Allow us to choose between "Active minutes" or "Active zone minutes"

[ophelialnc]

Please include a data field for real time active minutes, an essential metric you took away to replace with Active Zone Minutes or be able to choose which I want to see. I had to return my Charge 4 because it was missing this info. I just need a field that tells me how many total real minutes in a day I spent in active heart range. I cannot use active zone minutes in the same way.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[nightowl.]

I wrote this email to a supervisor at customer service (as I now have become that person who asks to speak to someone in charge.. Fitbit is the first company to make me become that person :P) 

“Hello

Thank you for a quick response, I very much appreciate it. 

I have, and so has many others, made complaints and voiced our opinions but people in charge at Fitbit’s have not said a word on what will happen to the ridicoulus update that has been made. 

Their silence speaks volumes right now on how important they really think their customers and this “suggestion board” is. 

I suffer from chronic pain and chronic inflammation in the joints around my rib cage. I can not get my heart rate level up to what Fitbit think is sufficient without an extreme pain level. It hurts for me to breath every day. I’m not saying this to make you feel sorry for me, but to state a fact and inform you that not all of your customers are healthy marathon runners. 

My Fitbit watch has been a tremendous help over the years, and especially the feature of “active minutes”. It has provided me with facts on how much I am active, nothing more and nothing less.

Everyday activity (which is crucial for everyone’s health) has counted. There has not been any extra minutes because my heart rate level went up enough. And that has been helpful in my everyday life, when visiting my doctor and physiotherapist and other medical professions. 

I have not experienced an “improved experience” as you phrased it with active zone minutes and feel discouraged when using my watch now. 

I could easily buy another fitness watch, or Apple Watch, but the thing is; I’ve been a loyal customer for years. I really don’t want to give my Fitbit watch up, but if something doesn’t happen soon, I might have to. 

Please get back to me with information on how this message and what’s in the forums will get to a higher level in your company and provide what they plan to do. I sincerely hope Fitbit will provide a second update with the choice of active minutes back, or a refund for everyone who has purchased a Fitbit watch the last year with the intent to use active minutes. 

Thank you so much for your time. “
 

[hmwolfie]

Great idea.  I will be posting a review on google.  I really don't want to switch back to my iphone because I love my pixel, but I'm definitely considering an apple watch.  Almost everyone in my family has an apple watch and thinks the zone minutes are hilarious.  

[hmwolfie]

I wanted to note that active minutes is still available on the website, but not the app.  I still think active minutes not being on the app is unacceptable, but you can still track it via logging into the fitbit webpage.  

[harshani]

I have reviewed this aspect in scientific terms. active zone minutes vary based on ethnicity, age, gender, weight, weather and environment, type of food you eat (keto and high carb eaters vary significantly and water and salt intake also change bpm on an everyday basis), female monthly periods, medical conditions, medical drugs etc etc. How any of the above conditions relate to bpm and active zones has not been studied or concluded in any scientific literature. If Fitbit has done this ... its noble prize-worthy data and I implore them to prove this by publishing in Nature medicine. This is very relevant data that scientists have spent billions of dollars to figure out for decades and never have been able to.

Why and how Fitbit came up with an impractical absolutely unrelatable piece of activity such as zone minutes is mind-blowing. I am now confident that there is no medical personal or a scientific advisor on board here. If this is the case it would not be correct action for Fitbit to make people do things without having any medical backup. This should be illegal!!

Now if there is a medical person who is making the decision ... he or she has no clue whatsoever about zone minutes and bpm and how these changes with all the reasons (and more) that I have mentioned above. It is also troublesome that Fitbit has hired someone this ignorant about active minutes and bpm and how they change and take their advice to make such a drastic change as this.

Fitbit removed one of the best and reliable factors ... "active minutes" ... and replaced it with this completely unreliable zone minutes. and now they are making people beg and vote and watching to see how many votes are there to remove it. This is laughable since they cannot understand how absolutely unfair this zone minutes are based on race and ethnicity, gender, age, medical condition, environment, food and water consumption  etc etc.

