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Step goal logic?

snortingbull
over 8 years ago
Can anyone shed some light into how the goal steps are calculated each day? Prior to 5.3 my goals each day would generally go up if I was reaching the goal the day prior. This went on for about 6 weeks. Post 5.3 I had one day where I went past my goal (15,000+) and now it just seems stuck on 15,500+. I haven't hit the target in several days but it doesn't change the goal. It really isn't a big deal to me but it just seems odd that the watch has seemingly hit some cap and now doesn't back off.

Does anyone have any insight as to how it calculates goal steps and should it go back down after a while? I'm at a week around 15,000+ without hitting the goal and without the number going back down.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Is Auto Goal still on I wonder? Look in GCM under User Settings, Daily Steps for your 935
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Yep, auto goal is on and current value is 15510. It hasn't gone down in days despite me coming up 10 or 20% short 4 out of 5 days.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    You would have to dig deep but about 2 - 3 years ago, someone posted the exact formula that's used to calculate autogoals for steps. Maybe someone has a more precise idea of exactly where to look. I tried but couldn't find it.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    It might have changed in that time as well. My goal is currently 12710 but two weeks ago it was around 16K. It is slowly reducing as I miss my target.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I've not paid much attention to this for a bit, but I recall that auto goal isn't just based on "yesterday" when it adjusts (it's done on the watch and not in GC or GCM). If you keep missing your goal over a few days, it will drop faster than if you beat your goal for 4 days, and then miss it on the 5th day, as it uses some of your history. 5 days was just a guess, and it could be a week or something longer.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    As I recall, the goal was adjusted by the difference between actual steps and the goal multiplied by a particular percentage. After 2 or 3 days, I figured it must be possible to figure out that percentage. Based on this logic, I looked at my historical results. Basically, the autogoal is adjusted by the difference of steps vs goals was multiplied by 5%.BTW, I've been on a fixed goal for a while now. The records below are from last March.


    [TABLE="border: 0, cellpadding: 0, cellspacing: 0"]
    [TR]
    [TD="width: 64"]Actual[/TD]
    [TD="width: 64"]Goal[/TD]
    [TD="width: 73"]Difference[/TD]
    [TD="width: 105"]Goal Difference[/TD]
    [TD="width: 136"]% of Previous Day Step Difference[/TD]
    [/TR]
    [TR]
    [TD="align: right"]14292[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]11620[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]2672[/TD]
    [TD] [/TD]
    [TD] [/TD]
    [/TR]
    [TR]
    [TD="align: right"]13498[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]11753[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]1745[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]133[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]5%[/TD]
    [/TR]
    [TR]
    [TD="align: right"]12155[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]11835[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]320[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]82[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]5%[/TD]
    [/TR]
    [TR]
    [TD="align: right"]12899[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]11851[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]1048[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]16[/TD]
    [TD="align: right"]5%[/TD]
    [/TR]
    [/TABLE]
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Thanks for the input everyone...Garmin's auto step goal logic really needs work:
    1) Needs an option to exclude activities from the formula and
    2) Why wouldn't the target be +/- the rolling 7 day average or something less dramatic. I have one day per week with a ton of steps and now I can't reach my target till the next heavy load day. This doesn't make much sense to me.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    2) Why wouldn't the target be +/- the rolling 7 day average or something less dramatic.

    I don't plan on putting it in the CIQ store (making something that looks nice and is suitable/usable for many people takes too much time), but maybe someone else can do that.. I made a simple widget that displays today's steps and a 7 days rolling average. It doesn't do anything with goals. It's a pity you can't access FIT files from an app/widget, otherwise it would be possible to subtract the steps from activities.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    I know of a lot of people who REALLY like Garmin's step autogoal logic. I also like it however I switched to a fixed goal a long time ago as I was becoming a slave to my steps. I'm still a slave but, at least, it's within reason now.
  • 0 over 8 years ago
    Well I honestly liked it too until I realized that my long run days started to make the other days' step goal basically unobtainable. It seems setting the goal manually is the only solution which is sort of lame.