Include Manually Added Steps in Leader Board and Challenges

[THitch]

Please make modifications to show the manually added steps in both the Leader Board and the Step Challenges.  While I understand that the change to exclude the manually added steps (implemented this week on the Leader Board but earlier in the Challenges) is related to individuals who cheat the system, the feedback in the Fitbit community seems to suggest that your core and very active customers WANT this feature for valid reasons and are offended that you've put the need to address cheaters above the desires of your committed users.  

As suggested in the community forum posts, if you feel it necessary to differentiate the steps manually entered, this could be accomplished by showing the total steps as the primary total and including the manual steps as a subset of that total (e.g., Rob H. Total 95,993 (12,000 manual).  That will better expose the "small number" of those who are cheating the system.  Seems it would better to cater to the 95% of the users who are doing it right versus the < 5% who are cheating.

My husband and I have been loyal Fitbit customers since January 2014.  We believe in the product and most importantly, the purpose of the product so much so that we have personally purchased or influenced the purchase of Fitbit trackers for 15+ individuals.  Although some of these individuals have come and gone in our Fitbit world, we still have a very competitive and active group of Fitbit friends.  For different reasons (running, using treadmills, elipticals, forgetting to charge the Fitbit, etc.), we often enter a portion of our steps manually.  The inability to see our total steps, whether manual or otherwise, on the Leader Board defeats what I believe to be the purpose of the Leader Board, which is to encourage activity through friendly competition.  

Thank you for your consideration!

[MLLLLLLLLLL]

Good luck, Fitbit does not care

Sent from my iPhone

[giacopelli]

Sadly, I agree

[Kimberly1023]

Manual addittions should be allowed in the challenges. I am considering not taking part anymore because I can not compete with those that mainly walk or run for thier exersise. I do a variety of activities. One is swimming and although I would love it if my fit bit were water proof, I have a fit bit one and do not believe it is water proof, resistant I think. Anyway my 90 minutes of swimming far out wieghs my friends 10,000 steps but I don't get credit for it. I look like a slug in all the challenges but yet my work out routine tops hers by a landslide. Most of her steps are aquired walking to and from the bus station. This is excellant but it does not encourage her to to do better because in retrospect she is always beating me who is at the gym or in the pool 3 times per week. You see the imbalance here? It is not fair to her or me. She wants to improve her activity level and loose wieght but she does not get to the benefits of being pushed or challanged by comparision to my activity. And I don't get the satisfaction of ever winning because my activity does not count. I have also left the fit bit home a couple of times but that did not stop me from hitting the gym. I do realize there are those that would cheat but who are they really cheating but themseves. Just saying.

[zsazsa4227]

Agree, this is very frustrating.  Why is fitbit trying to control how you use their own product?

[Rich_Laue]

I'm not sure what needs to be brought back, manually added steps have never been counted in challanges. It makes it too easy to cheet, people are already entering step days with a goal of 1 step.

[racerunner]

I am requesting manually entered steps be included in the 7-day leaderboard.  I don't need it included in challenges, but to me it makes sense to have them count with the leaderboard.  Even a breakdown when you click on the user in the leaderboard that shows manually entered vs fitbit recorded steps would be fine.

I'm asking for this because I just started paying closer attention and noticed that my 7-day count on my dashboard was WAY higher than my 7-day count on the leaderboard with friends.  I also lift and do other workouts that the fitbit does not calculate properly, and via work, have been given an approved "step conversion" chart, which basically says for every minute you spend lifting weights you expend as much energy walking X number of steps.

I manually put those steps in.  I'm careful to not double count steps also so as to avoid cheating.  By fitbit not counting those step conversions into the leaderboard totals, I feel like my work lifting weights or doing TRX is wasted as far as the fitbit is concerned.  It only cares about steps.  Not overall activity or fitness level.

This is very frustrating, because it makes it look like on those days that I work extremely hard lifting (arguably much harder than the days that I run or walk) I get ZERO credit for it in fitbit; and it looks like I don't do anything according the numbers my friends are shown.  It's discouraging to know that a large portion of my activity is just totally lost.  It sucks the fun out of the competition for me.

I'm not alone in this.  There are a number of other fitbit users frustrated by the way this has been set up.  I also know that previous feature requests along these lines have been declined because this is how Fitbit originally indended it to be.  Whether this was always intended or not, I feel like allowing manually entered steps in the leaderboard is something a number of customers want to see. I get that cheaters can suck the fun out of competition... but if someone is cheating, they get unfriended by me... no longer an issue.  I feel like the rest of us have been deprived of a useful feature because of a select few who don't care enough about their own fitness to be honest.

