Personal Challenges FAQ
Personal Challenges are goals you work toward on your own. Reach the goal before the challenge ends and you’ll earn a badge for your profile.
How Personal Challenges work
You’ll find available Personal Challenges on the Challenges tab. Each challenge has its own goal and dates, and you can join any time before it ends.
There’s no leaderboard. Everyone who reaches the goal earns the badge.
| Challenge | What counts | Do you need to record a workout? |
|---|---|---|
| Steps | Every step your tracker counts | No |
| Active Minutes | Active minutes from your connected fitness account | No |
| Walk | Distance from walks you record | Yes |
| Run | Distance from runs you record | Yes |
| Ride | Distance from bike rides you record | Yes |
| Zoomies | Distance from walks, runs, and rides your dog joined you on | Yes, and your dog needs a FitBark |
The challenge name shows the goal, for example October Run: 50 km. For distance challenges, StepSmash also shows the goal in miles.
For more about active minutes, see How Active Minutes Work in StepSmash.
Joining a challenge
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Open the Challenges tab.
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Under Join a Challenge, tap the challenge you want.
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Tap Join Challenge.
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For Zoomies, if you have more than one dog, choose the dog doing the challenge with you.
You can join any time before the challenge ends. Activity you’ve already completed since the challenge began will still count, so there’s no penalty for joining late.
If you’ve already reached the goal when you join, you’ll earn the badge right away.
Free accounts and StepSmash+
Free accounts can take part in one Personal Challenge at a time. StepSmash+ members can join as many as they like.
Your challenge still counts toward that limit after you reach the goal and remains active until it ends. Once it does, you can join another available challenge.
Leaving a challenge
You can’t leave a Personal Challenge after joining it. If you’re using a free account, make sure you’ve picked the challenge you want before tapping Join Challenge.
What counts toward your goal
Activity counts from the beginning of the challenge through the end of its final day, using the time zone your challenge is set to.
Steps and active minutes
Steps and active minutes sync from your connected fitness account. You don’t need to start a workout for them to count.
Anything your tracker records during the challenge dates can contribute to your goal.
Walk, Run, and Ride
Distance challenges use recorded workouts.
Before heading out, start a walk, run, or ride on your watch or fitness app and save it when you’re finished. Distance recorded throughout the day without a workout doesn’t count toward these challenges.
For a workout to count:
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The workout type needs to match the challenge. Hikes count as walks.
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Indoor workouts such as treadmill runs, indoor walks, stationary bikes, and virtual rides don’t count.
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The workout needs to start before the challenge ends. If you start before midnight on the final day and finish afterward, the whole workout still counts.
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It needs to meet the requirements for your fitness platform listed under Workout requirements by fitness platform.
Some fitness platforms also require GPS or route information for a workout to count.
When GPS route information is available, StepSmash uses it to determine your workout distance. Because of that, the distance shown in StepSmash may be a little different from the number on your watch.
If there’s no route available, StepSmash uses the distance provided by your fitness platform. Workouts without either a route or a saved distance can’t count.
If StepSmash receives the same workout more than once, it will only count it once.
A workout can also count toward more than one challenge. For example, a walk with your dog can count toward both Walk and Zoomies, while the steps from that same walk still count toward a Steps challenge.
See which workouts counted
Open the challenge and scroll to Your Activities.
You’ll see each workout that counted, along with the distance added to your challenge. If a workout isn’t there, check My walk, run, or ride didn’t count below.
Workout requirements by fitness platform
Fitness platforms don’t all share workouts in quite the same way, so the requirements depend a little on which one you use.
| Platform | Workouts that count | Workouts that don’t count |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Health | Walks, runs, and rides saved as workouts | Workouts you add manually in the Health app |
| Samsung Health | Recorded workouts with a GPS route | Workouts without a GPS route |
| Health Connect | Workouts you start yourself, plus other workouts that include a GPS route | Automatically detected or manually added workouts without a GPS route |
| Garmin Connect | Activities recorded with GPS | Activities without GPS |
| Google Health | Workouts recorded with GPS | Workouts without GPS |
| Oura | Workouts you start in the Oura app | Automatically detected activities and workouts added manually |
Apple Health
Walks, runs, and rides can count whether they’re recorded by your Apple Watch, your iPhone, or another app that saves workouts to Apple Health.
Workouts you add manually in the Health app don’t count.
If StepSmash can access the workout’s route, it uses the GPS route for distance. Otherwise, it uses the distance saved with the workout.
If you connected Apple Health before Personal Challenges were available, StepSmash may ask for additional workout access. Tap Allow Access and approve the request.
To check your permissions later:
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Open the Health app and tap your picture in the top right.
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Under Privacy, tap Apps, then StepSmash.
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Make sure Workouts is enabled. We also recommend enabling Workout Routes so StepSmash can use your GPS route.
Need help recording a workout? See Apple’s instructions for starting a workout on Apple Watch or starting a workout on iPhone.
Samsung Health
Samsung Health workouts need a GPS route to count, including workouts recorded on a Galaxy Watch.
If StepSmash asks for workout access, tap Allow Access and approve both exercise and exercise location.
Without location access, StepSmash may receive the workout but not its route, which means it can’t count toward a distance challenge.
You can check your access in Samsung Health under Settings → Apps → StepSmash.
Samsung has instructions for recording exercise with GPS on a Galaxy Watch.
Health Connect
Workouts you start yourself in your fitness app can count even if they don’t include a route.
Automatically detected or manually added workouts need a GPS route that StepSmash can access.
If StepSmash asks for workout access, tap Allow Access and approve the request.
Health Connect may also ask you to approve access to an individual workout’s route. When that’s needed, the workout will appear under Your Activities with the message:
Share this workout’s route to count it toward your challenge.
