Manually Logged Activities Should Convert to Steps

[Lomond27]

For a variety of reasons...this would be an excellent enhancement. I have been doing some intense workouts that require a lot of resistance training but because I'm not swinging my arm I'm only registering 200 steps in 30 intense minutes. This is also the case when I am doing a lower body or ab workout, these are intense and burn lots of calories but don't register as steps. Therefore I have been declining challenges from my friends because they go walking and get lots of steps but because of my choice of workouts I don't. Not much fun!

Moderator edit: Labels 

[SilviaFitbit]

Thanks for your idea. When using trackers that have heart rate the calories burned will be calculated based in that so you can get accurate information. 

Here's this idea about calorie challenge in case you care more about calorie information than step data. 

[Mitch2Scamp]

Please add the functionality of converting cycling to equivalent steps. Please. Please. As others have stated, it's not fair that we are having "step wars" with friends and that our other activities basically do not count.

I read a comment on another brand of fitness tracker's forum that someone had put the tracker on her ankle and logged her steps that way when cycling. I am curious if anyone has tried this with a FitBit and if so, how it went...?

I just got the Blaze. I am having fun with it. 

This added feature would make it really really awesome for me. I am disappointed that it doesn't have it.

[Heskie]

This is another vote for being able to convert other activities to steps.  I swim with a Masters squad three to four times a week, covering about 3km a day.  Adding this manually to my dashboard captures calories and active minutes appropriately, but has no impact on my steps target for the day.

For my own purposes this works pretty well as I primarily want to measure calories out.

BUT, when I am comparing my activity with my friends they constantly beat me as the only way of competing with them on the mobile app, which we use most, is via steps.  So my swimming is ignored in this "score". 

Looking at my data on Fitbit for walking for 30 minutes I record 10 cals/min at about 97 steps per minute.  Manually entering swimming into the FitBit app for 75 minutes gives 15 cals/min which could be converted to steps as 10,912 [ 97 {steps per minute when walking} * (15/10) {calories per minutes for swimming divided by walking} * 75 {number of minutes of exercise} ] using a "caloric equivalent factor" or some such name.  Using this value, on top on my normal daily activity, suddenly I am literally miles ahead of my friends.  

I could fake this by entering my swimming as steps based on this, but that kind of misses the point for me in wanting to record my exercise relatively accurately.

I am sure, given the data you must have available, that you would be able to get a much more accurate conversion factor, even to the extent of being able to tailor it to an individual based on their historical exercise patterns.

So please - help me "beat" my friends by taking into account all my exercise!

And, BTW, please come up with a wrist wearable that is compatible with the FitBit site and works in monitoring swimming via heart rate.  I know my heart rate is well above fat burning but this is not captured in the manually entered data.

[KamiG]

Wed 22:52

Could ya'll introduce a way to log whatever amount of time doing another exercise into the fitbit logand have it automatically calculate it into its equivilant to number of steps?For example, last night, I swam in a lake for 75 minutes. Accourding to A&M's walk across texas calculator, that is equivilant to 7.25 miles. According to Google, that is equivilant to 15000 steps(assuming that the average person's steps per mile is a little over 2000, I inputted 2100).I used approximations because not everyone's steps are different. But it is disheartening to find a way to exercise even in the Texas heat and I can't log my exercise.

[alicatw]

I couldn't agree more with this thread.  Not converting my exercise into steps is killing me.  I love that I can log activities, but it drives me crazy that when I do an intense 30-50 minute MMA cardio session that I only get 1,200 steps.  It's not my fault that my hands are up in guard covering my face when kickboxing and blocking punches.  In these challenges I lose every time because I don't get my steps in.  No offense, bu 30-50 minutes of what I do is way more intense then walking.  If we could add this feature I guarantee you I could increase my daily step goal and actually win some challenges.  You can track minutes, heart rate, and exercise, so there must be someway to convert this data.  Make this happen please!

[Sonshine10]

So disappointed that my swimming cannot be converted to steps to compete with my friends and work challenge.  

[Fredt0]

Fitbit (Alta HR) does not recognize when you exercise stairclimber. You can add calories in the manual log but not the steps count. Suggestion is to allow the manual log of steps count (as well as distance if cannot be deduced from the steps count).

[SantiR]

Hi everyone, thanks for sharing this suggestion. We're always striving to enhance Fitbit products and services, and we appreciate all of the input we receive from our customers. We do not currently have plans to release this feature. You can learn more about how Fitbit decides what suggestions get released in our FAQs located at the top right box of the Feature Suggestions Board screen. For now, we will leave this suggestion open for votes (and closed to comments) so that we can continue to track community demand over time. Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us and we will let you know if anything changes.

[quebecst2]

I observe that some of my activities are not recorded as such. If/when I manually log this activity, Fitbit accurately presents my heart rate data, but does not present steps and calories data associated with the activity/time period. Clearly, Fitbit can pull data (heart rate) based upon activity criteria, how can we get Fitbit to pull other (calorie & step) data?

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @quebecst2, thanks for taking the time to share why you would like to see this option on your Fitbit app. This feature suggestion already exists, so I’ve moved your post here. While we don’t currently have plans to release this feature, we always appreciate the passion and creativity that comes out of this Community. Since we know this idea is important to many of you, we have left voting open to continue tracking interest and will post another update if anything changes. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs.

I hope to see you around.