Discovery Health - Vitality & Team Vitality plus everything else you need to know

[Eugene Brown]

Unlink Vitality in Garmin Connect. Then relink Garmin in Discovery. And you have to do that every time you want a sync!

 

Can you PLEASE send me a screen-shot of where this de-link knoppietjie sits within GC. I cannot find it anywhere.

[jcza]

Can you PLEASE send me a screen-shot of where this de-link knoppietjie sits within GC. I cannot find it anywhere.

 

Settings, Account Information 

[brucem76]

Can you PLEASE send me a screen-shot of where this de-link knoppietjie sits within GC. I cannot find it anywhere.

Settings -> Account Information, at the bottom

[Eugene Brown]

Found the cause of my problem after another 45 minute telephone call with the bunch of wonderful individuals at Discovery's Vitality centre!!! My Vitality profile has Garmin Connect enabled, but it is not "seeing" any information from GC. That explains why I cannot find anywhere to de-link Vitality on the GC page. To make it worse, the only way to remove GC from Vitality (so you can hopefully re-load and fix it) is to de-link Vitality on your GC profile. Now some IT propeller head is working on it, hoping for Monday to be fixed. F@#$kn frustrating, to say the least 

[brucem76]

Found the cause of my problem after another 45 minute telephone call with the bunch of wonderful individuals at Discovery's Vitality centre!!! My Vitality profile has Garmin Connect enabled, but it is not "seeing" any information from GC. That explains why I cannot find anywhere to de-link Vitality on the GC page. To make it worse, the only way to remove GC from Vitality (so you can hopefully re-load and fix it) is to de-link Vitality on your GC profile. Now some IT propeller head is working on it, hoping for Monday to be fixed. F@#$kn frustrating, to say the least

Eek! Good luck!

[Frosty]

I just posted my 2c worth on their FB page. Not sure it will make any difference to them, given that they aren't replying to the hundreds of posts coming in each day.

 

I've suggested a progressive systems whereby the duration/intensity should progressively increase each week, then allow period of recovery (without penalty). But also threw in the tiered levels, so that you'd score more point the longer the duration or higher the intensity, but not both at the same time.

[Cheese]

Agreed that the new points system is quite hectic , but think it is the move from too easy , to quite difficult that makes it seem worse.

 

Two Interval sessions a week and two sessions on the road of 90 minutes or more above 70% will get you 1200 points most of the time.

 

Agreed that Rest week is not really to be found anywhere.

 

Just did an hour interval session @ 85% average HR which made me realise it is not impossible. Think runners will have more of an issue as they do not tend to do too many runs of more than 90 Minutes.

[nonky]

There is a relatively simple solution, i think.

 

If you are signed up for vitality rewards, you MUST BE OBLIGATED to go for a full fitness assessment once/twice a year and then, in my view, the cheaters will soon be weeded out...

 

If the fitness assessment doesn't scare them off, any discrepancy between rewards data submitted and fitness assessment results must be FLAGGED and only HR data allowed thereafter.

[GLuvsMtb]

Discovery can then just ask the dishonest couch patatoes to provide proof that it was actually them doing the exercise just to find out they don't even own a bicycle or a pair of running shoes... Meanwhile they log 2 hour bike rides on Strava to reach their weekly goal and get a free watch.

 

Or they can offer a buy-back of Apple watches from those who are now worse off after the changes and/or implement the changes in a tiered approach. 1st tier, remove the apps that can't validate the data, 2nd tier, rebalance the points offered to be more equitable to all sports. If you bought an Apple watch knowing that you could make up the weekly points by doing 1 x long ride at 70% max hr, but now suddenly have to do 3 x long rides at 80% hr for the same "reward", you may have made a different decision when were considering buying the damn thing.

PS: I can still put an HR strap on my toddler (who's resting HR during normal daily activity is probably the same as my 70% HR) during each evening's play time and cheat that way. If you really want to cheat, you'll find a way.

[jules1976]

Or they can offer a buy-back of Apple watches from those who are now worse off after the changes and/or implement the changes in a tiered approach. 1st tier, remove the apps that can't validate the data, 2nd tier, rebalance the points offered to be more equitable to all sports. If you bought an Apple watch knowing that you could make up the weekly points by doing 1 x long ride at 70% max hr, but now suddenly have to do 3 x long rides at 80% hr for the same "reward", you may have made a different decision when were considering buying the damn thing.

PS: I can still put an HR strap on my toddler (who's resting HR during normal daily activity is probably the same as my 70% HR) during each evening's play time and cheat that way. If you really want to cheat, you'll find a way.

That's the position I am in at the moment !

with the industry I'm in and two crazy months ahead; its going to be impossible to achieve this.

I would have happily carried on using my Garmin for my workouts and runs and cycles with no hassles but now im going to get rightly screwed over !! 

 

[bertusras]

I just posted my 2c worth on their FB page. Not sure it will make any difference to them, given that they aren't replying to the hundreds of posts coming in each day.

 

I've suggested a progressive systems whereby the duration/intensity should progressively increase each week, then allow period of recovery (without penalty). But also threw in the tiered levels, so that you'd score more point the longer the duration or higher the intensity, but not both at the same time.

 

That's way too complicated for bean counters.

[Frosty]

That's way too complicated for bean counters.

let's call it constructive criticism.

[WR 1.0]

Any news on the refunds of race entry fees yet?

#Paybackthemoney

[wolver]

i don't really have a problem with the new points system, BUT the fact that they use the age based calculation of max hear rate really screws me over. my actual max per my peak performance test is 13bpm lower than my age based  

[carbon29er]

It's really hard to read the moral indignation in this thread and not smile to oneself. Whoever thought the point allocation would not change is perhaps not very bright. And if you based a decision to buy a R5,000 watch on the perception that a two hour ride once a week was going to be all you had to do ad infinitum, well the less said the better.

 

As for suggestions about tiers and rest weeks, this in not the schoolyard guys. For a system to be effective for the sponsor and the user it has to be simple. Audits and checking post event is not practicable. Strava has always been a crap app to analyze workouts and is very inaccurate on a number of fronts.

 

This is still a fantastic deal from Discovery and I have no issues with the changes to points. As I wrote previously I used to get 100 points, I can now get 1,500 a ride and, if I'm feeling really hard, even 3,000. 

 

But I guess I'm different in that I wouldn't own an Apple product even it came with a free bike.

[carbon29er]

i don't really have a problem with the new points system, BUT the fact that they use the age based calculation of max hear rate really screws me over. my actual max per my peak performance test is 13bpm lower than my age based

That's bad luck. My deemed max is 45 beats lower than actual. So 80% for disco is mid 60's. No wonder I don't mind.