.

Sent from Yahoo Mail on Android

[Karaberlin]

All I know is when I got my very first fitbit years ago fitbit was very helpful their service levels & return policies were supreme now it seems like that has gone to the wayside (still never got a response from fitbit for my original post about the kayak function) and fitbit relies more on their community forums to resolve issues with their products rather than their customer support and software developers. They just keep putting out subpar products to try and keep up with another named competitor but just aren't quite making it. While jacking up the prices and leaving most of us hanging.  Yesterdays phone call was the last straw for me.  I'm seriously looking into other brands now because fitbit cant even keep up with accurate data on their software I shouldn't have to keep a separate excel spread sheet of my past starting weight every time I change my goal weight so your graphs are off my friends their service levels are horrible.  Since fitbit wants to cater to yoga enthusiasts & swimmers instead I get that 4 years is a long time for us Kayakers to wait it out. Hell I tried the bicycle function on my ionic and that didn't work right in a spin class it kept pausing go figure!  I spent $300 on an exaggerated pedometer (well not really cuz I can't get steps pushing a shopping cart or stroller & get extra steps when typing) should have stayed with my original fitbit one  from years ago it's been the most reliable accurate in step count it's sad I've spent a lot of money on upgrading to many fitbit products and each time they all have been a disappointment in some form instead of being helpful I guess it's true the grass isn't always greener on the other side.  Thanks to all who've made suggestions on other brands to look at it's greatly appreciated!

[K-T]

I would love to see kayaking as a exercise mode for Fitbit Versa! Cause as of right now I have to manually enter it in and I feel as though it’s not 100% accurate. Thank you 

[jboone]

I would like to have ability to track canoeing and kayaking to the list of exercises. This is going to be my preferred choice for exercise and would like to have a means of tracking it.

[SaraSeabright]

Hoping that we can get a kayaking option into the exercise shortcuts soon.  I love kayaking!

[Amanda23]

I love my Fitbit, but would absolutely love it if we could get kayaking/SUP boarding for an option in exercise!

[ckochannek]

Add kayaking and paddleboarding tracking!