Smart track does not work properly when biking

[Jan68]

Hello everyone.

Have the last three days experienced an annoying problem on my Surge. I bikes to and from work and lets SmartTrack register the cycling.When I bikes to work in the afternoon the  SmartTrack works just fine. When I bike home at night, then it logs nothing.Have had my Surge a month now and has worked fine until last monday when this started to happen. Anybody have experience with this?

Regards

Jan Ove

[Colinm39]

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@Jan68 wrote:

Hello everyone.

Have the last three days experienced an annoying problem on my Surge. I bikes to and from work and lets SmartTrack register the cycling.When I bikes to work in the afternoon the  SmartTrack works just fine. When I bike home at night, then it logs nothing.Have had my Surge a month now and has worked fine until last monday when this started to happen. Anybody have experience with this?

Regards

Jan Ove

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@Jan68 SmartTrack needs continuous activity. I have set mine to 10 minutes minimum to test and see what eventuates and I'm getting interesting results based on body movement and the the way SmartTrack detects.  See this link for Fitbits FAQ's

But today I had 202 minutes of Very Active Minutes, 151 continuos, which is normally detected but my Charge HR is on low battery (red) at 4 days. I normally charge at midnight because I can always get at least another day and not lose steps. So, maybe there is some cutback of functionality. I will testing that tomorrow.

I wear the Charge HR 24/7, use the tap function and rarely use the timer, and rely on SmartTrack.  This is the first time I have noticed this issue of non detection. So I will do two tests over the next couple of days, the first a full charge, and if there is no results from SmartTrack I will do a Fitbit reset.

[Jan68]

I set mine to 10 min. when i started to use it. Have done a reset to. The rout are the same. Maybe Ishould speed up when biking home to se if tha works 

[Colinm39]

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@Jan68 wrote:

I set mine to 10 min. when i started to use it. Have done a reset to. The rout are the same. Maybe Ishould speed up when biking home to se if tha works 

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@Jan68 I would also create two Activity records in your Activity Log area by using the large stopwatch and input the times for both of your previous rides. Then click on the small stopwatch next to the activity descriptions and examine your one minute calorie graphs.  This is only a copy of your data and you should see some form of continuous calories to highlight Fitbit's calculated effort.

That could throw a light onto it... The example below I received 16 minutes for a walk but in the middle there are 2 minutes at only 1 calorie each which is my BMR so I can't see how the the 16 minutes works out when I have set SmartTrack to 10 minutes.

@AngelaMa Can your throw any light on the definition of "continuous Active minutes" for SmartTrack because the graph below contradicts that..  Many thanks..

[Jan68]

Thank you for taking the time to help. Will look in to. No more time to day 

[Jan68]

After going through my story with Surge use since I got it, I realize that this week is the first where I bicycles along with a workmate after work.

In the manual for the SmartTracker it says "

Whenever you wear your Fitbit Surge and participate in any continuous, high-movement activity"

Since the bike ride home at night is not very "continuous, high-movement activity" I gues that might be the reason why the Smart Tracker don`t recognizes it as a bike ride.

I will keep an eye on it and se if that is the reason.

[Colinm39]

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@Jan68 wrote:

After going through my story with Surge use since I got it, I realize that this week is the first where I bicycles along with a workmate after work.

In the manual for the SmartTracker it says "

Whenever you wear your Fitbit Surge and participate in any continuous, high-movement activity"

Since the bike ride home at night is not very "continuous, high-movement activity" I guess that might be the reason why the Smart Tracker don`t recognizes it as a bike ride.

I will keep an eye on it and se if that is the reason.

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@Jan68 The fully charged Charge HR SmartTrack auto detected the type of activity it missed yesterday. The image below is the Activity record I created using the stopwatch which you should use to see what your stop/start effort calories are like.  Do you see any Active Minutes when you ride.?

The SmartTrack detected Sport.... and my activity was raking, lifting moving etc leaves, weeds and soil.. So the body movement was probably like stop/start field hockey. Ignore the steps because there was a great deal of arm movement, but my HR averaged 114 for the 28 minutes.

