Allow non-consecutive hours on Hourly Activity goal

[meligator]

I love the new hourly movement goal. I would like to suggest that instead of having the goal be X consecutive hours, it could be either the total number of hours within a day or within a period. For example, let me select either:

• 250+ steps X hours per day (e.g., 12)
• 250+ steps X hours within a specified time period (e.g., 9 of 12, and I pick the 12 hour time period)

I work in an office, which is why this goal is so important for me. It's way too easy to sit at my desk all day. So this is a great movitivator to get up and move periodically. But a single hour-long meeting in the afternoon makes it impossible to achieve this goal. And knowing that I don't have any chance of acheiving the goal diminishes the motivation to move during the other hours.

Thanks for your consideration!

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[LZeeW]

I support this for all the reasons given by others.  Another boring, endless meeting should not ruin my whole day.

[LLB123]

It would be REALLY nice if we could alter the hours from day to day on the reminders to move goal, and not have it affect our history. If I move for 10 hrs. or 12 hours, or an alternating set of hours, it seems like that ought to be able to be accounted for. Would that work?

[proudmommy926]

I would like to see more customization for reminders to move as well. I would like to be reminded to move every 20 minutes. Also this would help me remember to take my eyes off my screen at work and give my eyes a break, as well as to get up and move around if I haven't taken any steps in 20 minutes.

[jkfitster]

I would like to be able to customize my goal for the number of hours in which I hit 250+ steps.  In other words, I still want to be able to set my 14 hour range (ex. 8am to 10pm) as you can now, but I would like to set my GOAL as being 250+ steps in 12-out-of-14 hours.  Or 13/14.  Or 10/14.  Or 90%.  Or any more-achievable goal than 14/14 hours.  (Simply shortening the range to 12 total hours, 9am-9pm, won't help because the missed hour(s) often fall in the middle of the day.)

Explanation:  I LOVE the reminders to get up and move every hour, and I like being able to set the range (e.g. 14 hours, 8am-10pm).  BUT, it's really discouraging when an unavoidable meeting or other commitment prevents me from completing my 250+ steps during a given hour, and I have no hope for achieving my goal (err, earning fireworks) for the day.  It makes me feel like it's not worth trying to complete my 250+ steps for the subsequent hours.  The same thing happens if I sleep in and miss my goal for the first hour of the day; why bother trying to complete my 250+ steps for the rest of the hours? (Yes, I realize "health" is the reason to complete those other hours, but this is the reality of extrinsically motivating exercise/activity...)   

For people who can routinely achieve success in getting 250+ every hour, they can still do that - simply set the goal to 14/14 hours.  But, for those of us with less perfect control of our schedules, it would be nice to be able to set an intermediate, more reachable, goal for routine activity (and less sitting), such as walking 250+ steps in 12/14 hours. 

[tibi01]

Also the vibration feedback should be longer similar to alarm or goal hit.

Many times i did not notice it. And ten I think it does not vibrate in some hours to notify me to move.

[Snowman2k]

Rather than just have lets says 07:00-21:00 as the 14 hours each day, it would be better to have each day its own 14 hours selection.

[Tracey24]

It would be nice to have the option to select a specific number of hours to move as opposed to consecutive hours. You are not alway able to move in consecutive hours especially those of us who work; however could move later in the day.  Even going to the movies keeps you from moving in consecutive hours. Thank you. 

[andybreakaleg]

This is exactly what I need too. I'm a driver and have some hours where being active is not easy and others where being reminded to move more is really helpful. I would love to be able to set my target as any 10 from 14 hours.

[andybreakaleg]

Love this suggestion. I'm a driver and spend several hours a day where I can't go for a stroll. This make it all the more important to move more whenever I can. Having a goal of any 10 from 14 hours would be great for me

[LizFitbit]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing this suggestion. By way of update, there aren't currently any plans to release this feature. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us and we will let you know if anything changes.

