Fitbit Versa update slaps on Active Zone Minutes & health reminders
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Owners of Fitbit Versa will be happy to know a new software update, Fitbit OS 4.2, is doing the rounds. This adds Active Zone Minutes and healthy habit reminders.
The refresh bumps the OS version up to 4.2 (firmware version 71.6.19), from 4.1.3. The previous upgrade was released in June and it just addressed bugs and shortcomings. This latest one adds some new functionality.
Active Zone Minutes
The biggest change to come as part of the upgrade are Active Zone Minutes. They debuted on Charge 4 but are now coming to devices in Fitbit’s Versa range as well as Ionic. This is different than Active Minutes in that you are awarded differently for time spent in various heart rate zones.
So for each minute in the fat burn zone you get 1 Active Zone Minute, for each minute in the cardio or peak zone you get 2 points. When you use Active Minutes (which are available on the remainder of Fitbit’s range), you earn an active minute by performing 10 minutes or more of continuous moderate-to-intense activity.
The goal with both of these is to collect 150 points on a weekly basis. This is all to do with helping you achieve the American Heart Associationand World Health Organization recommendations. They prescribe at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity each week for healthy individuals. Its all to do with getting your heart pumping. This goal can, of course, be customized in the Fitbit app.
Health and wellness reminders
The other important upgrade as part of Fitbit OS 4.2 are health and wellness reminders. Once you have the new software up and running you can switch these on through the smartphone app. Simply tap your profile picture > your device image and then go to “Health and Wellness Reminders”.
If you don’t have a premium subscription this will only nag you to wash your hands 3 times a day. Those with a premium subscription get more reminders as shown in the table below.
Version 4.2 of the operating system also brings the usual bug fixes, along with support for 6 more languages. These are Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, Indonesian, Polish, Romanian, and Russian.
This is a progressive software rollout so, if it has not already, it should hit your device soon. You’ll see the banner in the Fitbit app when it becomes available.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
Most people have installed the update just fine but, as always, there are a few reports of issues. If you are having problems you can check out this article for possible fixes. A restart or factory reset usually does the trick.
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Is there a way to go back to active minutes? I manually enter an activity and it doesn’t register anymore. I think I liked active minutes better.
Yes, How do you go back to tracking active minutes instead of zone minutes. I just walked 40 minutes but only got 22 zone minutes because it’s hard for me to get my heart rate up. I need to track active minutes!
Yes I agree. I always used active minutes as a target to focus me on staying active throughout the day, zone minutes do not help me at all in that respect although i do understand how some users will find it useful. Why can’t we have both?
How do I get back to zone minutes it disappeared on my versa 2