Activity daily summary - activity distance included in summary distance?

[IanHayes]

If a daily activity summary includes a 'bike' activity with a distance of 5km, is that value included in the summary distance value?

Or is the summary value a translation of the total steps excluding the activities?

[Gordon-C]

Hi @IanHayes 

Yes, the distance for the bike activity is included in the summary values.   See https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/activity/get-daily-activity-summary/#Response

[IanHayes]

Is that right?

I've attached the json output from an example 'daily activity summary' call,  Under the 'summary' section there is an array of distance entries, where the 'total' number does not include the distance value associated with a 'Bike' activity

{
  activities: [
    {
      activityId: 55001,
      activityParentId: 55001,
      activityParentName: Spinning,
      calories: 499,
      description:,
      duration: 3209000,
      hasActiveZoneMinutes: true,
      hasStartTime: true,
      isFavorite: false,
      lastModified: 2022-08-09T09
      :
      13: 49.000Z,
      logId: 49990751497,
      name: Spinning,
      startDate: 2022-08-09,
      startTime: 08
      :
      57,
      steps: 1087
    },
    {
      activityId: 90001,
      activityParentId: 90001,
      activityParentName: Bike,
      calories: 936,
      description: Very
      Leisurely
      -
      Less
      than
      10
      mph,
      distance: 29.80306,
      duration: 5233000,
      hasActiveZoneMinutes: true,
      hasStartTime: true,
      isFavorite: false,
      lastModified: 2022-08-09T14
      :
      26: 07.000Z,
      logId: 49983340807,
      name: Bike,
      startDate: 2022-08-09,
      startTime: 12
      :
      16,
      steps: 0
    }
  ],
  goals: {
    activeMinutes: 30,
    caloriesOut: 4640,
    distance: 8.05,
    floors: 10,
    steps: 8000
  },
  summary: {
    activeScore: -1,
    activityCalories: 2351,
    caloriesBMR: 1821,
    caloriesOut: 3864,
    distances: [
      {
        activity: Bike,
        distance: 29.80306
      },
      {
        activity: total,
        distance: 4.58
      },
      {
        activity: tracker,
        distance: 4.58
      }

Also if I call the 'activity time series' API for 'distance' it is only returning the value 'tracked' distance value,  and not including the 'Bike' distance.

[Gordon-C]

When you say "is that value included in the summary distance value?", you actually mean is the value includes within the activity summary distance "total" value.   As you see in your output, the bike distance is included in the summary of distance values.  According to this help article, https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1141.htm, distance is calculated as

Steps x Stride Length = Distance Traveled

Since a bike activity doesn't contain steps, it would not be included as part of the "total" value.   We do include the bike distance as part of the distance summary response to inform you that additional distance was travel through a non-walking activity.

[Gordon-C]

When you say "is that value included in the summary distance value?", you actually mean is the value includes within the activity summary distance "total" value.   As you see in your output, the bike distance is included in the summary of distance values.  According to this help article, https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1141.htm, distance is calculated as

Steps x Stride Length = Distance Traveled

Since a bike activity doesn't contain steps, it would not be included as part of the "total" value.   We do include the bike distance as part of the distance summary response to inform you that additional distance was travel through a non-walking activity.

[IanHayes]

There appears to be an inconsistency from your response.   In the daily summary entry shown below there are two activities for 'Walk' and 'Spinning' , both of which have a step count but neither of which get a distance value in the summary/distance array

In this case, are activities that have a step count already counted in the overall day summary distance?

{
  activities: [
    {
      activityId: 90013,
      activityParentId: 90013,
      activityParentName: Walk,
      calories: 733,
      description: Walking
      less
      than
      2
      mph,
      strolling
      very
      slowly,
      duration: 5892000,
      hasActiveZoneMinutes: true,
      hasStartTime: true,
      isFavorite: false,
      lastModified: 2022-08-10T12
      :
      26: 48.000Z,
      logId: 50046575880,
      name: Walk,
      startDate: 2022-08-10,
      startTime: 11
      :
      37,
      steps: 8044
    },
    {
      activityId: 55001,
      activityParentId: 55001,
      activityParentName: Spinning,
      calories: 629,
      description:,
      duration: 3386000,
      hasActiveZoneMinutes: true,
      hasStartTime: true,
      isFavorite: false,
      lastModified: 2022-08-10T18
      :
      08: 54.000Z,
      logId: 50057363442,
      name: Spinning,
      startDate: 2022-08-10,
      startTime: 17
      :
      53,
      steps: 590
    }
  ],
  goals: {
    activeMinutes: 30,
    caloriesOut: 4640,
    distance: 8.05,
    floors: 10,
    steps: 8000
  },
  summary: {
    activeScore: -1,
    activityCalories: 2101,
    caloriesBMR: 1821,
    caloriesOut: 3582,
    distances: [
      {
        activity: total,
        distance: 10.56
      },
      {
        activity: tracker,
        distance: 10.56
      },
      {
        activity: loggedActivities,
        distance: 0
      },

[IanHayes]

Hello? 

Can somebody from Fitbit please respond to my question

[Gordon-C]

Hi @IanHayes 

Would you please let me know how the walk and spinning exercises were recorded?   Are these manually entered exercises, entered through the Web API, or recorded via the tracker?

Gordon

[IanHayes]

Both activities were captured by the FitBit watch from the 'Activities'  icon selection

[Hanna25]

---

@IanHayes 9WSYR News wrote:

If a daily activity summary includes a 'bike' activity with a distance of 5km, is that value included in the summary distance value?

Or is the summary value a translation of the total steps excluding the activities?

---

This is my first time on the site - really happy to find this support group. I have personally struggled with internet addiction issues and look forward to exploring the resources here.

[Gordon-C]

Hi @IanHayes 

I'm going to send you a private message through here to ask for some additional information.

Gordon