Vitality Today

I use Vitality Today to upload my activity stats to Activity, which makes earning points very easy since it integrates with Apple Health, which automatically collects activity data from my phone, Apple Watch, etc. I also love the ability to quickly track my Vitality points and when I’m ready to spend the points, it also makes that easy. It’s also easy to use the app for earning points from gym visits and participating in events like races. Lastly I like the ability to select and track personal pathways through the app. Overall I’m very pleased with the app and highly recommend it to anyone that’s a Vitality user.

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Overall a decent app, but the sleep function only works about half the time. Only about half the days of successful 8-hour nights actually stick and get recorded on the 30-day cycle. Another way the app could be improved is by adding more options to the activity submission form. For example, the only workout submission option there is is “gym workout,” which is 10 points. I take a High Intensity Interval Training class twice every week, which should get me more points than a “standard workout,” but there’s no way to submit higher-intensity gym activities/classes, so I’m missing out on hundreds of points just because I don’t have a wrist activity tracker that tracks my heart rate during those classes and would likely result in at least getting some credit for the high-intensity HIIT classes and circuit training I do several times per week. Another good addition to that form would be dance/movement classes. That is just as intense a workout as anything else, if not more intense, and should be something that can be given credit for.

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The app works great for monitoring your vitality points and checking up on reaching your company’s point goals. The UI can use some serious updating but navigation is satisfactory at best. However that’s where the advantages of the app end. A huge negative is having to allow the app to ALWAYS track your location. In order to be able to log your gym workouts to qualify for gym membership reimbursement the app requires that it is given permission to monitor your location 24/7. This is an invasion of privacy. Allowing the app to monitor my location “while using the app” would get this app another 4 stars. There is no logical reason why this app has to has 24/7 access to your location. Another problem with the app is poorly timed maintenance outages. I have arrived at the gym after work multiple times now only to have the app be unavailable due to “app maintenance.” I understand that all apps need maintenance but this can definitely be timed better. Scheduling maintenance during peak workout hours is an armature move. Maintenance should be scheduled over night during non peak workout hours.

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Almost every month I notice that the app didn’t log my steps for 5 or 6 random days even though I am connected to Bluetooth and log in to The app regularly. Then I have to comb through the missing days and do screen shots of my steps in the health app and send them to vitality in order to get credit. If I don’t do it in time, apparently their app not connecting properly is my problem, not theirs. It causes me to have to make payments on my Apple Watch when I had enough steps to get that month totally covered. I can see it happening once, but it’s happened 12 times in 23 months so far. It’s quite annoying, and not about the money really. The 5 or 10 dollars I end up paying is not worth the time it takes fix their issue, but it’s the principal. Vitality is not honoring their contract to me. If it worked smoothly, this would be a great motivating app.

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I’ve been happy using this app as a quick way to access Vitality. The “gym visits” feature is also my preferred way to track gym visits (especially since my employer offers a rebate) - it’s convenient, and simple to use... until it stopped working. It seems that with the latest updates (whether to iOS 11 or the latest app updates, I’m not sure), whenever my phone goes to sleep, it stops tracking the workout. When I access the app, it asks me to select a gym, rather than showing the completed (or countdown) screen. This is new, extremely frustrating behavior, and something that I hope can be fixed very soon!