About the METS range of activities

[matsusho]

I get the exercise time for each exercise intensity with API.

API used
①activities / minutesSedentary
②activities / minutesLightlyActive
③activities / minutesFairlyActive
④activities / minutesVeryActive

I want to know the range of exercise intensity METS of ①②③④

For example
①activities / minutesSedentary
1METS-3METS
like.

Please let me know if you know!

[JohnFitbit]

Hi @matsusho,

I am unable to provide you with the exact MET values for each activity level, but I can say that our values are very similar to what is shown here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metabolic_equivalent_of_task.

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions!

[matsusho]

Hi @JohnFitbit ,

Thank you for answering
I'll check the site

[rollingaverage]

The linked Wikipedia page doesn’t answer @matsusho ’s question since it’s just a description or definition of what METs are and doesn’t have any references to “very active minutes”, “fairly active minutes”, or “lightly active minutes” as exposed by Fitbit vis the API.

@JohnFitbit your answer is ambiguous: are you “…unable to provide you with the exact MET values for each activity level” because there is no mapping of MET values to activity level, or because Fitbit does not release this information to the public i.e. it is considers proprietary information?

In absence of MET values for activity levels, can you provide values for % max heart rate for each level, at least simply explain what is used to define Fitbit’s activity levels?

Thanks.

[LZeeW]

@rollingaverage   I’m not a developer, just a long time user, and I noticed your post.  Fitbit stopped using that active minute breakdown some time ago.  For devices that award active minutes, they are active minutes or they aren’t.

Why are you interested in this information?  It’s out of date methodology.

[rollingaverage]

@LZeeW thanks for asking! Fitbit still does show active minutes in its Daily Activity Summary (https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/activity/get-daily-activity-summary/), which is accessible without coding through If This Then That aka IFTTT (https://ifttt.com/fitbit/triggers/new-daily-activity-summary). Through IFTTT one can then upload the Fitbit Daily Activity Summary data to Google Sheets, where on can do more with it. Unfortunately Fitbit hasn’t updated their IFTTT service and it doesn’t have an option to get Zone Minutes. I’m trying to avoid going down the route of accessing the Fitbit API through Google Script because I’m out of practice coding and because I’ve had difficulties building scripts in Google that consistently fire on a regular schedule.

[LZeeW]

I suspect that Fitbit stopped updating that IFTTT service when it changed its active minute methodology on devices.  It’s their nature to just move on.

 My background is physiology.  I believe Fitbit used a reference called the Compendium of Physical Activities as it gives MET values.  Unfortunately, their breakdown into “fairly”, etc., is proprietary and they don’t divulge that information.

Good luck in what you are trying to do.

[rollingaverage]

@LZeeWI agree with your suspicions re: the IFTTT service. You are right: it's a tech company, and they just move on. But that being said I am still getting the very active/fairly active/lightly active minutes in a report every day. Who knows how long that will last.

I'm on a 90-day free trial of Premium and I'm looking at the Readiness Score and the suggestions for activity goals and it seems promising. It's similar to an ancient Suunto watch I used that was constantly adapting exercise intensity suggestions to recent performance. I believe that Casio is doing something similar now in their "smart" G-Shock watches. Anyway, we'll see how it goes.

[andyreagan]

@LZeeW fitbit calculates METs from the device itself (since they have HR, accelerometer in real time), the lookup you mention would be useful for survey data.

@rollingaverage why do you want this data in a google sheet? Fitbit does provide it in their API still, it's not broken: https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/activity/get-daily-activity-summary/

[rollingaverage]

@andyreaganthanks for asking! As I said a little earlier in the thread, I'm trying to access the data through a low code/no code route (in this case IFTTT) instead of using the API. That's mostly because I am not a developer and I only code infrequently and it is frequently easier and less time-consuming for me to take a low code/no code approach.

WRT to why I want the data in a google sheet, I inherently dislike and disagree with the "this week = calendar week" frame for data presentation that FitBit defaults to. I don't care what I've done since Monday, I care what I've done (today being a Thursday) since last Friday. While some FitBit reports are in this format of "n days since today", it's uneven. By putting my data in a google sheet I can normalize all the views to the "n days since today" format.

[rollingaverage]

@andyreaganalso, even with the "Get Daily Activity Summary" call in the API, you can't get a summary of Zone Minutes. You'd have to use "Active Zone Minutes (AZM) Time Series" https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/active-zone-minutes-timeseries/.

[andyreagan]

With Get Daily Activity Summary, you do get sedentaryMinutes, lightlyActiveMinutes, fairlyActiveMinutes, etc. Do you mean something else?