Fitbit is good for 

1. steps

2. miles

3. floors

4. active minutes

5. games on the app

all of the above 1,2,3 is provided by a mere $20 fitness watch. #4 is not the main attraction anymore and I do not care much about #5. I just bought the Ionic in May thinking Fitbit has better sense than this. But I am very unhappy and I regret not having bought the newer version of apple instead. I am extremely unhappy ... I agree that we should be refunded the money for removing active zones. At least the people who bought Fitbit within this year expecting active zone minutes.

But I am also surprised why no one is realizing how much Fitbit is not considering the gender, racial, age, medical condition aspects of this change ....

[mstallin]

Amen!!!!

Sent from my iPhone

[Jhynes]

Yes please give us the option of active mins or zone mins.  I hate that it only tracks zone!

[Ga1ileo]

Please bring back actives minutes. Being forced to use Zone minutes with no warning shows a disgraceful disregard for your customers.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @Ga1ileo. Thanks for taking the time to explain why you'd like to track active minutes with us. This idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestions board, so I’ve moved your post here. This will help us to keep the forums organized and make sure the suggestions don't get confused, or split a popular vote. Click on the thumbs-up to show your support and keep adding your suggestions!

[harshani]

moderators keep moving things to this place and that place. But I am still shocked how after all the questionable nature of the zone minutes and the lack of scientific understanding Fitbit has shown regarding why zone minutes is a bad way to measure a person's activity .. they still have not changed anything. This place is a board where Fitbit likes to send the people with actual complaints so that they can pretend to help but really not care. I have yet to see a company this stubborn about bad science and bad decisions. 

There is definitely no scientist or medical personal involved in this process for sure ... which should be illegal since Fitbit operates to deal with people's health and health based activities. To this date, after so many people have shown displeasure ... NO ACTION has been taken by Fitbit regarding this. 

This is a lack of respect for your loyal customers. Besides that, you are imposing an activity a huge part of the population cannot achieve. The fact that you removed active minutes and completely replaced zone minutes is the issue. You could give customers both choices ... changing this cannot be that hard. removing something that everyone can achieve with something half the fit bitters can achieve is unfair.

Therefore it would not surprise me if tomorrow Fitbit removes "number of steps" with "jumping jacks". There is no real way of measuring jumping jacks depending on various reasons and some people might not be able to achieve jumping jacks. BUT ... Fitbit says we measure jumping jacks and not steps walked ... we all go around jumping instead of walking or running.

I would like to now open this forum to demand full refund for my ionic. The ONLY reason why I bought this instead of a new apple watch was because of active minutes. 

[lyssfitz]

And hurry up and do it

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @lyssfitz. Thanks for sharing this suggestion about being able to track your active minutes back in the Fitbit app. This idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestions board, so I’ve moved your post here. This will help us to keep the forums organized and make sure the suggestions don't get confused, or split a popular vote. Click on the thumbs-up to show your support.

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @lyssfitz. Thanks for sharing this suggestion about being able to track your active minutes back in the Fitbit app. This idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestions board, so I’ve moved your post here. This will help us to keep the forums organized and make sure the suggestions don't get confused, or split a popular vote. Click on the thumbs-up to show your support.

[Livbridge]

Since when was 1 minute of exercise anything other than 60 seconds? FitBit cannot bend the rules of time. I don't want to score points or rack up imaginary minutes of exercise I haven't actually done; I want to work out and know precisely how long for, how many calories burnt, distance - etc. Please bring back original workout times as an add on.

[zirc21]

Yes, please fix. I've been a Fitbit user for several years, but I'm now shopping for an alternative. This has made my fitbit worthless. I used to have a 30 minute daily activity goal that I hit or exceeded nearly every day. Now I'm struggling to get 5 minutes logged.

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @Livbridge, thanks for explaining why you would like to have the option to choose between "Active minutes" or "Active zone minutes". Thanks for sharing your feedback. I've moved it into a similar request.  A lot of users are asking for this option, I hope we receive updates soon.

