Difficulty Recording Exercise

tickfawfolk

I have not had my Charge for very long and it is my first activity tracker of any kind so I am pretty new. Although, I have been using it quite a bit since first putting it on about a week ago. I prefer to record all of my exercise activities using the Charge and just use MFP for food tracking. I feel, and I may be wrong, that the calories information would be more accurate from the Fitbit since there is an actual device attached to my wrist taking measurements and calculations ... as opposed to just an estimated number from the MFP database based on activity and time.

For this to work, the exercise must be recorded not only using the wristband, but must also be synced into the phone app exercise log ... if it is added later, it seems to just give an estimated number of calories. For it to record in the app log, the wristband must be connected to the phone, or does it? I have had varying experiences and can't seem to figure it out. Here are the scenarios (I was wearing the wristband and had started an exercise event in all scenarios):

1. Monday I played racquetball for over an hour but had left the phone in the car. I started and ended the exercise event on the wristband while away from the phone and not connected. When I got back to the phone and looked in my log there was nothing there and I had to add the exercise manually ... which gives way less information and is, again, only an estimate.

2. Tuesday I played racquetball again ... it's a passion ... and this I was determined to record it using the wristband so I left the phone in my bag and kept the bag right near the back wall (outside of the court). There is no little box in these courts to put your stuff. I did have some concerns that I may lose connectivity with the phone while near the front of the court as it is pretty big. When I ended the event all of the information was automatically synced to phone and all was well. But again, I had started And ended the wristband event while connected to (and close to) the phone.

3. Wednesday I went for a jog and intentionally left the phone at home ... it's a big phone and I'm not carrying it around while I jog. When I got back top the house and ended the exercise event on the wristband, it somehow logged it in the app log and had all of my info with the graph and everything. So it seemed at that point that I had discovered something new. It seemed that as long as I was near the phone when I ENDED the event on the wristband, all was working.

4. Tonight I played racquetball again .. yes I'm insane .. and I was still under the impression that all I had to do was end the wristband event near the phone and I'm good. Well when I finished playing I was holding the phone and I ended the wristband event. Nothing synced!? What gives??

I did record it manually .. hope that doesn't mean I'm double counting anything. I don't think it is because I did put in the correct time information. But something is messed up because for the last two days, the # of active minutes shown on the website dashboard do not agree to those shown in the phone app. And they are not even close! Today, for example, the dashboard shows 76 active minutes and the phone app shows 36. I know the 36 is correct, but how did the website get 76? I'm afraid I have messed something up by manually adding my exercise event.

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks!

heybales

First comment on the more accurate part.
It only has formula for calculating calorie burn for step based activity, closer to steps the better chance of accuracy. But even there, it has no idea if an incline, pushing weight, or carrying extra weight - all of which would increase calorie burn above what it sees.

That formula is NOT correct for non-step based, swimming should be obvious, rowing, biking, elliptical, lifting.

So those you do need to manually log for better accuracy.

If you sync your device through phone BT connection or computer BT dongle, either way it makes it back to your account and unless you switching on an activity logging - there is no separate activity log of your workout.
If you look at graph of calorie burn through day - it's merely higher during the workout.

So the point is, even if you did not turn on a specific activity log, it caught the increased activity and it would be part of your daily total burn. Just not separated for review on it's own later, though I'm sure looking at steps and calorie burn it would be obvious.

The other thing to keep in mind there are 2 things going on.

The sync to the app actually sends any new data back to your account, and then the app syncing with your account shows the updated info.

Any delay between those syncs, and people have seen the website reflect a new workout before the app does. Even though in their mind they synced with the app. Kind of did.

And there is an app server that syncs with the account server, the app syncs with the app server - there's actually another potential slowdown in there too.

So unless you plan on reviewing your workouts for later for review, there is first no need to make it an activity, nothing is gained beyond latter review for comparison.
Second, just wait a tad longer for it to show up in the app.
Those active minutes probably would have agreed, or else you are viewing 36 VAM and 76 AM time, and those are different, though AM includes VAM if it's not listed separate.