speed and pace unit of activity retrieved in the Get Activity Log List API endpoint

[NiklasOdegaar]

Hello,

In the "Get Activity Log List" API endpoint, we get list of activities with attribute details. 

Does anyone know in which unit (e.g. MPH) we get speed and pace?

We tried to check API documentation but there is no information available regarding UNIT of speed and pace.

Thanks,

Niklas

[GordonFitbit]

Hi @NiklasOdegaar 

The default unit system is metric unless otherwise specified.   See https://dev.fitbit.com/build/reference/web-api/developer-guide/application-design/#Unit-Systems.  The value of the Accept-Language header is case sensitive.

Gordon

[NiklasOdegaar]

Thanks for your reply. 

We don't pass any specific value in the Accept-Language header so in our case it's default unit system metric but the documentation doesn't say anything about unit of speed and pace.

Can you help us to find out what will be unit of pace and speed values, we get in the response of "Get Activity Log List" API endpoint?

[GordonFitbit]

We use the standard algorithms for speed and pace.  

Speed = distance / time(hour)

Pace = time(sec) / distance

Distance unit will be specific to the accept-language header being used.  Since you're not passing it, the default is being used.

[NiklasOdegaar]

Here is the activity response we received for one of the fitbit activity.

As per the documentation, we always get duration in the milliseconds so if convert duration of above activity to hour and sec then it will be 1.53138889 hour and 5513 seconds.

Now if we apply the standard algorithm, then it should give us following values in the Speed and Pace.

Speed = distance/time(hour) = 1.95139/1.53138889 = 1.27426156

Pace = time(sec)/distance = 5513/1.95139 = 2825.16565

But this is different then what we actually get in the Activity response (Speed - 1.884549839228296, Pace - 1910.2705192844162).

Can you please clarify our doubt?

[NiklasOdegaar]

Can you please help us to understand different values for Speed and Pace in our case?

[GordonFitbit]

Speed and pace are calculated using the GPS data.  The total distance seen on an exercise is a rough approximation sent by the tracker (unrelated to the GPS data).  To keep the mobile application consistent with the tracker, we are displaying the same data.   If the device doesn't support GPS, then we use the distance sent by the tracker to calculate speed and pace.