I originally went with a fitbit for the community, and the fun of friendly competition, however, with a large portion of my work not counting, the community aspect of this product doesn't really work to my benifit anymore.

[debbey]

 I also would like the manually added steps to count towards group. I don't care if they count for competitions, I haven't done any. I started noticing my 7 day average was going down, yet my steps were increasing. Then I noticed that my average was correct in one spot, but wrong in the group leaderboard. I went from usually being on top to being last, with a very low average. I walk alot in a pond, usually carrying heavy rocks to build a retaining wall. I obviously can't wear my Fitbit in the water, yet I'm walking nonstop for hours - Now all my hard work doesn't matter!! I find this very frustrating!! I have several physical limitations, but I try not to let them hold me back. My New Year's resolution was to begin walking and do it every day. I have told everyone that my Fitbit was the best gift I've ever received! I'm in the best shape I've been in and have lost weight, all thanks to my Fitbit.I find that the competition between my friends and I helps motivate me, but now all my hard work doesn't count. What is the point of having the manual additions if it doesn't count for everything? We are adults, if someone in our group was cheating, they would just be unfriended - we shouldn't have to be penalized for the few who obviously aren't using Fitbit for how it was intended!! Right now I'm very frustrated! I work very hard (averaging 15k steps at  the moment), but in my group it looks like I'm hardly doing anything! Please let us police our own groups and let our manually added steps count!! Thank you~

[Slsaggie]

Like MANY other users out there, I think that FitBit should allow manually added or third party integration steps to be counted towards badges and seven day totals on the friend lists. You should not be punished for forgetting your tracker or doing an exercise that isn't step-intensive. This is supposed to be a fitness tracker, not a pedometer. I did not pay $100 for functionality I could get for $20.

It is not FitBit's responsibility to police cheaters or make things fair. If people are friends with someone they suspect of cheating they can unfriend them. Who cares if someone is cheating in a challenge. Are you giving away money to the winners?

[SunsetRunner]

Yes please

[Kimberly1023]

I think the biggest comment here is the fact the fitbit is supposed to be
an activity tracker and not a pedometer. The challenges and leader boards
are designed to encourage activity among your group of friends. I have to
say it has failed me. I'm a creature of variation I do not just walk, or
run, I try to vary my activity so I don't get bored. I pretty much have
given up on the community aspect. I can only self compete, as I can not
even keep up. I would have to add additional steps in the thousands just to
keep up. I just don't have time for that.

[JuliaProf]

Wondering if someone at Fitbit reads this post/thread. How do we revisit this idea?

I see the following:

Status is decline.

This functionality has been restored to its original design--manually logged steps do not count towards your 7-day Friends Leaderboard, Challenges, and Activity Groups--only tracker data does

[madlib82]

This is a terrific idea!!  I hope it is something that Fitbit pursues.

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@vjlynch wrote:

It is clear there is a lot of interest in restoring the ability to include manually added steps in leader boards and challenges (the fact that the inability to do so reverts to the original design, as pointed out by several moderators in other requests for this feature, is an interesting fact but not a justification). While I appreciate it was a reasoned decision that was reached in an attempt to circumvent cheaters, it also has made Fitbit completely accurate and therefor less useful for many of us. For example, when I use my Garmin device to run, transfer the activity with FitDataSync, and wear my Charge HR the rest of the day, the steps included in the leader boards and challenges is just wrong. That makes the entire Fitbit experience quite frustrating, and leads me to not participate in challenges. In fact accidently ran my Charge through the wash a few weeks ago and have yet to purchase a replacement because what’s the point? The step counts in leader boards and challenges are wrong so why continue to use it? 

Thus, I propose a compromise. Allow users to 'opt in/opt out' of including manually added and sync'd steps in  leader boards and challenges. This seems to be a fair compromise with a straight forward software fix: whomever starts a challenge decides whether to allow manually added and sync'd steps (have a little button to click). Have a similar option for leader boards. 

We all appreciate that a few people will try to cheat the system and Fitbit has an obvious interests in stopping them. But we are adults and I personally resent the implication that we cannot be trusted in an essentially no stakes competition with my friends. After all cheaters in this case are literally cheating themselves, but I suspect most people also feel Fitbit is cheating us out of a user-friendly and in the end accurate experience.

Vinny

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[racerunner]

JuliaProf, I'm wondering the same thing.  We've got 6 pages of commenters here that want this feature reinstated.  I hope they aren't simply ignoring it because it has been marked as declined.  Someone must be paying a bit of attention, because I created a separate post about this issue, and they moved it into this thread.

