do all watches record total steps for session?

I noticed that newer devices (my oldest is fr245) that record a walking/running session automatically record the total steps and it is displayed in the cadence section in Connect (both in web and the mobile app). So I thought that as an effort to reduce crashes caused by too many fit fields (and adding settings to disable recording for some field groups) I might as well remove my custom total steps session field. (Though it looks like I still need the lap field, as I don't see steps for the laps)

My question is: do we know if the steps are automatically recorded on all devices that have steps counter (which I think is probably all CIQ watches) or are older devices that don't (in that case I'll not remove the field for those)

Bonus question: what is the nativeNum for steps? (I know Connect doesn't use it, but if I'll keep it for old devices it might be useful for other platforms)

0 FlowState 25 days ago

TL;DR

- (fr955) steps are recorded for both walking and running

- (fr955) in Connect, steps are only shown for walking

- steps nativenum = 10 (ofc it's a session field) [see profile.xlsx in FIT SDK]

For my fr955, Connect only shows the steps field for walking activities, not running activities. In fact it's a common complaint of users that steps aren't displayed in Connect for running activities.

In both cases, if I open the FIT file in fitfileviewer.com, the session message has a field which the site represents as "total cycles" (or in this case, "strides"), which is number of steps / 2. (The number that's shown in Connect is double this.)

The FIT profile (profile.xlsx in the FIT SDK) makes it clear that this is actually a field whose meaning is determined by the sport.

runalyze does show steps for running activities but it estimates them by multiplying average cadence (spm) by activity time in minutes, which results in a different number than total cycles * 2.

flocsy🤠 said:
Bonus question: what is the nativeNum for steps? (I know Connect doesn't use it, but if I'll keep it for old devices it might be useful for other platforms)

As per the FIT profile, it's 10.

1) Open profile.xlsx

2) select messages tab

3) scroll down to activity file messages (roughly row 324)