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

[Cswan630]

I’d like to suggest tracking the hourly 250 steps non-consecutively, so in a 24 hour day one could acquire 8+ hours of 250 steps but not in a defined time period. 

[tarriel]

I also want to start the movement reminders when I wake up!!  rather than having to set a time, the device is tracking my sleep, rather than waking me up to do my 250 steps, let me do them later.  It also annoys me to not get a completed green box, particularly if I only miss it by a couple of steps.... 

I think the movement tracking/reminders was an after thought and needs a rework,  when you view it, often the data is not there until after a really long wait, if you change the goal, it doesn't really seem to understand.  I don't want to turn this off for the weekend, but what if I want to sleep in, what if I want to do the same number of steps, just at different times.  I was also doing 20k steps a day, and the easiest way to do this was to use the activity reminder and do 1k steps each hour and a walk in the after noon, 10 minutes is only just enough reminder to do this, and I would often go 250 steps into the next hour, so I had to do 2k steps as I would not get a reminder, I found that this is a little to long to pretend I am doing 'work'.

[GrannyAnnie]

1. I like Candace's suggestion.  I'm in physical rehab and require a daily anti-gravity therapy session (nap).  I would love to be able to skip those two hours and resume working for my pink dots when I get up.

2. Theleftwright and mdupler express my top desire to be able to gradually grow my daily activity by being able to set higher hourly steps goals.  Of COURSE I can do this manually, but making the 250 steps a customizable feature seems like something the programmers could handle.

[iwasmefirst]

Would love to be able to up my hourly step goal. I try for more anyway, but when that little dot isn't at stake, I can get lazy! I need all the motivation I can get!

[fretnutt]

 Yes! Please!

I use it for my 8 hour work day. I work on getting 8k steps by EOS, and then proceed to home life routines, to reach my daily step goal. 250 steps for 8 hours is 2k steps. I would love to increase that.

[dbush13]

I would love to be able to customize hourly goals, as well.  And be able to do different hourly goals for different days of the week.  Also, maybe a reminder at 15 minutes til the hour, and another at 5 minutes til the hour?  Sometimes when my reminder goes off, I'm on the phone and unable to get away in time to get my steps.  Love my Fitbit, but need my job!

[cygnusjen]

I would like reminders to move every hour, yet still have a manageable goal in case there is an hour I can't move.  I would like to be able to set a goal to move a certain number of hours per day, with a range to hit that goal - like at some point between 7am and 8pm hit 250 steps 10 times.  Wouldn't that be better? Instead I have a 13 hour range now, and frequently miss one hour between 10am and 3pm, and never meet the "goal" because I missed 1 or 2 hours out of 13.   Very frustrating.  Especially on weekends when I don't wake up until 9. 

This seems like a simple programming adjustment for the dashboard.  If a user wants to retain their personal goal to take 250+ steps every hour of their selected range, they certainly could.  But then I could choose to set a 14 hour range within which I can meet my personal goal, and get the brownie point for it on my dashboard tile at the end of the day.  Would be much more motivating than the red "you missed it again" tile.

Moderator edit: Clarified subject and labels

[LanuzaFitbit]

Thanks for sharing your idea @cygnusjen.

I could definitely see how this could be useful for some users. Although it is similar to the overall step goal for the whole day, and not the hourly goals.

Let's see what other users think about it.

[pinkjaguar60]

I totally agree with this. I go to school and can’t always get up and walk around in the middle of class. I wish I could set it so that the hours didn’t have to be consecutive and have my Fitbit remind me every hour until I got enough hours with 250 steps. 

[Eswinney]

Yes and amen!! I have not been able to find any scientific research that supports the idea that the hours of activity must be consecutive. Plus, I’ve missed my mark several times during activity that wasn’t “active” enough (yoga, for example). It’s very annoying! I love the reminder to get activity, but I’m considering disabling the function because I get so frustrated when that happens. 

[web74]

All these ideas are great. Love my Versa but it is restrictive to my goals regarding hourly steps helping me to my daily goal. I think any additional things we can do to motivate ourselves is good. Not sure how often fitbit updates software but these requests are reasonable. 

[Mafanwy]

It would be useful to be able to split the hourly activity hours as I'm unable to wear my Fitbit to work. 

