Excercise tracking randomly on Sense

[Olek1024]

For the context: I ride my bike daily. Normally, I track my exercising with Strava. Cannot remember why I stopped using FitBit's (Sense 2) built-in excercise but a couple of days ago I decided to give it another try. It is winter now where I live so I wear 3 layers of biking gear for warmth, nothing uncommon.

Summary: I am seeking for an advice on how to achieve consistency when registering bike riding exercises with my Sense 2.

Full story:
So, I started Bike excercise on the watch and made a short ride of 3.5 km. When I finished and was about to finalize the excercise on the watch, I was surpised to see the message saying something along the lines of that entering Settings will terminate the exercise. I declined entering the settings and finished the exercise normally. Well, apparently the exercise was paused as I ended up with 600 m only registered.

I had shortcut set up to Settings on left button Press & Hold. I noticed before that sometimes back of my palm pushes the watch so that the button gets pressed against my wrist. I assumed that this was the case, so I disabled the shortcut. Moreover, I also decided that I will wear the watch on an inside of the wrist where I have a little chance to meddle with the buttons incidentally. This idea came up to my mind when FitBit support suggested that I should wear the watch properly. I looked up for an online watch wearing certification program, failed, and after a brainstorming with my more intelligent self came up with this brilliant idea. Apologies for the sarcasm, just couldn't stand the temptation.

Today I had a 18 km ride with both Sense and Strava tracking on.

Strava reports 18.3 km, FitBit 8.6 km. Map on FitBit exposes rather weird Sense's behaviour.

Did anyone experience anything similar?

What can be done to make Sense's behaviour consistent?

Attaching the real route from Strava and map views from FitBit. 

Strava:

Fitbit:

Thin cyan lines denote actual (approximately) route, added by hand.

A side note: How is it only possible to hit 128 zone minutes on a 57 minutes long ride?

Moderator edit: edited title to clarity.

Author's edit (Dec 27, 2023, 11:25 CET): edited title and post body for clarity (removed device version).

[CrisVillaFitbit]

Hello, @Olek1024 Welcome back to the community.

Thanks for explaining and letting me know about this situation in regards to the exercise app tracking your bike workout using your Sense 2.

After reviewing the system, I was able to confirm there is no Sense 2 linked to your Fitbit account, but a Sense device does appear, can you double check the device you're using is a Sense and not a Sense 2, please?

Also, several factors can affect tracking the distance and other data, you can check this article, the part 'What are some tips to make sure my Fitbit daily activity is accurate', so you can make sure everything is correct with this.

Let me know how it goes after that.

[Olek1024]

Hi @CrisVillaFitbit ,

Thank you for looking into this matter.

Probably, you are right and I own Sense, not Sense 2. It was my pure assumption, I have no idea how to verify the device's version.

Thank you for sharing the link to the article. Below you will find quotes from 'What are some tips...' section along with my comments.

• Make sure that you wear your device correctly, either on top of your wrist or in the clip. If you switch your device to your other wrist, update the Wrist setting in the Fitbit app. For more information, see How do I wear my Fitbit device?

I am wearing the device on my non-dominant wrist, following the recommendation to wear the band loosely enough that it can move back and forth on your wrist, as provided for on https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1988.htm . I also wore it on the top of my wrist before, as recommended. I switched the side of the wrist (top to bottom of the same wrist) to avoid button misclicks. Should I switch back to wearing the device on top of my wrist? I am on the fence as the prior "correct" experience wasn't successful either.

• Confirm that the personal information you entered when you set up your Fitbit account (height, weight, sex, and age) is correct. For more information, see How do I manage my Fitbit profile?

It is.

• On certain devices, you can use the Exercise app to track your workouts and see your real-time heart-rate data. This data can better determine calories burned during exercise, especially for activities like spinning or yoga where your step count might not reflect your intensity level. For more information, see How do I track my workouts with my Fitbit device?

Calories is not my concern at this point.

• For your device to count steps during a walk or run, your arm must swing back and forth as you move. If you need both hands (to push a stroller, for example), or if you hold a dog leash with the same arm that you wear your device on, consider using GPS to better calculate your distance traveled and calories burned. For more information, see How do I use GPS on my Fitbit device?

I am concerned about bike riding exercise only. GPS is turned on.

Please let me know if any further details could be helpful to know or you have any recommendations. I am willing to achieve consistent tracking.

P.S. The screenshot below shows the today's route captured by both Strava and Fitbit. Strava reports 10.48 km 41"33' while FitBit reports 5.36 km 24'30" (no idea why it shows as 5.34 km when synced up to Strava).

[Rich_Laue]

@Olek1024 when it comes to zone minutes, your watch tracks Active Zone Minutes, which explains why you are seeing more Active Zone Minutes than looks pos ible

What are Active Zone Minutes or active minutes on my Fitbit device?

[Olek1024]

@Rich_Laue thank you for looking into this.

re Active Zone minutes to exercise duration ratio (to decouple this topic from the key issue in discussion)

I am note sure I understand the mechanics behind this. I rode for, say, 57 minutes at variable pace. Stopped tracking. Are active zone minutes multiplied by some factor (2.25 as the least) for whatever reason that results in, say, 128 active minutes on the books? What this should tell me? Was I doing extremely well or I just could do better?

My expectation was that my goal would have been maximizing active zone duration. If the exrecise duration is equivalent to the active zones max then the target is clear. If metric can go beyond that perceived max value, then what would be the computable target to hit? I am trying to make sense of this. 

[Rich_Laue]

Is the 128 zone minutes showing on the days chart, or the data for the run? Since AZMs are calculated from how hard your heart is working, you can collect them throughout the day. Maybe this helps

Heart-Rate Zone Active Zone Minutes 

1 minute in the fat burn zone	1 Active Zone Minute
1 minute in the cardio or peak zone	2 Active Zone Minutes*

---

,is this good. Fit means that your are building your heart muscles 

[Olek1024]

@Rich_Laue thank you very much for this insight.

Hi @CrisVillaFitbit ,

Today I weared the watch following the recommendations.

Below you will find the snapshots of today's exercises from both Strava and FitBit.

What else would be helpful to do to ensure accurate tracking?

[Rich_Laue]

Was fitbit using the phones GPS or the GPS on the tracker? 

[Olek1024]

Have no idea frankly. I'd assume, the tracker's one. Cannot see any good reasons for it not to use its own built-in GPS.

The GPS is turned on via Sense's settings. It (Sense) says it is connecting to GPS at the beginning of the exercise, although it doesn't say whether it is its own built-in GPS or the phone's one.

Based on https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1874.htm my Sense uses built-in GPS and is not able to use the paired phone's GPS.

My routes lie under the open skies, no tunnels or skyskrapers around, for that matter. My gear is radiotransparent, I do not have any tattoos, I do not wear any bracelets or rings, have got no any radio-transmitting devices apart of my phone and BT headset. I wear the latter only occasionally. The phone is normally at least 0.5 m away from my wrist when riding. I do not know what else could possibly be at fault apart of the Sense itself, at this point.

I wonder if it is a problem with a particular device. Looks like the issue has never been reported by anyone else, including QA and UAT. I reckon the engineers could tell better. I am willing to give up all my Sense data if it helps.