[Sujit77]

Hello, 

I have used Fitbit for over 3 years now. Upgraded to Versa2 special edition a few months ago. My employer program incentivizes us to achieve certain active minutes per day. This worked fine until Fitbit decided on their own without taking a voice of customer and switched all users to Active zone minutes.

Contacted Fitbit via Chat to understand options to still use active minutes on the Versa, they directed me to contact via phone. Spent over an hour with customer rep and then the supervisor and the only answer I got is Active zone minutes is what you have, the attitude was we dont really care about what your company tracks for the health program you will not have the active minutes option anymore. 

This is absolutely ridiculous that Fitbit suddenly changes a feature without giving an option for users to choose if they want to use it or not. 

Downloaded clean cut clock face which helped track active minutes for the past few weeks. However starting this week they stopped offering it saying with new SDK only active zone minutes can be displayed. 

As mentioned in previous comments, there needs to be a choice, or both need to be available on devices and the app. 

Fitbit for future changes needs to do a voice of customer to get inputs and offer old choices as options and not just force users to switch to something which Fitbit seems is the best for consumers. 

Please bring active minutes back at the earliest. 

[Livbridge]

@YojanaFitbit great - thanks! But I am concerned. I had thought the removal of active minutes had only occurred this weekend but looking at this thread, Fitbit users have been requesting it comes back for MONTHS!! Do you know how long it will be until it is fixed? I've only had mine a couple of days so I might pursue a refund instead and get a different fit watch.

[Michellelaroche]

I'm replacing my Fitbit, they clearly don't care about what their average
customer wants, if you are within your return window it's probably a good
idea to take advantage of that.

[vacall]

agreed - there should be some sort of option for active minutes to be shown.  either let us show alone or toggle between or both.  some of us are recovering from injuries or have other health issues and we need to see our active minutes as the zone minutes would be so small as to be discouraging activity/exercise.  Right now I think you need to check your ableism bias.

I frankly will look for another device that does have this info if this is not resolved. 

[vacall]

oh and yes, been a fitbit customer since the beginning - on my fourth version and talked my husband into buying but will be looking around for options. really the ableism is so discouraging from a company that says it cares about wellness

[vacall]

yes, there should be a refund option.  I bought mine this year as did my husband.  looking for 2 refunds now. 

[mkamoski]

I agree completely. Gee I just ran two miles how long did that take me? This "top notch" fitness tracker watch is not even a watch anymore, because it can't answer that simple question for me with a simple solution. If you must have zone minutes, then please just allow a way to show both active minutes and zone minutes and that would be fine. But come on, running time is what they use in the Olympics. It's a standard way of measuring.  What  is my time over a given distance. It is basic science. Clear science. Please bring back active minutes in some way because showing just zone minutes is ridiculous. I have liked fitbit up until now, and I've purchased more than five of these over the past few years for myself and my family, and it put up with the ridiculous case where I buy a fitness tracker and in order to get all the data that is collected by my fitness tracker I would have to pay a premium subscription service which is just theft,  but this last point where my fitness watch cannot even tell me how long it took me to run a few miles in clock based running time, I think I have to start shopping elsewhere.

[NickyN]

I agree, the new active zone minutes are useless and demotivating. Bring back the ability to track real time spent being active. I think the new active zone are discriminatory for people with disabilities some of whom have to exercise at a slower pace (Including me - I have chronic spinal problems). 

[JediJen]

I have bradycardia and other heart issues that make zone minutes virtually useless for me,  even with my custom heart rate set up. The active minutes on my Versa2 were really helpful for my doctors and me. Please allow the choice of which metric works best for the user. 

[hazelvodd]

Just upgraded from Charge 2 to Versa 3 but wish I had not! Active minutes was a great way for me to review how long I had exercised for each day. Active zone minutes is useless for me. I suffer from Afib which means my heart rate can occasionally rise for no reason. This now shows up as zone minutes on the tracker. Ordinarily my heart rate is kept below average due to medication so again the zone data is flawed. I am so disappointed after spending £200 on this watch. Please let us have the option of reverting back to active minutes and do this soon. 

[rwb196884]

Active minutes is completely uncorrelated with exercise and activity. Nobody knows how they're calculated.