[Natiebug]

The Blaze keeps track and "rewards" you if you walk at least 250 steps per hour. I suggest that the "reward" be 10 out of 12 hours or 12 out of 14 hours or 8 out of 10 hours.  I have mine set from 8:00 am to 9:00 pm. However, if I do not do 250 steps between 8 am and 9 am (the first hour) because I slept late, there is no acknowledgement if I complete all the remaining 250 steps per hour. If it was 12 out of 14, then I could miss an early hour and still accomplish my goal to get 12 out of 14 or 13 out of 14 x 250 steps per hour. If you miss the first hour of the day, the whole day becomes a write off, you can't get the "reward" at the end.

[SunsetRunner]

Right now we can only add hour "dots" to either the morning or evening for consecutive hours of activity. It would be nice to choose those hours of activity. I have a "split" day where I cannot be active during some parts of the day but I want a total of 10-12 hours of activity. I travel in very small aircraft and cannot stand up and move while in flight, so I would like to add evening and morning time and not be penalized for the couple of hours that I am in the air. I love those "finish line" features. Not being active in the center of my day, does not mean that I am not having an optimal active day. I expect many other people have similar situations where they are active, but with a gap period during their day.

Thank you!

[BassTromBob]

There should be the option to increase hours to all day as I’m often active anywhere between 06:00am til after midnight, and to add the activity from just steps (which is the most inaccurate feature of the watches) to include or change to other options such as heart rate.

[random_username]

I know "Reminders to Move" is already a thing, but here's my problem: The 250 step target is kind of arbitrary. I know it corresponds to a few minutes of walking, but it's kind of a hassle to always get in 250 steps.

As an update, I want to see a custom hourly step goal. Here's my plan: each hour from 8 AM to 6 PM, you enter the number of steps you want to take. You may choose to add more hours as you feel necessary, but you may not set one earlier than 6 AM or past 10 PM. From there, you will be asked to enter a step goal for each hour, and none may be left blank or under 30. For Instance, since I'm a student, I may choose to go with lower numbers during the day, as I know I won't be stepping it up during that time. It's basically Reminders to Move after that, but with your entered instead of the usual 250 [unless your goal is 250]. You can change your goal at any time, that way it's not like, "How many steps do I want to take at this hour for the rest of my life?" Let's be honest, we don't know. 

As far as my suggestion goes, that's it. Have something you want to add? Go ahead, comments are down below. I may have to add some info to it if more is needed, but other than that, this is all I have.

[eveschus]

I really don’t understand why you wouldn’t consider this change?? Can you clarify the reasoning? As so many have noted, there are many legitimate reasons a user may have to sit for an hour but can make up that time later. Another example: I ran a race yesterday and hit my entire day’s step goal before 10am. I was physically active for 80+% of the day but actually did take an hour to rest post-race. Therefore, I was penalized for not fulfilling all of my requirements.  No, it doesn’t mean much in the grand scheme of things, but it’s a bit frustrating to not be able set your goals according to your individual  needs. Keep the reminders (for those times you actually DO have the freedom to get active...I love them) but let us choose how we want our device to work for us! This, coupled with the troubles I’m having with high intensity workouts not being recorded correctly is making me start window shopping for my next device. Fix this and you’ll keep me!! 

[Goosse1962]

It looks to me like this isn't a very popular feature change. It also looks like users have a lot of variations that they want, which increases complexity.

To get this implemented, we need our friends to vote for it, and have fewer comments for variations.

For myself, I have set it for a twelve hour period, work to get eight of them, and don't concern myself with the 'award' notation.

Have a Terrific day!

[minka34]

OP here... The only fix that that has been asked for is to set an hours window plus set the goal. Not have the hours window BE the goal. So you would set a tracking window and you would set a goal for how many hours to hit the 250 in that window. I think that one fix would cover pretty much anyone that has responded to this thread. You could still say monitor 8am to 8pm and have a goal of 12hr, but you could also "win the day" if you set your goal to 10hrs and have a missed hour or two in the afternoon. Easier still would be to just remove the consecutive requirement and have you just set an active hours goal The window could just be active hours per day. I can't imagine that it would be a hard programming feat, but I have written code for devices such as fitbit. OR even easier, there could be a soft switch if you want consecutive or non-consecutive counted. How's that? One simple fix.

