Does active minutes include first 10 minutes of each eligible session ?

[pécé]

Hi Fitbit,

First, I'm not considering active zone minutes but only active minutes in my question : are first 10 minutes required to trigger active minutes included in the active minutes provided by Web API (and also fairly|very active minutes) ?

I'm stuck with active minutes value, greater than 0 but lower than 10, in some Daily summaries.

Thanks in advance,

[JohnnyRow]

Not speaking to Web API, but in general for users, 'active zone minutes' have no minimum time; i.e. I could stand up and start doing jumping jacks for 5 minutes and get 5 active zone minutes if my heart rate was in fat-burn zone, but get no 'active minutes; if I continue another 5 minutes, I would get 10 active zone minutes and 10 active minutes.

[pécé]

Thank you @JohnnyRow for this answer. This makes sense to consider the first ten minutes in the amount of active minutes. But I'm now wondering how daily summaries may have active minutes under 10 minutes (and more than 0) ?

[JohnnyRow]

---

@pécé wrote:

Thank you @JohnnyRow for this answer. This makes sense to consider the first ten minutes in the amount of active minutes. But I'm now wondering how daily summaries may have active minutes under 10 minutes (and more than 0) ?

---

Agreed. I sometimes get maybe 8 active minutes, which does not with Fitbit's description/definition.  When I do get active minutes for less that 10, I think it has always been close, say 8 or 9.  I have occasionally tried to guess how that happens, but guessing nobody really knows, other than perhaps whoever originally wrote the code for that algorithm.  One thought of mine is maybe I was moving for 10 minutes but for 2 of those minutes was below the threshold.

[Gordon-C]

Hi everyone,

Please check out this article, https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1379.htm, in the section titled "How does my Fitbit device calculate active minutes?".   Active minutes is calculated by either your intensity level (METs) or heart rate.   The activity levels are

• Sedentary: Activities with an MET value of less than 1.5
• Lightly Active: Activities with an MET value of 1.5 – 3.0
• Moderately/Fairly Active: Activities with an MET value of 3.0 – 6.0
• Very Active: Activities with an MET value greater than 6.0

It's possible you could be active for 10 minutes, but the intensity is not high enough to be awarded an active minute;  For example, short pauses during the 10 minute period or exercising on the edge of fairly active & moderately active. 

[pécé]

Thank you Gordon. I understand the classification and the minimum of 10 active minutes to get them taken in account.

What I dont clearly understand is a day with, for example, 6 active minutes (more than 0 but less than 10). Is it an edge case that is out of expected algorithm behavior ?

If we have to be active enough for 10 consecutive minutes to trigger active minutes, I don't expect values below 10 for active minutes. Or ... the intensity level required by the trigger is less than 3.0 MET ? So that not all of 10 minutes triggering calculation are classified either fairly or very active minutes.

[Gordon-C]

In general, the person does need to be active for 10 minutes for active minutes to begin calculating.   With some workouts a person cannot be active non-stop for the entire 10 minutes, such as lifting weights.   Short pauses (1-2 minutes) in the activity will not be added to the user's active minutes count,  And, the user won't be penalized by a few short pauses for active minutes to begin calculating.