Discovery Vitality in 2016

A

Alacrity

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 3, 2005
Messages
655
Maelly said:
Eish, this just sux, am surely not gonna make all my weekly goals now. Just need to at least reach two goals pee month.
Click to expand...

I have the same problem and this is my strategy
1. Don't make goals this month to get goal level as low as possible
2. When Vitality do "special" recalculation hope to go even lower
3. Then make points one month
4. Don't make points following month
5. Repeat 3 and 4

This way I end up paying about 50% (maybe more) for watch
 
StrontiumDog

StrontiumDog

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Joined
Sep 2, 2006
Messages
10,874
Alacrity said:
I have the same problem and this is my strategy
1. Don't make goals this month to get goal level as low as possible
2. When Vitality do "special" recalculation hope to go even lower
3. Then make points one month
4. Don't make points following month
5. Repeat 3 and 4

This way I end up paying about 50% (maybe more) for watch
Click to expand...
You're assuming that they reduce your target if you don't make any goals for a whole month?

My issue is not with the targets and not making them / losing out on smoothies. My issue is with the stupid definition of moderate and vigorous workouts. The mere fact that a workout with HRM and HR at 70% average is equivalent to swiping your card at the gym means that they have rendered my HRM and related devices pointless unless I want to kill myself doing a workout at 80% average HR.

They made us buy expensive activity trackers to earn points then they nerfed those activity trackers! :mad:
 
P

Patrick_Hockstetter

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Sep 11, 2014
Messages
4,989
My weekly goal for this past week was 850, but I made around 1100 points. This weeks goal is down to 800.

So mine has been adjusted down already. Anyone else's adjusted down for this coming week?
 
Tinuva

Tinuva

The Magician
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Feb 10, 2005
Messages
12,477
Mine went up...from 800 to 850 this week. So not sure why you already get to be lucky.
 
K

krycor

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Aug 4, 2005
Messages
18,546
Alacrity said:
I have the same problem and this is my strategy
1. Don't make goals this month to get goal level as low as possible
2. When Vitality do "special" recalculation hope to go even lower
3. Then make points one month
4. Don't make points following month
5. Repeat 3 and 4

This way I end up paying about 50% (maybe more) for watch
Click to expand...

It doesn't work on just that.. It takes your active points for year vs activity and based on these generates a target. This is why last year my target was 1000-1200 from the start
 
K

krycor

Honorary Master
Joined
Aug 4, 2005
Messages
18,546
Btw been looking at the points.. I won't be surprised if next year the points for quizzes that give +/-12k points dissapear a next year.
 
Tinuva

Tinuva

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Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
12,477
Polar Beat App - Mini review

Right, so with Discovery Vitality changing the apps/devices allowed to send them data, a comment from one of the posters on this thread saying how great the Polar H7 is, peaked my interest. Specifically to see if it is compatible withe the Muvit HRM (rebranded igot-U HRM-10), and how it will work for me in workouts.

My test of choice was doing an indoor bicycle ride, for 60 minutes and a few seconds.
First, this makes it easy for, as I can watch the display throughout the exercise, unlike running or strength exercises.
Second, I have full control over where my heart rate is, because I can increase/decrease the intensity at will, unlike strength exercises where I have no control over heart rate, only on the excercise.
Lastly, indoor bicycle ride is pretty much injury free!

Settings used:
- Target: Free training
- Voice guidance on: Time - 1 min
- Physical settings: all filled in
- On flow.polar.com my account is connected to my Strava account, in an effort to have all my workout data in one central place.

Here is the default screen when working out:

Screenshot_2016-03-05-16-39-35.png

I like that it shows the heart rate as either a % of your max, or the BPM. I chose to be lazy and just use the % of max.
What I don't like, is it doesn't show the average heart rate of the whole exercise session as it stands at that point in time.

So I was notified by one of the members in this thread, that the voice guidance will give you an average heart rate, at each interval.
This made me happy to know maybe there is a way to get it, however it was short lived after 10-15 minutes into the exercise.
After every minute, I would get something along the lines of:
"lap time 1 minute, average heart rate 151" <-- This is about what I got in the screenshot above, except using the flow.polar.com website at that exact time, I could see my average heart rate for the session up to that point was actually 139. Which is what I expected to hear every minute, because I kept my heart rate at around 138-142 the whole time, except at random times I pushed it over 160 for a minute, specifically to test the average heart rate announcement.

The other display for heart rate data during an exercise, it to show heart rate zones. This is not useful at all during a session where you keep your heart rate mostly at the same steady rate, but if you do strength exercises and your heart rate is all over the place, it could be interesting:

Screenshot_2016-03-05-16-40-49.png


When you finish your work out, you get your surprise for average heart rate for the whole workout session:

Screenshot_2016-03-05-17-03-45.png

That is all there is to this basic app for data used by Discovery Vitality.

I will say this, the syncing was super fast. In less than 10 minutes after finishing, my points was on the Vitality website, and into my Active Rewards display. The strava data was also updated as quick.
 
Tinuva

Tinuva

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Messages
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TLDR, the average heart rate voice announcement, is for the lap, since previous announcement, not for the whole session sadly.
 
K

Kerrits

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 27, 2014
Messages
762
Patrick_Hockstetter said:
My weekly goal for this past week was 850, but I made around 1100 points. This weeks goal is down to 800.

So mine has been adjusted down already. Anyone else's adjusted down for this coming week?
Click to expand...

The adjustments lag by a week, because you have until the following Wednesday for all the points to come through.
 
jman

jman

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May 9, 2014
Messages
2,508
Tinuva said:
TLDR, the average heart rate voice announcement, is for the lap, since previous announcement, not for the whole session sadly.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the review, very helpful. Will try it myself :) Shows that everyone doesn't need really expensive equipment. The only real downside is having to keep your phone with you to do it. Would be much easier when going on a run for example, to just have the chest strap and a band of sorts. Better than spending thousands though :)
 
Tinuva

Tinuva

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Joined
Feb 10, 2005
Messages
12,477
jman said:
Thanks for the review, very helpful. Will try it myself :) Shows that everyone doesn't need really expensive equipment. The only real downside is having to keep your phone with you to do it. Would be much easier when going on a run for example, to just have the chest strap and a band of sorts. Better than spending thousands though :)
Click to expand...
Get an arm strap for your watch.

There are a few different options at Sportsmanwarehouse the last time I was there 2 weeks ago. Still havent decided though which option I want :(
 
Mila

Mila

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Nov 11, 2008
Messages
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I have to giggle at the people that thought they were getting an apple watch for free and walking around the office was going to work.
Now they are upset.. lol.
 
C

creeper

Executive Member
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Nov 18, 2010
Messages
5,463
I was thinking about the Discovery changes this weekend. I suspect that storing all the data points might lead to a huge problem for Discovery. Imagine saving distance, gps, heartrate, recorded every second, for someone running a Marathon. 18000 data points. Storage So, all they receive from the 3rd parties are duration, start end time, average heart rate and distance. The problem kicks in that eg on Movecount.com, I can enter a session manually with all the data to give me optimal points. Instead of really doing anything Because the current APIs don't specify if it is recorded or manual entry, there is a huge gap for abuse.

I'm still wondering why they never picked it up. Where was their risk management ?
 
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