Challenges not Based on Steps, eg. Sports, Stairs, Active Mins

[Lianne393]

It would be nice to have different types of challenges that aren't solely based on getting our steps in. 

For instance, the number of active minutes in a day, loss challenge, calories, water consumption. Some activities don't count steps such as cycling, skiing or skateboard.  I would like to be able to compete against my friends while doing other activities.  

Moderator edit: Word choice

[PureEvil]

@marcin_kempka,

No, this is still a problem since caloric burn rate (whether from activity or BMR) is still different for folks of different stats.  When you go to the gym and get on the treadmill, it reports your caloric burn based on average stats, which is also the reason why they allow you to enter your stats (to get you a more accurate assessment of your caloric burn).

So if you do the same exercise (say run 3 miles in 30 minutes), but do it once as a 120 pound person and the second time as 250 pound person, you'll get a higher caloric burn for the 2nd one, for the same workout.  You and your friend (who is 30 pounds heavier) go to the gym together and do the exact same workout and they're far ahead of you in the challenge...  This is fair?

And even if you only factored in calories from activities, which as I mentioned above... won't work.  Then users will be confused that their calorie burn stat on their dashboard (which includes the BMR) is different than the one in the challenge (which omits it).

[b0x]

Yes but you're assuming that for the competition they can't program that everyone's caloric burn isn't based off the same stats which is completely possible and also why this discussion still exists. 

[Robert_C]

Easy Guy. So if you don't think it's fair, don't do accept or be part of a calorie challenge. No one is forcing you too.
I just want the option to do it among my friends. It's really simple.


Sent from my iPhone

[PureEvil]

@b0x,

Agreed...  Fitbit can completely come up with a caloric burn stat that is only based on activity and for the same average stat.  Absolutely, this can be done.

And this isn't going to confuse users?  Bob's calories are 2500 on their dashboard, but only 1100 in the challenge (factoring out BMR and for average stats)?  Let's put things in perspective, challenges starting on different time zones are already confusing users, you don't think that this would cause even more confusion?

If you want a challenge that is based on how active people are, why not omit caloric burn altogether and just ask for an active minutes challenge?

[PureEvil]

@Robert_C,

Oh, I completely agree...  I don't (really) care if Fitbit does make a caloric burn challenge.  I won't participate because I'd have an unfair advantage.

I just don't think that most of the folks who ask for this are aware that this will be as lopsided as it truly will be...  Without taking a single step, I'll burn over 1900 calories a day on my BMR alone, a 120 lbs. woman will need to literally spend hours in the gym to match that.

I get that some may want to be able to compete with their friends who are avid runners and you're more of a strength trainer...  However, moving to a challenge where someone who sits on his couch all day can be 55% ahead of you is not really fixing anything.

If you're both (a little) younger and heavier than your friend on the calorie challenge and you routinely win, how victorious would you really be if you're burning calories 25% faster than your friend?  And perhaps more importantly, how frustrated would they be if they never win (with a 20% disadvantage)?

That said, I do answer a lot of questions here in the forums and I can see this as being a great source of both confusion and frustration.  In this respect, I do care.

[Kate_Rickel]

Agreed this is a way to make the Fitbit more inclusive.

[jwarkentin]

I feel like I've said this a hundred million times by now but I'll say it again. The solution is simple. For any competition to be fair you have to normalize the values. In the case of calorie challenges you simply normalize calories burned as a percentage of BMR. You're then competing on a relative percentage rather than a static value.

Step challenges aren't fair either. Taller people with longer strides take way fewer steps and burn a lot less energy to go the same distance as shorter people. It is much more difficult for them to keep up on step challenges. But if you normalized it based on stride length then it suddenly becomes fair.

To compete on anything at all you have to normalize the data to make it fair. But it's incredibly easy to do so that's no excuse!

[PureEvil]

@jwarkentin,

Yes, I absolutely agree.  You can have normalized numbers based on a standard BMR.  That said, let's look at the instances where people are posting about dashboard steps not consistent with challenges:

• Steps from Dashboard not syncing with challenge
• Steps on dashboard vs challenge
• Workweek challenge not matching Dashboard

So creating a calorie challenge where the number on the challenge is basically guaranteed to be mismatched with the stat on your dashboard...  Is not going to create confusion and frustration?

"My dashboard says 2500 calories, what do you mean that I only get 1100 calories on the challenge?!"

[jwarkentin]

It looks like the issue there is that Fitbit won't count manually entered info toward challenges, which is really dumb. But that's also a separate issue as it applies even to the current step challenges. Although, just to be completely clear, a calorie challenge should never show actual calories burned anyway. It should only show a percentage. The person who burns the highest percentage relative to their BMR is the one in the lead with a calorie challenge even if they burned the fewest calories among those competing.

Ultimately my point with all of this though is that if they're going to have any challenges they may as well allow all types of challenges because step challenges suffer from the exact same problems as a calorie or any other type of challenge would. Numbers need to be normalized regardless of what metric we compete on because everyone is different. There is no metric that can be completely generalized, including steps.

[Haus999]

2 years on and still no updates or changes to the app. Can Fitbit confirm what the outcome of this is?

[Dmfrenchie]

Sent from my iPhone

[PureEvil]

@jwarkentin,

The issue with manually entered activities towards challenges is that it is much too easy to game the system, you may honestly enter a 3000 step afternoon walk, like this:

Or with one keystroke you can change that to 8000 steps and win the challenge (or what I think is more likely the case, just not end up at the bottom of the leaderboard).  There were a number of folks that were abusing this; enough so that the results of the challenges were effectively meaningless, so Fitbit now disallows this.  I agree with this policy.