A previous auto detection when I was pruning and cutting = Aerobics which would be accurate because Fitbit probably analysed that is what I was doing. Not the first time.

In the example below the HR really upped the calories into the very active category. I need 3+ calories/minute to achieve 1 x Active Minute. The resulting HR graph from SmartTrack is underneath and the HR tracks the calories..

@AngelaMaHave you had a chance to confer with the experts to help us unravel what SmartTrack sees as effort. I'm presume it will still be based on METs and every continuous minute should be 3 x Resting Body Calories as outlined in "What is an Active Minute..

                                      

[Jan68]

This image is my calory burn when biking home last night. (No smart track saving this time either)

This image is from Smart Track log when biking to work yesterday

Dashboard show 18 activ min. when biking home, it also show steps betwen 01:55 and 02:05 when I was actualy sitting on my bike.

So I gues the tempo is to low for Smart Traker to kick in.

[Colinm39]

@Jan68 I would use this calculator which is within 5 calories of my 24 hour BMR and uses the same equations  that Fitbit uses, the Mifflin-StJeor equations.

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator

Divide the answer by 1,440 minutes in the day and then multiply that answer by 3 which gives you the minimum calorie burn for 1 x Active Minute.

Your Active Record obviously gave you active minutes, at least 10 continuous in that sample.

Let's hope we can get some guidelines from Angela - Mod....

Nearly 1am here, off to bed for me...

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@Jan68 wrote:

This image is my calory burn when biking home last night. (No smart track saving this time either)

This image is from Smart Track log when biking to work yesterday

Dashboard show 18 activ min. when biking home, it also show steps betwen 01:55 and 02:05 when I was actualy sitting on my bike.

So I gues the tempo is to low for Smart Traker to kick in.

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[Jan68]

Have a god night in the "down under" country 

[AngelaMa]

Hello @Jan68 and @Colinm39 hope you are having a great day! 🙂 @Colinm39 I will investigate a little further on how SmartTrack detects an effort and will get back to you as soon as I have an answer. @Jan68 If your tracker is not recording the activity when you ride home at night, please contact customer support so they can further assist you. 

Thanks for stopping by, see you around! 🙂 

[Jan68 · Accepted solution]

Hello @AngelaMa and @Colinm39 Last night i was biking alone home after work, and could bike in an pace that was an "continuous, high-movement activity". The Surge did the jobb and Smart Track worked like a sharm. And I am happy again  

So conclusion must be that Smart Tracker don`t work when slow biking whit a workmate

[Colinm39]

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@Jan68 wrote:

Hello @AngelaMa and @Colinm39 Last night i was biking alone home after work, and could bike in an pace that was an "continuous, high-movement activity". The Surge did the jobb and Smart Track worked like a sharm. And I am happy again  

So conclusion must be that Smart Tracker don`t work when slow biking whit a workmate

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@Jan68 Now if we could find a solution to slo-bike and increasing your HR you would solve both problems. In my case at 76 I get any HR calorie burn over 72 bpm..(220-age*50%) and during my sleep cycle I occasionally peak at 73-75 bpm with my average at 54-55 bpm over 9-10 hours  These give me 1 x Active Minute calories. or 3 METs.

So keeping the humour... Us oldies might be able to do that..

The be conscious what your Fat Burn HR bpm are and anything in that area contributes well.

[AngelaMa]

Hello @Colinm39 and @Jan68 I hope you are having a great day!  @Jan68 thanks for sharing that SmartTrack will not be detected if you are slow biking. 🙂 @Colinm39 thanks for your amazing cooperation. It's great to see you around! 

Catch you later! 🙂 

[Colinm39]

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@AngelaFitbit wrote:

Hello @Jan68 and @Colinm39 hope you are having a great day! 🙂 @Colinm39 I will investigate a little further on how SmartTrack detects an effort and will get back to you as soon as I have an answer. @Jan68 If your tracker is not recording the activity when you ride home at night, please contact customer support so they can further assist you. 

Thanks for stopping by, see you around! 🙂 

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@AngelaMa How did you go with finding a definition of "what constitutes SmartTrack effort" ?