The Fitbit Community is a gathering place for real people who wish to exchange ideas, solutions, tips, techniques, and insight about the Fitbit products and services they love. By joining our Community, you agree to uphold these guidelines, so please take a moment to look them over.
By cycling "app" do they mean an additional activity on the Surge itself (via a firmware update) or an entirely new Fitbit app for iPhone and Adroid? Why are the activites being called "apps" in the first place?
I recently upgraded from a Fitbit One to a Charge HR and I am very happy with the heartrate tracking!
I've also been experimenting with the MobileRun (GPS) tracking on my Android phone and it works perfect in combination. Unfortunately the GPS Tracking only supports Walk/Run/Jog activities, and I would love to be able to use this map-based activity tracking for other sports.
Now that heartrate stats are available, what is stopping fitbit from adding other GPS-tracked activity types such as Cycling (or Kayaking,...)? I suspect the heartrate stats + GPS track will be enough to accurately track these type of activities correctly now (counting steps in those activities should be disabled as its not relevant). Even without heartrate monitoring available this functionality would make sense actually...
I love my Fitbit tracker, but having this would boost my satisfaction level even higher!
I've already voted with my wallet in favor of the Surge, and I like it quite a bit, BUT as another avid cyclist (mostly mountain, mostly extended rides over 2 hours, but some road and rail-trail) I'd also like to be able to have a 'cycling' mode on the Surge.
For shorter rides I can see the GPS being useful, but unless the power consumption is brought way down I don't think it'd be useful on my longer rides.
I don't know any details of the GPSr hardware in the Surge but i'm assuming that some different tuning of how frequently to collect and record data would make a difference in power consumption. Also, for "Cycling" mode it is possible that a significantly lower GPS data recording frequency could be used in comparison to either Walking or Running.
On my old Garmin Edge 705 I get the most detailed tracklogs from a 1-second recording interval, but I assume that device has significantly more power budget and potentially more memory for storing tracklog data...maybe. On that device I get between 11 and 12 hours of battery lifetime. In extreme situations I have exhausted the battery (12 hour endurance race, for example). I do *not* expect the Surge to be capable of recording GPS data of that magnitude. I don't think it's necessarily a reasonable expectation for the device. However, I *would* hope the Surge could record data safely for up to 4 hours.
Biking could be worked into the mix by using the Charge HR and Surge's heart rate monitor as a gauge for intensity in conjunction with gps data from a paired smartphone. Basically all of the ingredients are already there with the walk/run/hike tracking features. Just design an algorithm that figures out how many calories are burned for biking using data from the hardware.
A cycling mode for Surge would be great. Initially GPS map, distance and heart rate would do. Calorie count could be added later. But why not base it on the Spinning mode?
New to the Fitbit world and have been researching trackers for a while and finally was able to get a Surge. So far it is great but just like many other members I want a Cycling/mountain bike option.... I'm sure it will be some thing they can add and look forward to being one of the reviewers when it is available. 🙂
The Fact that Cycling has not been intergrated into the surge even in a basic form is really a big mystery? Its all there? GPS and HR !! who cares if the Steps are inclusive of a Cycling workout or not. All cyclists would want is for the GPS to Track distance and speed and Heart rate, Surely this could be acheived?
It just seems that a watch that can do almost all activities such as running, walking, yoga, spinning, weights, and so, could also do cycling. I have a really good Polar that I used for cycling but it has no GPS. It would be great if you could add in support for cycling. It seems like Fitbit will lose quite a bit of business without adding cycling.
The option to GPS track an activity in the app only allows walk run or hike?
Please add other activities where you cover ground, most obviously cycling. That would surely help overcome the Charge HRs weakness at covering non step based activities.
I see a response to a previous suggestion saying there is a Surge app being developed for cycling, hopefully you will add it to the Charge HR too?
For ideas on how to track non step based stuff, buy a Jawbone Up and have a look. I switched to the Charge HR as Jawbone seemed unable to bring out their Up3 and I read great things about the CHR.
Hopefully this can receive some support as cycling is a massively popular activity and really ought to be able to be integrated since many other apps/trackers manage it.
I see this is under consideration for the Surge, but what about the Charge HR?
Seriously FitBit, as others have mentioned in the comments - everything is there! All you need to do is add a feature in your app that matches phone's GPS and timer with device's HR. Bam, you've got some decent data for calories burned and more accurate distance cycled. At the moment I use a patchwork of apps for fitness - MapMyRide for cycling, Fitbit for daily activity, MyFitnessPal for food (because FitBit is still lacking an Australian food database) - but with a little development you could make FitBit a one-stop-shop.
Anyway, point is - DON'T FORGET THE CHARGE HR, some of us prefer the smaller device and it sucks to miss out on features that it *could* have but were arbitrarily left out.
This is a must. Just went out on my bike and was so disapointed. put it in run mode to test gps mode but thats not the answer. I see that you say cant track steps but if you follow hr and speed in mph or kmh using gps. when the altitude goes down and hr goes down you can guess i am resting. May not be 100% accurate but should be reasonable. when altitude goes up hr goes up and speed decreases can predict the extra work load. Potentially predict with acellorometer but i can see how this could be unreliable if person is standing or sitting.
.... what is stopping fitbit from adding other GPS-tracked activity types such as Cycling (or Kayaking,...)? I suspect the heartrate stats + GPS track will be enough to accurately track these type of activities correctly now (counting steps in those activities should be disabled as its not relevant). ...
I agree that activities such as biking could and should be included in mobile run, so long as the distance recorded by the GPS is not added to tracker calculated distance stats. I suspect this is the primary technical hurdle as the way mobile run currently works is that "steps" are derived from the GPS recorded distance (by dividing the distance by your stride length) and those calculated steps are entered as a manual activity which overrides the steps your fitbit recorded during the activity.
Join us on the Community Forums!
Community Guidelines
Learn the Basics
Join the Community!
Not finding your answer on the Community Forums?
Go to the Help Site
Contact Support