Logging 'non tracked' events?
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One thing I kind of like which is stopping me entirely getting rid of Google Fit, is that with “Track Physical Activity” enabled, I get visibility of those ‘in-between’ type things - that aren’t just idle wandering around the house, but also aren’t ‘a run’ or something else that is part of my exercise regime.
So - in the Google Fit journal, I can see for example that I walked the dog for a kilometre in 20mins yesterday evening. I’d never bother to log that as an activity, but its nice to have it there…especially as there’s not a million other entries for “went to the kitchen to get coffee” etc.
Is there a potential future where the Suunto App (I don’t think its the watch necessarily that needs to do this) can interpret steps and heart rate and decide, “oh, you were DOING SOMETHING” - and have it insert into the Suunto Training Log?
(a kind of halfway house to the automatic workout detection that you can get on for example an Apple Watch).
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@nigel-taylor-0 this is a great debate. Without wanting to take any position here, and as an ex-FIT enthusiast (Google FIT) this is my flow:
- I dont track anything that would count towards a training if that is not a training. The rule of thumb I use is: Is it more than 20minutes? And does it require some effort?
This results to ie 1h walks / hikes being a training attributing to TSS and my form / fitness values as it should.
This also results to when I am walking my dog or going to the supermarket not counting towards my fitness because I dont think they should.SA can show you the steps and will count more calories due to that. So I can see a calorie consumption when I go to the supermarket or walk the dog.
IMO exercise is exercise. Its not a stroll, or errands per se, not that crossing the whole Amsterdam todo your errands should not be tracked as an exercise.
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@nigel-taylor-0
GFit and other apps that do auto tracking tend to have a determination as to what is considered an activity (some like Garmin allow you to adjust this setting) i.e. If GFit registers that you have been in motion for at least 15mins it will then track it as an activity, and will record the activity type based on pace i.e. if less than 6km/hr its walking, if > 6 < 15km/hr its bicycle ride etc.This has two major issues:
- GFit says it has to be a constant 15mins - if you stop before the 15 active mins no track. Anything prior to the 15 active mins isn’t recorded. Garmin gets around thsi by allowing you to set time constraint i.e. 5 active mins.
- False recordings - used to get loads of these i.e. car/train/bus in slow traffic and I suddenly have a walking/cycling activity…
Also not sure what this does to your battery life.
Personally I just prefer to start an activity when i want to record it, especially as steps and calories are recorded either way, and generally sessions like this aren’t at a sufficient tempo to adjust fitness levels.
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@jamie-bg @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
Both good points and I think I’m in that similar boat where if I’m going out for a walk of ‘an hour or so’ I might actually track that (more of a ‘hike’ than a 10-15minute ‘non fitness contributing’ general walk).
I was thinking though that this fits into the whole “The Smartwatch for Sporty Life” type mindset…the kind of person who wants to reflect at the end of the day and go, “oh,…I ‘did my steps’…I’ve earned a bottle of wine”.
My other half is one of those, if it gets to close to midnight and she gets a reminder to says she’s close to 10,000, she’ll start marching up and down the room!
She’s an Apple Watch user, and doubt she’d swap…BUT…have the step counts that we have, and have the purposeful exercise tracking AND have the new feature of “by the way, I worked out that you did some walking with elevated heart rate that you didn’t even consider was an exercise at the time…here’s some basic info about it, go and feel good about yourself”…its a positive selling point and helps to reinforce good behaviours.
WearOS gets a bad press for whatever reason, but for me, an S7 is very close (although slightly different) in capability, and usability to an Apple Watch already…I’d like to see it (and its successors) go on to be massive successes, so that Suunto are able to continue to commit resources to making it even better! This is one of those things that might be relatively easy to deliver, and becomes another tick box when someone is looking at a smartwatch, particularly as an Android phone user, with sideways eyes at knowing the capabilities of an Apple Watch.
(and what I find from GFit is it is very accurate, doesn’t grab car journeys or little 5 minute random walking around…it only flags the “I went on a ‘proper’ walk” type events).
Don’t think it has any noticeable impact on battery either, as I look now, I was at 100% at 8pm last night (recharged after running) - its now 16:25pm the next day and I’m at 72% (slightly more than 1% drain per hour) with WearOS estimating another two days, having had the usual trickle of notifications throughout the day, replying to a couple of text messages with voice, being woken with vibrating alarm etc.
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I am also one of the users that keeps the Gfit “auto-tracking” enabled. I find it pretty good and with no real negative impact. The battery is pretty good, steps are not exactly the same but so close to be irrelevant, and I’ve never experienced ( or noticed) a wrong tracking of an activity. The 15 mins delay is a good point, but I guess I don’t really care too much since the activity is “light”.
At least for me, I keep the SA for all the “real” activity, and the fit more as an overall aggregator for all the tracked and non-activities and the smart scale measurements.
After the significant improvement with the last update, I use the SA much much more, but I believe I will continue using both in the soon future.
