incomplete data collection by the Surge

[berniemc]

Have a new Surge; it doesn't record a lot of my movements.

Issue 1.  it doesn't record my movements very well; two examples (but could cite several more)

- did 36 floors on a stair-master in 10-11 min.; it recorded 6.

- at the gym, did 20 min. stationary bike, + 20 min. treadmill (3.7mph),+15 min rowing, + 15 min. basketball, and kept heartbeat 90-105 during the exercises (resting is 52 bpm).  For the Entire Day, it said I was "active" for 26 minutes.

Question:  how does the Surge measure "activity" ?

Issue 2.  the battery only lasts for 48 hrs +/-

- ads say it should last up to 7 days, I was hoping for 5 (must be "best known case" scenarios)

- can get 72+ hours if I shut it down at night (so much for sleep monitoring)

Got it for the gps tracking, heartbeat monitoring, and to use the activity monitoring to help me set and achieve some rehab goals (after a full knee replacement).

Considering returning it.

[GaryTX]

As far as the Stairmaster goes, the Surge shouldn't be recording any floors. It uses a barometric altimeter to record floors climbed, using the elevation gain of 10 feet (~3 meters) to record climbing one floor. Since you don't change elevation at all on a Stairmaster, no floors should be recorded.

[berniemc]

Makes sense. Thanks !!!

[bbarrera]

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@berniemc wrote:

Question:  how does the Surge measure "activity" ?

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Read this:

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/What-are-very-active-minutes

The help article states:

"Trackers with heart-rate sensing do a better job of recognizing active minutes for non-step-based activities, such as weight lifting, strenuous yoga, and rowing. If your tracker doesn't have heart-rate sensing, your active minutes will be lower for non-step based activities."

In my experience the Surge measures my HR at 50-80bpm while weight lifting and rowing, in reality my HR is 130-160bpm. Therefore I don't get many active minutes (if at all) during those exercises. I get more active minutes for cycling and spinning, but not full credit as the Surge HR struggles to accurately measure my HR during biking/spinning. 

On the other hand, if Surge is accurately tracking your HR during those exercises, then you aren't exercising at or above 3 METs and need to increase intensity to earn active minutes.