What are Active Minutes and How Do I Earn Them?

Learn what active minutes are and how to earn them in Wellbeing+

What are Active Minutes?

Generally, active minutes denotes increased activity or effort as registered by your device. Depending on the technology in your device, that could mean an increased heart rate or faster movement.

All activity is not automatically counted as active minutes. For example, a slower-paced walk may not count towards your active minutes total. Wellbeing+ will only sync what your device counts as active minutes!

Where Should My Active Minutes Appear in Wellbeing+?

Your active minutes that have synced into your Wellbeing+ account from your device should appear here in the 'Your Activity' section of the Wellbeing+ dashboard. You can swipe to the left to view past active minute totals as well.

If you'd like to view historical active minute data, you'll want to check out your Profile, where you can see weekly, monthly and yearly averages and totals.

How Do I Earn Active Minutes?

Overview of Devices

Apple Watch, Fitbit, Garmin, and Withings can all record active minute data to send to Wellbeing+. If you have one of these devices and still aren't syncing any active minutes to Wellbeing+, this may indicate that your device isn't picking up that activity as active time.

Each device tracks active minutes differently. Please refer to your specific device brand to learn more about how they track those minutes. You can learn more about what to expect to sync to Wellbeing+ for each device below.

Click your device type to learn more about how active minutes are earned in Wellbeing+:

iPhone/Apple Health: Does not record active minute data

The Apple Health app for iPhone unfortunately does not record active minute data. This means that if you're using an iPhone to record your steps, you won't be able to sync any active minute data to Wellbeing+ regardless of your time spent on the move.

Note: This does not apply to users with an Apple Watch since the Activity app sends Exercise minutes to the Health app to sync to Wellbeing+.

For Apple Health users, if you know how much time you've spent actively moving, you can add manual activity entries directly into Wellbeing+ to account for your active minute time, as long as your challenge admins have enabled manual entry for your organization. You can learn more about how to use manual activity entry here.

Apple Watch: Exercise Minutes
The Activity app sends Exercise minutes to the Health app to sync to Wellbeing+. When you connect an Apple Watch to Wellbeing+, Wellbeing+ syncs your Exercise minutes into the app as active minutes.

Exercise minutes should show correctly in the Apple Health app in order to sync to Wellbeing+. You can find your Exercise Minutes category by going to the Apple Health Summary page > Show All Health Data > Exercise Minutes. Minutes need to show here first to sync to Wellbeing+:

Note that Workouts minutes are separate from Exercise Minutes. Wellbeing+ does not sync Workouts at this time. This means your active minute totals needs to show in the Exercise Minutes category to sync.

Fitbit: Active Minutes

When you connect a Fitbit device to Wellbeing+, Wellbeing+ syncs your active minutes that are sent to us from your Fitbit account into the app as active minutes.

Note that Fitbit sends active minute data to Wellbeing+, not Active Zone Minute data.

Depending on the Fitbit device you use, your Fitbit app may display Active Zone Minutes instead of active minutes, which means you might see a different total in your Fitbit app than what syncs to Wellbeing+.

If your Fitbit device tracks Active Zone Minutes, then you should be able to log in at https://accounts.fitbit.com/login (the website, not the app) to view your active minutes recorded by your Fitbit. Here's an example of what you should see:

Note: Active Zone Minutes and active minutes are calculated slightly differently.

You can earn active minutes through 10 minutes or more of continuous moderate-to-intense activity, whereas Active Zone Minutes are earned for time spent in the fat burn, cardio, or peak heart-rate zones.

You can learn more about the difference between the two here: https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1379.htm

Garmin: Intensity Minutes

When you connect a Garmin device to Wellbeing+, Wellbeing+ syncs your Intensity Minutes into the app as active minutes. Intensity Minutes should show correctly here in the Garmin app in order to sync to Wellbeing+:

Note that Wellbeing+ does not multiply your vigorous minutes by 2 the way that Garmin does. You should expect to see a lower total per week in Wellbeing+ as compared to what is shown in your Garmin app if you have vigorous minutes tracked.

Can I Add Active Minutes Manually into Wellbeing+?

If manual activity entry is enabled for your organization, you can add active minute totals manually up to 7 days back. To learn more about manual entry, please see this article on manually adding your activity into Wellbeing+.