ONE WAY SYNCING ONLY - WHY?

[SunsetRunner]

For a long time I have been reading lots of forum posts about why peoples fitbits and Myfitnesspal aren't syncing and all the advice to disconnect / reconnect etc - I had the same problem, or so I thought.

Finally I found a post which explained that although calories eaten come across from Myfitnesspal to Fitbit, activities tracked on Fitbit do not cross to Myfitnesspal.

This is really annoying. This means that if Fitbit tracks an activity for me, I then have to manually enter it into Myfitnesspal - which then immediately syncs with my Fitbit, so the activity appears twice on my Fitbit dashboard and I have to manually delete the duplicate.

Many people use Myfitnesspal because of it's great support community - not just to count calories. However, our calorie tracking on Myfitnesspal only works if we see calories out as well as in. As Fitbit is predominantly an activity tracker surely it should 'share' activity with third party apps like Myfitnesspal - not just steps ( which mine has never synced to MFP anyway!)

I cannot wear MFP on my wrist to exercise so exercise always has to be entered manually or via a third party app - but it's a faff to have to wear a HRM and carry your phone / using runtastic etc which then syncs everything to MFP when it should be simple.

Simple would be - going for a run wearing Fitbit, coming home and seeing this workout tracked in Fitbit and automatically synced to MFP.

I just don't understand why only MFP syncs activity to Fitbit when Fitbit is the exercise tracker? Can anybody help or are there any plans to change this (looks pleadingly at moderator)?

[MakMak]

Hi, @SunsetRunner! I completely agree with you, it's beyond annoying that the syncing between the two is still set up the way it is. I'm assuming that the connectivity is controlled on the mfp side. The only (sort of) answer I have for you on activity is that is has been set up that way since before Fitbit had HR trackers, so it made sense to track your activity in mfp. It was never changed to reflect the new and improved tracking from Fitbit. Maybe this is a question for the mfp forums? I'm assuming the controls would be on that side.

[Rich_Laue]

while your individual actvities do not sync your daily activity, in the form of steps, do, this is documented by @AndrewFitbit here. So MFP does get your days activity in the form of steps.

OK, this is fine for walking or running, but it won't help a swim or a bike ride, so we are now back to square one.

We can also see in the Thirdparty FAQ  that they are in control of what syncs between the two accounts. This actually makes sense, while fitbit could send the events to MFP, could they tell or insist on MFP to use this data if they dont want to? It is easier for fitbit to provide the tools and let third parties like MFP to do their own thing with your data.

[SunsetRunner]

Thanks for your reply - but I still find it very limiting. I do lots of activities which are not step based (skiing, sailing, HIIT, Aerobics etc) and fitbit tracks them via calories burned etc which is fine. But to then have to manually enter them into other 3rd party apps is just a pain.Worse still when the app then syncs with Fitbit and sends the activity back again so it is recorded on Fitbit twice. I have cheap apps like runtastic which are more flexible and allow me to share the information I want to share ( not what they decide!)

I bought a Fitbit because I thought it would be more convenient to wear for the multisports I do than constantly having to wear an HRM and track on my phone. But now find that although Fitbit say 'it's good to use other apps' they  are not really set up for it. I hope they sort this soon.

[RobertoME]

Hi there @SunsetRunner, thank you for your comments and for your feedback about the integration of MFP and Fitbit. Despite this is a supported integration we do not control the data it is shared across your accounts as @Rich_Laue mentioned earlier.

However I was reading your previous post and it seems you do a lot of exercise that are not necessarily steps based as a regular walk. But if you logged this information as custom or manual activities in your Fitbit Dashboard it will contribute to your calories burned overall and this calories are shared with MFP. Not in the way of activity but as calories:

What syncs?
Fitbit > Steps > MFP
Fitbit > Calories > MFP
Fitbit > Aria measurements > MFP
MFP > Logged food > Fitbit
MFP > Activities > Fitbit

Remember to connect your tracker to your MFP account for this can pick your steps from your tracker for more accurate data.

Hope this provide you more help. Catch ya later!