Strava, Kickr Bike, Concept 2 Rower

[droogles]

I want my Fitbit charge 5 to accurately track what I'm doing during the day so I can see how activities affect health trends.

With this being said, I log activities on my Kickr Bike and my Concept 2 rower through RGT for the bike and EXR for the rower. Both RGT and EXR accurately log calorie burn and HR through watts per kilogram and my dedicated HR monitor. 

How do I import these activities into the Fitbit application so that it know I was working out rather than having a heart arrhythmia? 

[droogles]

Ideally syncing FROM Strava TO Fitbit app.

[droogles]

So I just did a workout on my Kickr Bike and synced to Strava to see what would happen. I have Strava connected to Fitbit. Fitbit has not awareness of the workout that was synced to Stava. The end reslt is Fitbit thinking i have abnormally high HR.

[t.parker]

@droogles I am unable to sync Strava workouts back to Fitbit. I believe you may need to track using Strava app but once I did it, no results either. I can sync Fitbit to Strava, that works but the other way around nope. On the Strava website it says:

What it will do

When you connect Fitbit and Strava, your Fitbit activities will automatically show up on Strava for all your friends to see

Additionally, runs and rides tracked via Strava will automatically contribute to your Fitbit all day stats like calories and active minutes

---

This clearly suggests that runs and rides will be transferred to the Fitbit account but that doesn't happen. I'm not sure whether activities that come from other sources into Strava would get transferred into Fitbit. From posts here, I know that it might have worked for some people but the HR is never transferred so for what you want there is no solution. Even if Strava pushes activities back to Fitbit you won't get HR (importing HR isn't supported by Fitbit).

[droogles]

Right. Which essentially means that Fitbit is broken.

It’s broken because:

1) When I use my rower or indoor bike, it’s not possible to let Fitbit know that the extremely high heart rate, up the Alpe Du Zwift, etc, wasn’t a racing heart.

2) There’s no way to natively record rowing or indoor cycling in Fitbit. Even if there were, a calorie estimation is inferior to the watts per kilo way of doing it.

3) It’s not possible to export directly from RGT, EXR to Fitbit.

4) it’s not possible to import a .fit file into Fitbit.

We need to be able to sync FROM Strava TO Fitbit.

The only option I see is to manually add the workouts into Fitbit like 2012. I think that’s when my ex wife started using Fitbit, so basically zero app development progress since then. Still not dark mode either.

So I’m paying premium for broken and cobbled together?

Sent from my iPhone

[droogles]

Omg this Charge 5 is junk. I’m cycling right now and my HR, per my Apple Watch 6 and Wahoo TICKR SHOW 161 bpm, however, the Charge 5 90 bpm. 

Forget not syncing FROM Strava. Sending this back and will just upgrade to the Apple Watch 7.

Fitbit, DO BETTER.

[t.parker]

@droogles you just picked the wrong tool for the job. Fitbit is very basic when it comes to sports tracking. You need proper sports to watch that can connect directly to Tickr or Concept2 (if it's a PM5 watch can detect it as a power meter).

[droogles]

IDK, it's a "fitness tracker". 

I'm looking for something that can track sleep, stress and do basic HR tracking. I certainly have chosen the wrong tool. The Apple Watch 6 at least did a decent job of those things and would sync well with all of my apps. Made a huge mistake on this one.

[t.parker]

@droogles if you go with Apple you may see whether there is a dedicated app for C2 PM5 so the watch will connect directly to the rower. This is what I do on my watch. Simply I cloned generic Indoor Rower activity, renamed it to Concept2 and added the dedicated data field on additional screen:

This shows and records everything (power, speed, cadence etc.). Then my watch send it to Strava (not the other way around). I do something similar with my bike smart trainer (I use Tacx but they all are compatible when it comes to sensors). My watch just connects directly, reads power and can use ERG to change resistance (for example, if I use GPS map it will use it to set resistance according to elevation). There are already watches that can do what you need so next time pick wisely 😁

[droogles]

That's similar to what I do now. I have a Kickr bike and the Concept 2 PM5 rower. I use RGT (like Zwift, for the Kickr bike) and EXR (for the rower) which exports my workouts (cadence, power, speed, etc) to Strava. Strava then connects  and sends to Apple Health which syncs to my other apps like Carb Manager, Runkeeper, Welltory, etc. 

[droogles]

This Fitbit is like going back to the Stone Age. WAY behind.

[droogles]

I've thought about buying that Watch BTW. I just wish it would do a bit more. If they would put other recovery and stress measuring type technology into it, I would pull the trigger. I've already well into the Wahoo culture.

[droogles]

This one looks great: tactix® 7 – Standard Edition