[tajenner]

Fitbit does monitor this thread, however they have no plans to bring this function back and honestly don't care about those who would like this back.  Their main goal is to sell more devices to more people.  With them disabling this feature, it no longer allows anyone to import activity data from other devices like Apple, Garmin, Under Armor, Nike, etc. thus requiring users to purchase a fitbit device if they want to compete with family and friends.  Now could they implement this feature back without allowing data from other devices to be imported?  Possibly, however they either are not smart enough to figure it out or simply don't care.  I am leaning towards that they simply don't care.  They are a business and only care about selling more devices and obviously are ok with a small percentage of loyal users leaving them for other devices like i personally have.  They will also never admit they did this to sell more devices, but the writing is clearly on the wall as their stance is they need to make sure the leader boards stay fair, since they don't trust the users to monitor that themselves.  If someone wants to cheat at a challenge, they are going to find other ways if you take away one method.  Most could get a extra 5,000-10,000 steps a day by just attaching their tracker to their toddler child/grandchild or pet dog....  So the logic they are curbing cheating is simply BS.  It is to simply sell more devices while hiding behind a lame excuse.

Fitbit free for 8 months and never felt better!  I only compete against myself and love my much more accurate apple watch.  So glad I didn't waste money on one of fitbits smart watches.

[cpabaraboo]

I suspect FitBit wants companies to buy devices for their employees as part of a wellness program, but they don't want to make it easy for those employees to 'cheat'.  

If this is the case, FitBit should make it possible for those companies to control manually-entered steps that through a challenge setting - rather than impose it as a global restriction for all users everywhere.

Whatever the case may be (and who knows if anyone at FitBit reads this - they are totally dumb on the issue), my next device will be a Garmin or better.  My friends and family who used to use FitBit have stopped and I have no incentive to encourage them otherwise.

[Kimberly1023]

I can totally understand. I don't feel compelled to even participate in any
of the group activities or leader results. My activities vary so much and I
am proud of that. And as far as weight loss and healthy results I see a
greater return than those who are winning so to speak. So I'm not going to
change what I do. I will however not be participating in the challenges.
Don't care where I land on the leader boards, I will continue to be self
competitive and call it done. I can't afford to replace my device but I'm
sure the day with come when I must and I will explore other options.

[Santhosh]

Hey team,
I would like to add a point here, as I used to drive a bike a lot more number of steps and floors are counted while driving the bike. So if I am in a challenge the driving steps are added into the challenge even if I am manually deleting it or using travel bit to negate whatever is gained. Whenever charge is synced it takes the count from Fitbit charge instead of negated steps I gained from the driving.

Is there any fix for this solution,olease let me know. Even if there is a workaround to fix this i would be a very happy person..thanks in advance team.a kind suggestion is that I believe there shoudl be a manual sync inside Fitbit challenge so that after the negation has happened then only the steps shoufl be synced in. Please help me out

Regards
Santhosh

[cpabaraboo]

Well, it finally happened; my wife and I moved to Garmin and it's 100% because of this issue.  

So long FitBit!  I'm off to Garmin-land where I can 'cheat' to my hearts content.

[Stallion]

Sent from XFINITY Connect Mobile App

[Rich_Laue]

I@cpabaraboo I didn't think that not having the abikity to ....

Would be a problem. 

[chrisccoder]

Well, put me on the side of the disappointed. Today I worked my rear off to make 20000 steps and pull ahead in my challenge and now I'm learning that 1500 steps didn't count because they were on an elliptical and so I had to enter them manually because as we all know, Fitbit sucks at tracking the elliptical. 

[Tinkermel78]

It seems as though there are a lot of people upset that manually logged activities don't contribute to daily and weekly counts. I feel like Fitbit's representative's response was a bit rude just declaring the discussion over. It is obviously very important to some people...so why not make it an option in settings?? Put a toggle in there...we go in and decide. Those of thus who freak out when we forget our fitbit charging and go for a run can arrange our settings to include manually logged steps. Fitbit, from their closing response on discussions, seems to be saying it won't be fair to others. Well...I don't wear my fitbit for anyone else. That is a personal decision. And I should be able to decide if I want to add manual steps to my total. You made us obsessive monsters whose lives aren't worth living unless our steps are counted. Stop taking it so seriously and let us decide whether or not it matters enough to us to have our manual steps contribute to our totals.

[dracupg]

I realise that the suggestion to include manually entered steps in the challenge totals has been done to death and has already been declined, but surely it would be possible for the person starting the challenge to be given the option either to allow manually additions or not?

My friends use bikes, swimming, elliptical trainers, walking, running etc, but as a group, the challenges are currently meaningless to us.

[Rich_Laue]

Remind me not to be in a challenge with guys. Now that I think about it I'll just manually add a 100 mile walk over an hour period. That's 223,500 steps for me. 

[LanuzaFitbit]

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