Syncing non-Fitbit activities

[Damatu75]

OK, let's try this here - I posted this query in the Dashboard forum a couple of hours ago, and it's vanished (if a mod deleted it for being in the wrong place, a heads-up would have been nice so I wouldn't have spent 15 minutes searching for it, and moving it would have been even nicer :-P).

Some background: I've been using a Fitbit of one type or another for the past few years, mostly the Flex, but generally only for activity tracking outside of my runs. (Nothing against the Fitbit trackers that include GPS functionality, but I'm serious enough about my running that I prefer a specialized running watch for that activity. 🙂 ) Recently, though, I've started wearing my newer trackers (Flex 2 and Charge 2) alongside my Ambit 3 while running. I've got Fitbit connected to Strava, which is the app I use for keeping track of my running.

My first question: I started wearing the Flex 2 during runs so that the steps would count toward my leaderboard, but left the connection between Strava and Fitbit intact. Based on my observation, it seems that when the two apps sync, the data corresponding to the time of my run in Fitbit get adjusted based on the Strava info, but the steps (corrected) still stay on my leaderboard. Is this actually happening? 

My second question: The first few runs I did with my Charge 2 seemed to behave the same way in the Fitbit application as the Flex 2 runs mentioned above. However, I just found the exercise modes in the Charge 2, and I did today's run with the Charge 2 in run mode. Both the Charge 2 and the Ambit synced with my phone, Strava pinged Fitbit and...I now have two runs in my activities list for the same time! I can see that the steps aren't being double-counted, and neither are the calories burned. My question is: How does the Fitbit "backend" deal with having two sets of data for the same time period, as in this case? Does the data from the non-Fitbit device get ignored, or perhaps does the data ported in from Strava adjust the Fitbit data for that time period? (I had the Charge 2 recording in run mode for part of my warm-up and cool-down as well as the run, while the Ambit was only used during the run itself.)

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject For Clarity.

[RobertoME]

Hello @Damatu75, thank you for bring this interesting question to my attention. When we talk about third party integrations, is important to keep in mind the information it syncs depends entirely from the third party service. Based on this its how Fitbit will behave about non-Fitbit activities.

In the case of Strava as you know exercises with GPS data recorded with Fitbit will be sent to Strava. Also heart rate data will be included when it's available. However exercises recorded with Fitbit's app or devices that do not include GPS data are not currently sent to Strava.

Now Strava will sync activities to Fitbit as manually logged activities, but will not include GPS or heart rate data from Strava. When you have a manual activity on your logs, all steps, calories, and active minutes recorded by your tracker are overridden for the duration of a manually logged activity by the activity's entered values. This ensures that your steps are not counted twice as long as the manually logged activity has the correct start time and duration. It might seem is ignored, however is only adjusted to avoid any duplicate numbers.

Hope this information helps. Let me know if you still have more questions.