[andybreakaleg]

I totally agree with Minka34. I'm a driver and my day generally consists of 3 x 2hr+ stretches where I can't get up walk. However, in my rest time I really want to be reminded to move more.  I find it quite annoying that I can't hit this goal (without cheating - waving my arm around in the cab lol). I understand that I could set a personal goal to move 10 out of 14 hours for example but that wouldn't give that little lift that I think is such an important feature of a fit-bit.  I've actually disabled the function on mine for now as it's just annoying. I will, of course, keep hoping that this will eventually be implemented. 

I also totally understand that there are a number of variations in the requests above, but it seems that most would be quite happy with something that just sets the total number of active hours without the having to be consecutive. It seems to me this feature was designed by people sitting at a desk all day for people who sit at a desk all day.

[Bethcld]

I think that you should be able to do more than a 14 hour block. I work nights so I tend to do most of my walking late at night one day and early morning the next with a sleep period in between the 14 hour block limit means that one of these periods gets ignored. I also think that there should be a setting on the sleep section for night or shift workers. One of the main reasons I got a fitbit was to track my sleep patterns and to try to optimise sleep within the confines of my work pattern. However fitbit seems to assume that everyone works 9-5.

[MarcelBK]

Nice suggestion, thanks for sharing. We look forward to hearing what other community members think.

[BurnMoreCals]

So is this suggestion closed and is FitBit even reading any of the comments since they set the status to "not currently planned"?

Reminders are a great idea, but Fitbit could make it a killer feature by modifying it so that::

1.  User can set specific hours they want a reminder.  For example, I might want to skip reminders at 12pm and 1pm, and but set reminders at 10am, 11am, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm, 5pm, 6pm and 7pm.

2.  User can set a success threshold based on the number of reminders set.  For example, above I set 8 reminders and I would consider 6 out of 8 to be a success.

3.  For me, 250 steps is good, but some people may want to adjust that.  This would allow a lot of flexibility, for example some users might want to set reminders every two hours and walk 400 steps.

Thanks

[Theleftwright]

Alternatively, having the ability to change the 250 steps per hour to 500 or some other custom number of steps.

[qbkitsune]

Please reconsider amending the Hourly Activity feature to include non consecutive hours. Simply allow us to select how many active hours we want to log per day. People can still complete them consecutively if they want to, but it would be nice to not have to select the specific hour range for those of us with unpredictable or fluctuating schedules, no matter the reason.

I just bought a Charge 2 to replace my Apple Watch. I *love* the Fitbit Hourly Activity setup far more than the AW’s stand ring because Fitbit allows me to set my goal anywhere between 5 to 14 hours rather than the AW’s inflexible 12. I have an autoimmune disease that leaves me fatigued, especially after workouts, so it’s awesome that Fitbit lets me change that goal to something more manageable, like 8 hours a day.

It would just be nice to take a nap or a break when I need to and finish my goal later in the day rather than unhealthily push myself beyond my limits to reach a consecutive goal for a specific set of hours (which I would be foolish to do). I feel like I’m being further penalized by my disability, rather than being motivated to triumph over it and to push myself when it’s safe to do so.

Please reconsider this change.

[mdupler]

I would also like to see this feature implemented. As an office worker, I use my Alta HR to help me be less sedentary through the day and would actually like to be able to increase my hourly step goal so that I can better meet my daily goal and get more activity throughout my day. I can tell myself that I want to get 500 steps per hour, but it would be easier to keep track of that if I had a metric I could input with a reminder and the alert when I've met the hourly goal, as with the 250. Don't make me do exercise AND math, FitBit! 😉

[CandaceF]

I have a two-hour meeting from 10:30 to 12:30 twice a week and often miss my step goal for those hours; it's quite frustrating but there is nothing I can do about that. I would like to have skippable hours, or the ability to "make up for" missed hours afterwards. I also want to increase the number of steps, 250 is pretty low.