Charge HR Cycling - Endomondo Strava MFP or fail

mogulman1

I've had a Fitbit One for years and always used a HR Strap when doing anything other than walking. I've used Digifit and Endomondo.

Anyway.. Decided to try a Charge HR. Experience has been ok, but trying to figure out how this should work for non-step based exercising. I have all exercise apps set to sync to fitbit first. Then fitbit to MFP. I tried calling, IMing and asking on the fitbit forums, but no real good answers. I want to use the 3rd party app to track the ride/distance, but Fitbit for HRM.

So...

when I go do an activity like cycling. I did the following (tried with Endomondo and Strava).
-Start the Endomondo/Strava app for GPS tracking.
-Press the Activity button on fitbit (not sure if I need to do this, but thought HR is more accurate/frequent when in activity mode).
-Go for ride.
-Stop activity button on fitbit
-Stop Endomondo/Strava.

When I did this... I noticed a few things.
1. I had duplicate entries in fitbit for each activity. One coming from Strava/Endomondo and one from pressing the fitbit activity button.
2. The time in Strava/Endomondo didn't match the Fitbit activity button. Strava/Endomondo was shorter, because I had autopause set up to pause my cycling recording if I stopped moving. Fitbit kept tracking HR though.
3. HR data doesn't seem to pass back to Strava. I thought it was supposed to.

If I go into the Strava/Endomondo entries in Fitbit, I can see HR info. I'm not sure if it is accurate though. Does Fitbit match the timing of the HR to the workout on a time basis? or only on a start time/duration? if it's start time/duration, that could be messed up, since Strava/Endomondo duration is shorter than fitbit and there are gaps where it isn't recording.

Should I delete the duplicate activities in fitbit from the fitbit activity button? Should I even be using the fitbit activity button?

Am I trying to make the fitbit do something it doesn't work that well at? Maybe I should go back to using my fitbit one and just get a BT HRM like the Scosche Rhythm+ for cycling for now.

Jeff

mogulman1

I think I can confirm that if you autopause a workout using Endomondo, that Fitbit then doesn't match up the HR correctly.

I have 24 minute ride in endomondo. I went up a hill 2x (circular track). First time, it had my peak HR around the time I was almost at the top of the hill, then it went down as I went down the hill. I paused for a couple of minutes at the bottom. Endomondo shows a pause, but doesn't show that as part of the workout. Then I climbed back up the hill and rode back down. Fitbit shows the peak HR this time, as I was going down the hill.

So fitbit is tracking the HR continuously which is good, but it isn't matching HR to the Endomondo workout correctly, because it doesn't know that Endomondo is pausing the workout. Endomondo only sends start time and duration.

So I guess I would need to turn off autopause or get a separate HRM for cycling.

heybales

You are correct, a bunch of stuff won't work right.

When a 3rd part app sends over a workout for which it didn't count pause time - it replaces a shorter block of Fitbit time - so the Fitbit is keeping some of the actual workout time - and increasing the calorie count.

I would have the same issue if I let Garmin be involved in the syncs.
So I just manually log - that way I can look at the total workout time, not just the "moving time" and replace the calorie count.
While the calories/min are then smaller, I don't care, the workout with correct stats is in SportTracks, Fitbit is NOT my repository for all things workout - merely calories burned.

To your other points.

1 - Those are not 2 workouts, and you should see differences in time. One is activity record, a snapshot of Fitbit stats for that block of time. Your synced app replaced the calorie count though. Not entirely useful since you have better app for tracking your workouts. But need to set activity workout to indeed get that 1 sec HRM recording.
I purposely do this since using Zip with no button, I create an activity record to compare. Notice my workouts.
https://www.fitbit.com/user/2FBZWW/activities
This view points out the difference. Only the Logged Activities count for calories, in this case replace the Fitbit calories. The other is snapshot prior to manual logging.

2 - Known effect as above. Does Strava/Endomondo have a post processing pause feature you can use to get better stats on the workout AFTER it syncs initial data to Fitbit? Garmin I have auto-pause on the device so it just stops recording info during the pause, but I could disable that and use auto-pause in SportTracks and obtain the same thing. But I like seeing my actual ride/run stats while riding/running, not artificially slow stats. I've not investigated Strava enough to see if it does, but I'm guessing not.

3 - They may, or it's coming, Fitbit has that ability I thought, so depends on the other site enabling the ability to receive it.

Wahoo has a cool HRM now totally self contained in chest strap. You can BT to a device for reading the HR, but the data can be downloaded later from the strap too.

mogulman1

I ended up returning the Charge Hr. I thought about getting Mio fuse. It would have worked well for the HRM. unfortunately Mio doesn't have integration for steps.

I ended up ordering a Scosche Rhythm+ for HR while riding. I'll use digifit or endomondo or strata. I'll use my fitbit one for nonsports activity and walking.

Just wish the Charge HR would have acted like a regular BT hrm