Movement Breaks

What are Movement Breaks?

Movement Breaks are short bouts of activity that interrupt prolonged sitting — a brisk walk, a few squats, or some chair stands. Even 2–5 minutes delivers health benefits that are distinct from planned exercise, and breaking up long sedentary periods is independently linked to lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and all-cause mortality — even in people who exercise regularly (this is the WHO recommendation).

Instead of scoring each hour as pass/fail, FitSum tracks the average time between breaks during your active schedule. A shorter average means you're moving more frequently. The heatmap on the Progress tab shows your sitting patterns at a glance, and a streak rewards consecutive days where you kept your breaks frequent enough.

A "break" is any of:

• Steps detected (a walk)
• A completed workout
• Responding to a movement reminder
• A break you log manually

Setting up Movement Breaks

Tap the settings icon on the Movement Breaks card (on the Progress → Activity tab) to configure how the feature works. Settings save as soon as you change them.

Difficulty

Choose how often you'd like to take breaks. This sets the sedentary threshold — the longest gap that should pass before a reminder:

You can also end up on "Custom" if your threshold was changed (e.g. by an earlier setting); pick a preset to return to one of the standard intervals.

Schedule

Set the Start and End of your active schedule, and choose which Active Days (Mon–Sun) to monitor. Reminders and tracking only run within this window. Set it to your typical desk hours, not your full waking day.

Notifications

FitSum releases a reminder when it can; on some phones a reminder may not arrive — keep your phone on you and check the reliability settings below.

Enable Movement reminders to receive a push notification when you've been still for longer than your threshold. You can also:

• Override Do Not Disturb — send reminders even when DND is on (off by default; DND is respected otherwise)
• Vibration — add vibration to the reminder

Android reliability settings: On Android, reminder delivery depends on several device-level permissions. FitSum shows a "Fix now" prompt on the settings screen for any that are limiting it — battery optimisation exemption, exact-alarm permission (precise timing), Notification Policy Access (so DND detection works), Health Connect background-read (so movement can be read while the app is closed), and the walk-detection (activity recognition) permission. Some manufacturers also aggressively kill background apps; FitSum shows OEM-specific guidance if that applies to your device.

Calibration: When reminders are first enabled, FitSum spends a short period "Learning Your Patterns" to time reminders for when you're most likely to respond. A progress bar shows how far through this it is.

Advanced

Two fine-tuning controls live under Advanced:

• Minimum break duration (1–5 min) — how long a movement must last to count as a break
• Focus mode timeout — lets you delay reminders for a set focus period (set to Never to keep it off)

How workouts interact with Movement Breaks

Your workouts and Movement Breaks are coordinated so you're not double-counted or double-reminded:

• A completed workout counts as a break for the time it covered.
• Overlapping step "micro-activity" is suppressed so those minutes aren't credited again toward Activity Points — the workout takes precedence for that period.

This means you won't be told to "move" for a stretch you already covered with a workout.

The compliance heatmap

The heatmap on the Progress tab shows your sitting history as a grid of hours across days.

• Colour shows the length of each unbroken sitting stretch on an absolute scale: 120+ minutes shows lightest, under 30 minutes shows darkest. A long sit shows at full strength in every hour it touches, not just the hour it started in.
• Tracking and heatmap data are collected even when notifications are turned off.

Faint bars: A detected walk only counts once your step records back it up. Because picking up or carrying your phone can look like walking, a detected walk without steps yet shows as a faint bar instead. Faint bars don't count toward your break numbers or reminders — they turn solid within about an hour once your steps come through, or quietly disappear if no steps are found.

Movement Breaks streak

The streak counts consecutive days on which you met your daily movement target — i.e. you kept your average gap between breaks within your chosen difficulty threshold for the day. A day only counts if it was sufficiently tracked (at least a few hours of your schedule were recorded); a partially-tracked day is skipped rather than breaking the streak, to stop gaming.

If you keep missing the target, try an easier difficulty preset, or adjust your schedule to match when you're actually desk-bound.

Troubleshooting

Reminders aren't arriving

• Carry your phone on you during your active hours — movement is detected on-device
• Check your Active Days and schedule are set correctly in Movement Breaks settings (open them from the Progress → Activity tab)
• Android: tap any "Fix now" prompt on the settings screen — battery optimisation, exact-alarm permission, Health Connect background read, and the walk-detection permission all need to be granted for reliable background reminders
• Confirm Movement reminders is toggled on and notifications are enabled for FitSum in your system settings

I keep getting reminded even though I'm moving

• A detected walk shows as a faint bar until your steps come through (up to ~1 hour). If you're walking but steps haven't synced yet, a reminder may still fire in that window.
• Android: granting Health Connect background read and the walk-detection (activity recognition) permission helps FitSum confirm movement in real time.

My heatmap is blank / mostly grey

• Grey means "not tracked" rather than "active" — FitSum can only colour hours it observed. Leave the app permission to read steps and keep your schedule active on the relevant days.
• A partially-tracked day won't count toward your streak; this is expected.