Switch from Active Minutes to Zone Minutes

[wrmscoach]

The change from displaying ACTIVE minutes to ZONE minutes on the iPhone app without giving us a display option is totally unacceptable! I logged 12,000+ steps today which included 23 floors elevation, 600 cals and 38 zone minutes.......how motivating is that?  Suggest giving us all a display option before some of us end up at some other fit tracking company.

Moderator edit: label

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @wrmscoach.

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and sharing your feedback about switching from Active Minutes to Zone Minutes. With the new update, you can earn Active Zone Minutes and use personalized heart-rate zones when you track activity with your smartwatch. For more information, see What are Active Zone Minutes or active minutes on my Fitbit device? and How do I track my heart rate with my Fitbit device?

I understand how you are feeling and appreciate your feedback and time you took to let us know your frustration since this helps us to keep improving. Please know that your feedback won't go unnoticed. 

To share additional feedback or if you want the features to be improved, feel free to visit our Feature suggestion board. Here our product development teams consult regularly to ensure we're delivering on what our customers need and want. You can read the FAQ to better understand how that board works and do a search first, in case someone else has already suggested your idea, or something similar.

I could see that you got in touch with our Support team about this and that they were able to assist you. Thank you for your time and efforts.

Let me know if you have any questions.

[wrmscoach]

I'm not asking for a new feature, I have a number of courses in exercise physiology and I’ve been coaching swimming for 50+ years - so I  think I get it. My message is STOP taking things away. If you think you have an improvement (zone minutes), make it but support backward compatibility (active minutes).

Yesterday I walked over an hour for 400+ calories and got something like 1 zone minute. Today I biked for about 108 minutes at an average PR of 122 for 873 calories and 210 zone minutes. No zone minutes for yesterday  210 ZM today - your zone minute calculation sucks especially since I can’t make any adjustments to HR within zones.

I have erased zone minutes from my iPhone app - to reduce frustration with your company. Give me (us) back active minute tracking and then leave me (us) alone!

[kmac73]

Same exact complaint...how do I get back to active mins?  Zone mins is a nice idea but give us both.  Just did a fairly grueling 1.5 hour hike up a mountain and got 10 zone mins!  Guess I’m penalized for being in good shape?

[DDonk]

Same issue. Please restore active minutes option.

[tmrail]

I agree completely. I don't do any serious exercise but I try to walk an hour or more every day, much of it on local park trails with steep grades.  I simply don't care about ZONE minutes.  I just want to know how many ACTIVE minutes I log each day and each week.  The idea of ZONE minutes just muddies the waters as far as setting and meeting my personal targets is concerned.

[Sparky17804]

PLEASE give us the option to view Active Minutes again. I am so disappointed & frustrated to the change to Zone Minutes!!

[Sparky17804]

SAME here!

[Walkers2020]

Will there be a change back to active minutes ?  We really should have the option to change it back 

[Mazpowley]

I have a heart problem and on medication so my heart rate stays low, active minutes helped, I hate the zone minutes as I will harfly ever get any!

[MrMarv]

@Mazpowley -

I, as well, will never come close to the Traditional Max HR.

Actually, I have set my Max Heart Rate to 120 (80% of traditional max) because I take Beta Blockers that throttle down my heart rate even during exercise. This was just confirmed with my Cardiologist September 3rd during my semi-annual office visit after I asked him about what I read in the Harvard Medical School Harvard Health Letter from November of last year. My heart rate zones utilizing the Heart Rate Reserve formula and using my redefined Max Heart Rate is represented by the third data line below.

Be advised that if you decide to change your Max HR value, it current cannot be done in the mobile app (at least not in the iOS mobile app). You need to change it in the Settings page in the Web Dashboard, save the change and sync your device. Of about a dozen people that have tried that when I recommended it, only one individual could not get it to take. One person had to log out of the app and back in for it to take.

Also, you need to stay on top of it, as the FitBit servers appear to reset the value back to "Traditional Max HR" on a whim - nearly a dozen times since the beginning of September.

Good luck and welcome to the boards.

[chris2121]

I've just noticed the most perverse thing.  I logged onto the PC dashboard using the PC app not via the browser and it still shows the old zone minutes.  In fact I couldn't see how to change it to AZM.  Presumably an oversight by the fitbit developers but could potentially be useful to some until such time as they realise.  Of course it might be that it's still running an old version but the apps usually just update.

[Rojales67]

Agree we want our active minutes back fitbit  listen to us please!!! It doesn’t look like no one like the zone minutes it does work for us. 

[jayne12321]

I agree with the many threads on this page. Today, for example, I walked for over 2 hours (11km) but only got 25 zone minutes as I am fairly fit so find it hard to be in fat burn. I also do a lot of weight training so I am rarely hitting my zone minutes. Brilliant work Fitbit 😒 not very motivating is it! Exercising during lockdown is hard enough. 

[wrmscoach]

Fitbit didn't care about this issue before Google ate them - so, going forward,  good luck with anything remotely responsive from the "do no evil" people at Google.

[jayne12321]

I know. It’s so disappointing 

[Rojales67]

I too walked today for 1 hour 18 mins 3.62 mile, got 1 zone minutes, walked yesterday for 1 hour 9 minutes got 11 zone minutes, can’t understand it.It’s not giving us motivation at all when we all need it,felt so much better when you saw the minutes of exercise you have done.
Come on fitbit listen to your customers please we want our active minutes back why change something that wasn’t broken.😫

Sent from my iPad

[laurebm]

Same here!! I hate this feature!

What sucks about fitbit the most is that to be listen it’s a question of vote, but they don’t regroup the subject... do if there’s like 100 000 votes on the same subject but on different post it will never count.... 

[mtrigo]

I really want active minutes back, don't care for zone minutes. At least give us the option to select active minutes instead of zone minutes please.

[CindyMFitbit]

Hi everyone. Welcome to the Community Forums @mtrigo.

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and sharing your feedback about the active zone minutes.

Please note that with the new updates on the Fitbit devices, the active zone minutes were implemented to share detailed information about your exercise activities as you can see on this article.

I understand how you are feeling about this situation. Our team is always working on improving our devices and user experiences, and your comments are always welcome. Please note that the status will change depending on Fitbit plans. You can see this post to see how the ideas are released. 

See you around.