Fitbit not tracking all exercises/activities

[Jomagpie]

Hello! Why does my FitBit not track all my exercises? It captures my walking but any of my HIIT/Cardio or Weights work outs are never captured. Should I be setting something up?

Thanks.

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @Jomagpie.

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and sharing your concern about your Fitbit device not tracking all your exercises. I am glad to assist you with that. Most Fitbit devices automatically recognize and record high-movement activities through the SmartTrack feature. To start, your device recognizes activities at least 15 minutes long. For more information, see Which activities does my Fitbit device track automatically?

On certain devices, you can use the Exercise app to start and stop a workout. If possible, please use the Exercise app to track your HIIT/Cardio or Weights workouts. Find more information at Which workouts can I track in the Exercise app on my Fitbit device?

You can also manually log your exercises by following these steps: How do I manually log exercises in the Fitbit app?

If you have any questions, feel free to let me know.

[funwithsharps]

My Fitbit has always auto logged my walks under the exercise section. The past two days it has not done so. They were both over an hour in duration and at a fairly decent intensity level so it wasn’t a case of them not being vigorous enough. In fact, it has still logged much less intense walks as exercise in the past. You can see them as active minutes and see what my heart rate was. I have researched this problem and tried what old posts said to do. No reboots, force quitting the app, logging out of the app/rebooting the phone and logging back in, etc have worked to resolve the problem. I have also tried the trick of changing the walk tracking duration under settings to no avail. This is frustrating because I walk about 2 or more hours a day and now they don’t show up as exercise. It is extremely depressing to put in the effort and not have it count. 

[LiliyaFitbit]

Hi @funwithsharps, it's nice to see you again in our Community Forums. 

Thank you for joining the thread and sharing that your device stopped registering your walks. I appreciate your efforts to resolve the issue and providing the additional details. I totally understand how you are feeling and I am glad to help. SmartTrack recognizes activities based on the continuous movement of your arms. Sometimes, motions such as placing your arms on the bar of a treadmill, or pushing a stroller while you walk, may interrupt SmartTrack. Additionally, stopping in the middle of an exercise may interrupt the activity tracking.

By default, SmartTrack recognizes an exercise that lasts at least 15 minutes. I understand that you've tried already lowering the time auto-exercise recognition setting to 10 minutes as it may help ensure they record properly.

Some customers have a better experience with SmartTrack if they try wearing their device on a different wrist. Because SmartTrack recognizes activities based on the continuous movement of your arms, in some cases, changing the wrist that you wear your device on can improve activity recognition.
Remember that if you change your wrist, you should also change your handedness setting. For more information on how wearing your device affects accuracy, please see the article Does the wrist I wear my device on affect accuracy? 

Let me know how it goes. I'll be around if you have any additional questions.

[funwithsharps]

I was moving continuously for an hour on the same outdoor trail I walk on every day. I did not stop the entire time. I aggressively walk this trail at least 2 hours every day. I was swinging my arms the entire time. My heart rate was in the cardio zone a majority of the time and at the very least, in the fat burning zone. It accurately logged my steps and active minutes for the duration. You can see on my heart rate section that there is a large hump of a duration of continuous higher heart rate. This proves that I didn’t stop or slow down. The accuracy of the steps proves that I was, indeed, swinging my arms. You can see the the extended period of activity lasting an hour under the active minutes as well. 

[LizzyFitbit]

Hi @funwithsharps. I'm glad to see you here again.

Thanks for confirming that your Fitbit is recording your steps and active minutes, as well for not stopping in the middle of your exercise. Just to confirm, are you using another app to track your exercises aside of your Fitbit device? Does this happen just with your walks or also with other exercises? What's the model of your Fitbit device?

In the meantime, I'd recommend to give a try to the following:

1. Turn off SmartTrack for your exercises in the Fitbit app.
2. Reboot your phone one more time
3. Restart your Fitbit device.
4. Turn back on the SmartTrack for your exercises.
5. Test your Fitbit device by going to another walk and syncing your details. Make sure your exercise lasts longer than the time needed to recognize it.

I'll be around, keep me posted.