Tap Show route and approve the request.
Health Connect doesn’t record workouts itself. Your workouts come from the fitness apps you connect to it, so follow the workout tracking instructions for the app or device you use to record them. You can learn more about how apps share data through Health Connect.
Garmin Connect
Garmin activities need GPS to count.
StepSmash also needs permission to read your Garmin activities. You choose this when connecting Garmin.
To check it later, open Garmin Connect and go to Settings → Connected Apps.
How you start an activity varies by Garmin device. See Garmin Support for instructions for your device.
Google Health
Google Health workouts need GPS to count, and StepSmash needs permission to access the workout’s location information.
If you connected Google Health before Personal Challenges were available, StepSmash may tell you that a permission is missing.
To update it:
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Go to Settings → Fitness Accounts.
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Tap Update Permissions.
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Sign in with Google and approve the location permission.
Google has instructions for recording workouts with GPS using Google Health, Fitbit devices, and Pixel Watch.
Oura
For distance challenges, only workouts you start in the Oura app count, and the workout needs to include a distance.
Activities Oura detects automatically and workouts you add manually don’t count toward distance challenges.
If StepSmash says Oura is missing a permission, go to Settings → Fitness Accounts, tap Update Permissions, and approve workout access.
See Oura’s instructions for recording a workout in the Oura app.
Fitbit
The older Fitbit connection doesn’t provide workouts to StepSmash, so it can’t be used for Walk, Run, Ride, or Zoomies challenges.
If you still use the Fitbit connection, you can switch to Google Health for workout-based challenges. See the Google Health Integration FAQ for more information.
Zoomies, the dog challenge
Zoomies is a shared distance goal for you and your dog.
To join, your dog needs a FitBark connected to StepSmash. FitBark integration requires StepSmash+.
If you have more than one dog, you’ll choose which dog is doing the challenge with you when you join. Only workouts with that dog can count.
How StepSmash knows your dog came along
After your dog’s FitBark syncs, StepSmash looks at your dog’s activity during the workout.
If your dog covered at least half of your workout distance, the workout counts toward Zoomies.
The workout also needs to meet the normal requirements for a Walk, Run, or Ride challenge and be at least 5 minutes long.
FitBark syncs over Bluetooth when your dog is near your phone. If your dog’s activity hasn’t synced yet, StepSmash may remind you to open FitBark and sync.
Once new FitBark data arrives, StepSmash checks the workout again. Because of that, a walk may show up in your regular Walk challenge before it appears in Zoomies.
For more help setting up or syncing FitBark, see the FitBark Integration FAQ.
Progress, deadlines, and badges
Tracking your progress
The challenge screen shows how much progress you’ve made, your goal, and how much time is left.
The Expected by today marker gives you an idea of where you’d be if you spread the goal evenly across the challenge.
StepSmash can notify you when:
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A workout adds progress to one or more challenges.
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You fall behind pace. We’ll send this at most once a day, around noon, and won’t send it again unless you catch up and later fall behind.
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You reach the goal and earn your badge.
When a challenge ends
A challenge ends at midnight after its final day. Activity after that doesn’t count.
If activity from before the deadline takes a little while to sync, StepSmash gives it up to 12 hours to arrive. After that, late activity can’t earn the badge.
If your watch or tracker hasn’t synced recently, it’s a good idea to open its app and sync before the challenge ends.
Time zones
Your challenge uses the time zone you were in when you joined.
If you travel later, the challenge’s start and end times don’t move with you.
Badges
You’ll earn your badge as soon as your synced progress reaches the goal. You don’t need to wait for the challenge to end.
Your earned badges appear on your profile. To share one, open the completed challenge from the Challenges tab and tap Share Your Badge.
Once you’ve earned a badge, it’s yours. If your progress changes later, such as after deleting a workout, you won’t lose it.
Troubleshooting
My walk, run, or ride didn’t count
Start by opening the challenge and looking under Your Activities. If the workout is listed there, it counted.
If it isn’t:
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Open your watch or fitness app and make sure the workout has synced, then open StepSmash to sync your latest activity.
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Check that the workout type matches the challenge. A run counts toward Run, while a walk counts toward Walk.
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Make sure it wasn’t an indoor workout.
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Check the GPS, route, and other requirements for your fitness platform under Workout requirements by fitness platform.
My treadmill run or indoor ride didn’t count
Indoor workouts don’t count toward Walk, Run, Ride, or Zoomies.
Your steps from a treadmill can still count toward a Steps challenge.
The distance in StepSmash is different from my watch
When a workout includes a GPS route, StepSmash uses that route to calculate distance.
That can produce a slightly different number from the distance shown by your watch or fitness app.
My progress went down
Your progress can occasionally change if you delete a workout, your fitness platform updates previously synced activity, or StepSmash discovers that the same workout was synced more than once.
Any badges you’ve already earned will stay on your profile.
I can’t join another challenge
Free accounts can take part in one Personal Challenge at a time.
Once your current challenge ends, you’ll be able to join another available challenge. StepSmash+ members don’t have this limit.
My walk with my dog didn’t count toward Zoomies
A few things to check:
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The workout first needs to qualify as a Walk, Run, or Ride.
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Your dog’s FitBark needs to sync after the workout. Open the FitBark app if you’re still waiting for it.
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Only the dog you selected when joining the challenge can count.
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Your dog needs to cover at least half of the workout distance.
If your dog stayed home or rode along for most of the trip, the workout won’t count toward Zoomies.
My steps or active minutes look wrong
Steps and active minutes come from your connected fitness platform. For platform-specific help, see:
Still need help?
Post in Support and include:
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Which fitness platform you use
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The challenge name
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The date and start time of any workout that didn’t count
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A screenshot of the workout in your fitness app