Fibit Charge HR questions

farmers_daughter

Ok so I've fiddled with it till I'm blue in the face:
1. How do I reset the numbers. It came out of the box with 5 hours of sleep, 29 steps and what not, how can I get those to 0 out.
2. I try to Bluetooth it to my Samsung Galaxy 5 and it says "could not communicate with device." Huh? I'll primarily be using the app. It better communicate
3. The calories burned, help me understand because I have NOT burned 1,713 calories since 12pm this afternoon.

Ok let me see if I get responses on those then maybe I might have more questions.

KiwiAlexP

I can't answer the Bluetooth issues but ignore the first day as it would have been bumped in transit etc - it will reset at midnight and you should be good to go tomorrow

heybales

I'd suggest Fitbit's site first for troubleshooting the device not syncing and doing a reset - right there in the help files.

Also, you burn calories sleeping. Many seem to be unaware of this fact when first getting a daily activity tracker.

Guess what Fitbit thinks you have done for any day until it sees steps?
Yep, sleeping, and 1713 for the day so far is probably right on.

And you'll need this eventually.

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10098937/faq-syncing-logging-food-exercise-calorie-adjustments-activity-levels-accuracy/p1

dubird

I had trouble adjusting my calories as the default that MFP gave me ended up making me gain a little weight. Still not sure why. So, what I did was take a look at what MFP said and ended up dropping that a little and set the same goal on Fitbit. Both sites have activity levels set to sedentary, and I have the negative calorie adjustment off. I wear my Fitbit on my non-dominant hand but have it set to dominant to make it a little less sensitive. I only enter meals on MFP, and don't worry about checking my calorie limit until late afternoon. There's some variance with Fitbit based on how it records your calorie burn, so it's never fully accurate in the mornings. Even with all this, I'm sure it's off by a little, but it's much more accurate that it was at first and I can work with it. Have no idea how I'm going to set it for maintenance though. ><

Also, make sure you have the correct version of Bluetooth on your phone. I don't know if the Galaxy 5 has it. You can check here to see if it's supported: http://www.fitbit.com/content/assets/onezip/images/devices/Fitbit_SupportedDevices_Android.pdf If it's on that list and not syncing, send them an email and see if they can help.

heybales

Sedentary on MFP is for a non-exercise day with desk job.
Exercise intended to be added when actually done. Hopefully daily life is really sedentary.
With Fitbit synced, MFP corrects itself for that daily burn, whether it includes exercise or more activity than expected.

Sedentary on Fitbit is barely above sleeping calorie burn. Just means you hit the estimated daily burn pretty fast and your eating goal starts going up all day as device syncs.

Personalized is the other option on Fitbit, which assumes the daily burn will match historical records, until device syncing says otherwise. Allows smaller adjustments and perhaps better planning to the day starting at breakfast.

Either way ends up the same at midnight.

Either way is confusing when used with MFP setting daily eating goal - since they do it differently.
Neither site will match during the day, until end of day is reached again at midnight.

Suggest don't follow 2 roads to same destination - nothing but confusion.
MFP for food logging and eating goals.
Fitbit for exercise logging (if corrections needed) and activity goals.

But you should have negative calories enabled on MFP just in case you are more lazy one day than MFP was estimating you'd burn - that way you keep your deficit anyway.

editorgrrl

farmers_daughter wrote: »

The calories burned, help me understand because I have NOT burned 1,713 calories since 12pm this afternoon.

Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the number of calories necessary to maintain your current weight. When you set up your Fitbit it has to guesstimate your burn since midnight. So today's burn will be a bit wonky.

You can learn more in the Fitbit Users group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

Monklady123

I found the HR's displays (on the website) to be so confusing, and their customer support to be so awful (i.e., no one could explain to me why my numbers kept changing arbitrarily, even days afterwards), that I returned it. I'm now using a Nike Fuelband until I get my new phone (August) when I can start using the Misfit (which is NOT related to Fitbit in anyway.)

Sorry, that wasn't exactly what you asked, lol. But I had just had enough with the HR.

charlieandcarol

You might need to check the blue tooth on your galaxy and whether it is the right kind to talk to the Fitbit. My sister got a garmin device and had trouble, turns out there are two kinds of blue tooth (one older, one newer) and her garmin needed the one her galaxy didn't have. Not sure if the same with the fitbit?

Also as mentioned above. Once you plug your stats in, the Fitbit calculates how many cals a day you would burn doing nothing ie lying in bed, your body just doing its thing keeping you alive. It then divides it by 24 and for every hour of the day it adds that number of cals to your calorie burned total. Then if at any time you start moving around, it adds cals it has calculated you burnt moving around. So if you go to bed and wake up at 8am and have a look at your total burn, you will have calories there, calculated since midnight, 8 X your calculated minimum burn per hour. Its algorithms for calculating etc and how it adjusts are all a bit more complicated than what I described but this is basically what it does.

youdontknowwhatyousaw

Did you start by setting up your Fitbit on your computer? You have to do that first, but, you don't need to use the computer after that.

farmers_daughter

I did end up switching it to "dominant" hand even though I have it on my non dominant hand to lax the sensitivity, I did walk probably 3 miles last night, and may have hit my 10k steps, but 5 floors (which I took off of the reporting) I dunno we'll try it out another day, I did finally get bluetooth to work. give it time.

dubird

farmers_daughter wrote: »

I did end up switching it to "dominant" hand even though I have it on my non dominant hand to lax the sensitivity, I did walk probably 3 miles last night, and may have hit my 10k steps, but 5 floors (which I took off of the reporting) I dunno we'll try it out another day, I did finally get bluetooth to work. give it time.

It's not going to be perfect, but with the HR, it'll be a lot more accurate if you've set it up correctly. Much more accurate than random gym machines. It took me about a month to get Fitbit and MFP settled in a way that works for me. If I understood the math behind it, might not have taken that long though! ^_^;

LovingLife_Erin

You got some good advice about the calories and such, but I wanted to add something about the bluetooth. My flex doesn't match with my Samsung S3 mini, but does with my hubby's S3 (not a mini). For some reason, although it says it should sync, my phone doesn't support it. Yours may have the same issue. I have the usb key stuck in one of our computers so it syncs to that whenever the computer is on, and if we are out, I just sync it to my husband's phone. So long as you have a computer and the usb thingy, you should be ok.

dubird

Yeah, it's dependent on the type of bluetooth you have. My previous Droid didn't sync, my new one does. Also, if you have a newer tablet, check it out too. Mine syncs just fine, so it's a good backup if I'm not at home.

Word of advice, though. Don't let it background sync. That will KILL your battery!