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How does auto goal work?

Will it increase infinitely if I reach my everyday goal? I started with 5k on my new vivofit3 and after 3 weeks its already 14k and it getting hard to reach it every day =)
Is there a limit of goal steps or I shoud just turn auto goal off at some moment?
  • Thanks a lot for this information which helped my own nerdy investigations in this matter. I have two additional observations from analyzing my data:

    - the minimum increase of 0.5 % of the current goal when you beat the goal only applies when the current goal is below 10000 steps

    - the goal for me is changed in multiples of 10 steps 

  • Thanks for your post as it really helped me figure out what was going on with the auto step goal on my Garmin Swim 2. It is set up differently to the one you describe.

    I became curious about the whole auto step goal when my goal suddenly increased by 2000 steps.

    On my Garmin Swim 2

    when I BEAT the step GOAL (for any goal - my lowest goal was 7140 and my highest goal was 11030)

    1st day it multiplies the % I beat the goal by 0.10 and adds that to my current goal

    e.g. goal 7530, steps 8034, (6.7% x 0.10) x 7530 = 50 steps, new goal 7530 + 50 = 7580

    Following consecutive days beating the goal it multiplies the % I beat the goal by 0.20 and adds that to my current goal

    when I MISS the step GOAL (for any goal as above)

    1st day it multiplies the % I miss the goal by 0.10 and subtracts that from my current goal

    Following consecutive days missing the goal it multiplies the % I miss the goal by 0.20 and subtracts that from my current goal

    I have not found any difference for step goals below 7500 or above 10000.

    Increases or decreases are always in multiples of 10.

    There does not seem to be either a minimum or maximum increase or decrease:

    Decreases range from -10 steps tp -1080 steps.

    Increases range from +10 steps to 2000 steps.

    The only occurrence that didn't fit the above pattern was when I did a hike (over 20000 steps in one day), the increase of 2000 steps didn't correspond to any neat percentage of anything but was the % I beat the goal by multiplied by ~0.17.

  • it seems to be a very good idea to specify the range of goals one has investigated. Also the type of Garmin device obviously matters. Maybe there are even more parameters that Garmin takes into account ?

    I have a vivoactive HR watch and up to now had goals in the range between 7000 and about 13000. My step goal recently passed the limit of 15000 and this seems to change the rules again drastically, limiting further increases of the goal to 40 steps per day (?). Maybe I can stay in this region long enough to get a more precise description.

  • I found there is also some sort of "minimum steps" floor where it will not lower your goal.

    When I got a few thousand steps, the goal went way down.

    However, I had a few days where I had only a few hundred steps and my step goal did not change at all.

  • Cheers that answers that Thumbsup 

  • Bravo! Much appreciated and nerds rule!