Treadmill activity uploaded with wrong time stamp and not included in daily totals

[SherryBenMom]

I have a new SOLE treadmill that records data in an app on my iPad.   When sent to my Fitbit app, the activity is logged in my detailed activity list but has the wrong time stamp and the activity is not included in my daily totals.

I am running the latest version of iOS, both apps and my versa 2 watch.

At the end of the workout, I select the workout in my treadmill app and « send » it to my Fitbit app that is also on my iPad.

The interface from the 3rd party app worked because I can see the activities were added to my Fitbit detailed activity log.  

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @SherryBenMom.

I appreciate your participation in the Forums and sharing that your treadmill activity is uploaded with wrong time stamp and not included in daily totals.

Thanks for trying to resolve this, I appreciate the additional details and I am here to help. Upon checking with our Support team, I was told that you have already contacted them. I know they will be glad to help you out and provide a solution. I recommend to continue working with them since they have already all the details and special tools to continue assisting you. 

Let me know if you have any questions.

[SherryBenMom]

Hi Liliya, thank you for reaching out to me.  Actually, the customer support person I spoke with was extremely unhelpful.  She told me to contact the treadmill vendor because it's probably their fault.  As an IT professional, I have to say that response makes no sense because:

1 - I see that in February, others reported similar problems with manually entered activity that ended up with the wrong timestamp and didn't update the totals.  

2 - The 3rd party's responsibility is to feed the detailed information, which it did, because I see the activity in my detailed Fitbit activity report. The Fitbit app would take the detailed information received and update the totals. 

So far, I have not received any follow-up or sign of life from customer support so I would appreciate your continued help in this matter.  SOLE is a major manufacturer of exercise equipment so I think it's important for Fitbit to help work out any problems with the interfaces.  

[MrMarv]

@SherryBenMom  -

As an IT Professional, you should also know that "has the wrong time stamp" isn't quite enough information for proper troubleshooting.

What was the actual exercise time and what was the imported exercise time as shown in the FitBit app?

Does the SOLE treadmill have an internal clock that has an incorrect time and needs to be set? If so, it is not FitBit's fault or the interface apps issue either.

Does the interface app have a timezone setting that may me off? Though one would think it would use the phone's time settings, that is not cast in stone.

It seems that not having the daily totals updated by an interface app is not unusual, though I cannot speak from experiences as I utilize my device's treadmill app. I question that it is FitBit's responsibility to update the totals. FitBit would have to code for every interface on the market. A better solution would be to have FitBit provide a common routine to be called by the interface, similar to what is probably being used to update the exercise records in the app. I wonder if it exists and is just not being called properly by the SOLE interface. 

Another solution would be for the FitBit interface update the totals when accepting the exercise record, which appears to be what you expect. An understandable assumption, if assumptions can be classified as understandable ;-).

Good luck.

[SherryBenMom]

Hi MrMarv,

The detailed activity was uploaded correctly except for the timestamp.  The duration, distance and date are all correct.  The data in the SOLE treadmill and the treadmill app have the correct timestamp and correct time zone.  My phone, fitbit and fitbit app also have the correct timezone settings which are the same as the treadmill.

I would agree that the treadmill app probably uses a standard interface to send the detailed transaction data.  The Fitbit received and processed the activity data because I see the activities in my fitbit activity list.  As you would know as an IT guy, the process that receives the transactional data on the Fitbit side is responsible for taking the data received and updating everywhere in the Fitbit system that needs to be updated... including totals, dashboards etc.  As you said - "update the totals when accepting the exercise record".  

If the SOLE interface is sending data that fitbit is unable to process correctly, I would expect to receive some kind of error message from the fitbit app giving me some indication of what the problem is.  I could then take that information and correct my settings, or contact SOLE or whatever is necessary.  Unfortunately, I didn't get an error.  The fitbit app accepted the transactions and only partially processed them.

Fitbit totals <> sum of detailsTreadmill App

I did finally get an email from the customer support team saying that they are investigating the problem so I'll wait to see what they come up with.  In the meantime, I'm not using the treadmill interface which is a shame.  I'm using the treadmill exercise setting on my fitbit but that doesn't yield accurate results for the distance covered. 

[MrMarv]

@SherryBenMom -

First, if by "doesn't yield accurate results for the distance covered" you mean your device's treadmill exercise app consistently reports a higher mileage, I have found when on the treadmill I take just a little shorter steps than when walking down the sidewalk, which inflates the reported mileage from my Versa 2 about five percent. Even my wife has noticed the shorter steps at just a glance. And it doesn't take much - five percent of my 33 inch stride length is 1.65 inches. 6,221 steps in an hour treadmill session over reports by approximately  .14 miles. So my 2.75 miles reported by my treadmill was 2.89 miles in "FitBit land".

Interesting that it appears from the four entries that match that the time is off by exactly one hour for three of the exercises and one of the entries is off by 13 hours. That is the type of information that tech support should be aware of if they are not already. 

So off by one hour and not respecting am/pm - another reason that interfaces reporting times should use a 24-hour clock, though that doesn't always guarantee success. Bugs are bugs.

The 'ol one app confused about or not respecting the others timezone or one app is confused about daylight savings or one app or the other or both just "messed up".

Definitely irritating.

In 40 years, I've seen all three and probably a few more if I thought long and hard about it.

Good luck.

[MrMarv]

@SherryBenMom -

Regarding my statement about a short stride length when on the treadmill...

I just got off the treadmill and while at 3 mph I counted the number of step in one minute - twice. Both times were 108 steps per minute. That calculates out to be 29.33 inch stride length.

My last GPS assisted walk that was a pretty straight-lined walk immediately out of my neighborhood, down to the next major city street and back, was 1.37 miles and 2,876 steps - a 30.1 inch stride length, a stride length that I have actually measured myself numerous times over the past three-plus years. And a stride length that was literally "drilled" into me during Recruit Training as a U.S. Marine 50 years ago.

The above supports a three percent "error" when using the treadmill app on your device. Not quite the five percent I stated earlier but I also didn't mention the overstatement of my stride length in the app. I have since corrected it to read 30 inches.

BTW, the stride length difference is even greater for me at lower treadmill speeds, though I pretty much keep it between 2.5 and 3.0 mph.

Good luck getting the time issues dealt with. While I wouldn't count it as a deal breaker, it sure would irritate the heck out of me.