I understand and agree that Fitbit can put together a challenge that takes into account a normalized caloric burn.  This can either be done for a standard caloric burn rate, it can factor out everyone's BMR, etc.  It's just math, pretty simple math at that.

However, the moment they do this, that figure (whatever they choose to call it), will be different from the "Calorie" figure from your dashboard.  I've read and responded to enough threads here in the forum (not just the SIX posts in your history) to know that the fact that the figure is different from your dashboard is going to create a lot of confusion and frustration.  I sited at least three examples of such threads for just steps in my former post, I'm sure that I can cite more.

So at the end of the day, the question is do you:

• Create a calorie challenge that is fairer by taking into account a normalized caloric burn (whether with or without BMR) and end up confusing and frustrating most of your users that participate.
• Create a calorie challenge that uses your 'Calorie' stat and end up making it extremely unfair.
• Not create a calorie challenge at all.

[jwarkentin]

There may be some sort of miscommunication happening here because I don't understand why you are suggesting that normalized metrics would confuse or frustrate anyone. But here's my take on this:

Having a figure in the challenge that is different from the number on the dashboard is clearly a problem. It effectively makes challenges unfair and pointless because you can't count actual calories burned when entered manually.

Having a challenge using any metric that is not normalized is also clearly a problem and makes challenges equally pointless.

The only way to make ANY challenge meaningful (including steps) is to compete on normalized metrics and count manually entered data. It's already easy to game the system anyway even with the automatically tracked data for steps just by moving your arm a lot. Ultimately it's up to the people competing to be honest. Not everyone will be but it's not Fitbit's job to try to enforce that. If a user feels like someone is cheating then they should no longer participate in challenges with that individual. This is a problem that should be solved socially, outside the app. It's not a code problem.

[PureEvil]

@jwarkentin,

"It's already easy to game the system anyway even with the automatically tracked data for steps just by moving your arm a lot."

Really?  This is a screenshot of the top two spots in a Workweek Hustle challenge that I'm currently on:

Are you willing to 'move your arm a lot' to the tune of over 15k steps?  With manually entered activities, the difference is six keystrokes.  Compound this with a couple of extreme trash talkers and the temptation is very high.  Are you really saying that 'moving your arm a lot' to the tune of 15k steps is as easy as typing '16000<enter>'?

And it's not as trivial as 'no longer participate in challenges with that individual', anyone invited to a challenge can invite other folks to the challenge.  So even if you started the challenge and only invited folks that you trust, it doesn't necessarily mean that those are the folks who ultimately be in the challenge.  That too is a topic for discussion here in the forums; I can track down the threads if you're skeptical.

You're suggesting having some sort of normalized stat for caloric burn in challenges.  Great.  Makes sense.  What would you call it?  Let's put that off...  For the sake of discussion, let's just call it 'generic stat A':

• Option One: Say, you add it to the existing (non-challenge) dashboard.  Users who don't participate in challenges are going to be confused and frustrated... "What is this 'generic stat A'?  Why is it here?"
• Option Two: You don't add it to the existing (non-challenge) dashboard.  Users who participate in 'generic stat A' challenges are going to be confused and frustrated since the figure that is used in the challenge does not show up anywhere on the dashboard.  "What is this stat and how is it calculated?  How do I know if it's syncing properly if I don't see it on my dashboard?"

[SantiR]

Hey, there are amazing suggestions! Just wanted to point you in the direction of these duplicate ideas:

- Active minutes challenges

- Floor climbed challenges

- Distance traveled challenges

Please leave your future comments and votes in the feature request mentioned above. This will make it easier for our product team to notice them. 

Thanks for your understanding! 

[segermonster]

I would definitely like to see water intake, active minutes, and sleep as additional challenges to steps!   

[Soccerchar10]

I agree! Would really love to see challenges for number of workout in a week, daily cardio minutes or calories burned!!

[Robotsim]

I agree. I don't run too often but work out.  How about a challenge or calories burnt or hours slept or number of times goals were hit for sleep. 

OR 

Do a combination of all and give equal weighting to total score.

[Lisa223white]

More Challenges and options! More cities and states! Water challenges sound great. I don't drink nearly enough water and competition would help!! Active minutes and other challenges would be something to shake up the getting into shape process! Would be a big help! HUGE MOTIVATION!!

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@Robotsarefun wrote:

I'd really like to see more challenges other than steps between friends! Like cardio minutes, water intake, calories burned...

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[JerseaJess]

YES!! Activity/exercise challenges for those of us that do other exercise besides waking and running. Great idea and would love this as a feature!

[SunsetRunner]

We have quite an active fitbit group in workweek hustle, but we really would like to see a 7 days hustle added (not week and weekend seperated). Is this something that's on the roadmap?

We really, really, really would like to see this added to the hustles!

[beau14us]

3 or 4 more years later..and its STILL an awesome idea...any insight into the possiblity of this actually happening???

[lenymonstre]

Hello!  I think it would be great if you created a weekly challenge similar to the Workweek Hustle where instead of most steps in 5 days, it would be most floors climbed instead.  I think it would be great to really add that extra burn to a weekly challenge.  thanks!

[pnuy]

Using only steps for challenges is too limiting and I don't care about people who cheat by making manual entries.  The rest of are being punished because of a few cheaters. It's time we have an alternative to steps for challenges.

[Mollie1415]

I couldn't agree anymore!! I love when I get ALL green on my dash board!! I'd love different challenges with steps, water intake, active minutes, miles etc!! Also news maps that can be downloaded. New scenery is always nice!!