[MarcelBK]

That’s an interesting idea and could be useful, thanks for sharing this suggestion. Let's see what others think.

[PTLM]

The ability to increase the number of steps per hour and have flexibility of when you do your hours or flexibility for reminders (including aligning with medical recommendations of 30mins) has been a suggested feature or been requested in many many different forms within the ideas forum or general discussion ones, some dating a while back.....and yet it is still in review or not yet planned. 

The idea behind fitbit is not just tracking but more importantly motivation and reminders. The largest proportion of users it seems want the motivation and reminders to move more. So why not introduce the flexibility and let the customer/user set thier devices up to suit their lives - otherwise what's the point?

I'm thinking there's an obvious gap in the market that sooner or later  competitors may fill.  

[PTLM]

A specific point I wanted to make in regards to the inflexibility of number of steps.... 250 steps for each hour over 10 hours is only 2500 - over 20 hours it's only 5000 steps. Point being it's well below the recommended 10000 steps a day! As such 250 seems way too low as an arbitrary number of steps to be using in the first place. 

[web74]

My point exactly.

[cwpurcell75]

i have also wanted to be able to set the amount of steps for this feature.  I try to get about 1000 steps in per hour and having the ability to set the amount of steps would be very helpful.

[meresydotes]

Sometimes, I miss an hourly step goal because I'm in a meeting, or otherwise unable to complete the goal. It would be nice to be able to simply set the goal to get 250 steps/ hour for x hours a day, but not have to decide the specific hours in which I need to complete the goal, or to be able to extend the number of hours allotted to more than the number of hours included in the goal. So, I might have it set for 14 hours/ day. Instead of only being able to have it set up for 4 AM-5 PM, it would be nice if I could set it up for 4 AM - 8 PM, so that I could miss up to 3 hours and still make the goal by making it up during another hour.

[MarcelBK]

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

[SunsetRunner]

My Fitbit Charge 2 is similar to Santa except it knows when I am awake or asleep. Since the Fitbit is able to determine this it would be nice if there was an option to track the 250 when awake instead of a specific number of hours.

I work a weird schedule. Some days I am up at the crack of dawn and other days I do not get up and go to work until 5 in the evening. It is hard to meet goals or set a specific number of hours with being on a weird schedule.

[mattyboy]

Another desk-bound office worker here who achieves the full day's hourly steps about once a fortnite, but misses just one hour from 9-5 about 20 times a month. I agree with the OP's comment about it being demotivating once a single hour is missed.

Reminders to Move: On

Start & End Time: 06:00 - 21:00 (15 hours)

Goal: 13 hours (of 15 hours)

[Mrpaulwilsonsir]

I always aim for my 250 steps an hour for 8 hours a day (and a lot more besides obviously) . Alas I’m usually driving  either to or from work for a couple of those hours. 

Could you not amend the code so if we chose to be active for 8 hours (or whatever we chose) out of the 24 it could be any 8 rather than a consecutive 8 hours. 

I can’t be the only person this would benefit surely?

thanks in advance 

[vward89]

This was the biggest drawback for me switching to Apple watch.  ESPECIALLY because it uses steps and not calories.  When I go to an intense yoga class, even though I'm burning calories and working up a sweat, the hour counts as "inactive" because the activity is not step-based

[Mrpaulwilsonsir]

I’m down with this idea, seems it would only take a few additional lines of code to allow it. And it actually makes sense as it will motivate those of use that know we can’t achieve 8 ‘straight hours’ of movement due to work or travel commitments 

please please..... 😁😁

[Dynagirl2006]

It looks like the last time this idea was visited was almost a year ago. Please consider adding the ability to break up the goal for the (250+) steps per hour. Seeing that green light up for each goal drives me and others like me. When we have meetings, appointments, or take a nap, we lose the possibility of reaching that goal. For anyone who looks forward to hitting those goals, it's easy to just give up for the day once we've lost just one hour - particularly if it's in the first part of our day. What's the point after one hour is lost? We won't get the goal at all. I know there are also others who would like to set their goal to be active at least 'x' number of hours in their day. These hours should be able to be broken up when real life posts obstacles to our fitness goals. I'm tired of being discouraged an entire day after missing one hour that will destroy my goal.

I'm not positive I'm posting this under the correct label, so please feel free to move it, if needed.

Thanks for your consideration!