Intensity Minutes

tess said:

I considered Move IQ and Auto Activity to be independent features

Auto Activity Start is depending on MoveIQ, and Instinct definitely does not have the Auto Activity Start option, so MoveIQ activities cannot be turned automatically into true recorded Activities, on Instinct.

However, as you already wrote, those are not needed for the Intensity Minutes, to come back to the original topic, so it does not really matter at all, in this case. I just asked for a link to an Activity, so that I can analyze whether some IM deserved to be credited or not. It is easier (and more revealing) to share an Activity, than the Daily Summary data.

trux said:

Auto Activity Start is depending on MoveIQ

Agreed.  It's not the other way around.  This is what confused me when you said Move IQ wasn't fully supported.

trux said:

It is easier (and more revealing) to share an Activity, than the Daily Summary data

But there won't be an activity to analyze with a Move IQ event. 

trux said:

to come back to the original topic

Yes. What I was explaining to the OP was I have noticed I don't get credit for intensity minutes even though I met the criteria (shown in my HR graph) unless Move IQ detected an activity.  Move IQ doesn't work all the time in my experience. Now, is this the case and by design, or just a coincidence I noticed?  I don't know, but it's something I suggested the OP might want to look into. 

images attached. Same exercise different days. in one I record the activity and get 27 minutes intensity, in the other I do not record and get 0 minutes intensity.

The first picture shows more intensive activity than the second one - the peak reaching the yellow HR zone is much narrower on the second graph, than in the first case. Remember that you must reach or exceed 10 consecutive minutes where your heart rate is elevated above the threshold. It does not seem to be the case on the second graph.

And as for starting the Activity - not sure about Instinct Solar, but on the standard Instinct, Activities can be started only manually. And since Instinct and Instinct Solar share the same firmware, I doubt it is different on the Solar version.

Agree, but there is only a very small difference. The exercise was identical. The fact that the second exercise showed zero intensity shows me that something is not right. Clearly I cannot depend on the system automatically recording intensity.

crawfordp said:

The exercise was identical.

That's not important. It is the effort that counts, not the exercise name or content. Once you did the same exercise with higher effort (higher HR), and the second time with a significantly lower effort (lower HR). It is as simple as that.

I am afraid we will have to disagree on this. The effort difference was marginal as I can tell from the stats recorded on my BikeErg monitor. It makes no sense that in one case the watch assigns 27 minutes of intensity and in the other case 0 minutes intensity. That difference cannot be explained by such a small difference in the heart rate trace.

You may disagree, of course, but the HR graph shows something other than you claim, and only the HR is decisive for the effort estimation. If you do not trust the wrist optical HRM built into your watch, use a chest belt HRM, or make a comparative test in a lab.

Yes, I have a Garmin Vivosport which works without failure.  Set activity level at 5, activity tracking based on HR zones, bpm in increments of 10 starting at 50.  It works WITHOUT manually recording an activity.  On the other hand, Garmin Intensity Solar with identical settings has a mind of its own and only records intensity minutes seldomly and randomly, without any rhyme or reason.  Not sure if Garmin uses different algorithms for different devices,  Garmin should be able to clarify that.