New Fasting Feature!

Hilary

Hi Beta Testers!

We sent you an email indicating we had a new fasting feature almost ready for you to test. Well.... Its here! Update your app to access the fasting feature! It is still a work in progress and there are a couple of existing bugs we are aware of and working on a fix for:
-Deleting one fast in a series edits whole series
-Finishing a fast early edits series

Other than that, please let us know if you find any bugs and if you have any suggestions for anything to make it more usable for you!

Thanks again for any and all feedback! We love you guys!

fallwalker

Tested and working. I was able to setup a 42 hour fast. I like that it displays on the Diary and I can move from fasting to targets just by dragging the display. Only suggestion, would be to see the start and finish date and time on the display. Also, display on the web version.

fallwalker

Additional suggestion: How about an onscreen notification when fast is finished or you are half way through. Example: "Congratulations, you are halfway through your fast!" or "Wow! you have completed a 42 hour fast" I am adding this to requests. :}

wdavidow

Tested the fasting feature and it seems to work if you simply create a fast and start it then and there without modifying anything other than the title and fast length.

However, once I edit the start time (for example: if I started a fast earlier in the day, but forgot to start at that moment in Cronometer) the fasting time window and length of the fast are not accurate.

efrose

It would be great to get a notification when you complete. I ended up adding this watch face to help me. I sometimes forget since I still have to prepare food for my family.

having reminders pop up at intervals would be great.

having the ability to extend the fast would be nice.

Aaron

Just a heads-up, you can also see the fasting stuff on the web version by using beta.cronometer.com instead of cronometer.com

p0wer_lifter

On iOS in the top Currently Fasting window, I’d like to see start and end times as well as duration and elapsed time.

p0wer_lifter

On iOS the top Currently Fasting window continues to display when I navigate days. If I go into next week, I would expect that Currently Fasting would not be counting down - should show that I haven’t yet started the fast on that day . In other words, the top windows are day-specific for all other features, but Currently Fasting is global.

wdavidow

A little more detail on the issue I mentioned earlier (still present in the just-released iOS app, build 3.3.0 (512)):

Steps to reproduce the issue I'm seeing:

1. Go to settings and choose Fasting
2. Create "New Fast"
3. Name the fast and change the duration from 16 to 14 hours (notice that as soon as you click into the name or duration field the start time and end time disappear)
4. Tap "start time" and adjust the start time to some time earlier in the day and click "Add fast"

In doing this, I'm seeing the fasting date has jumped to tomorrow and the time is incorrect. Going in and editing the fast (changing the date back to today and attempting to adjust the start time) results in still-not-correct start and end times/dates.

Vickie

A very minor issue that I don't think warrant a new thread:

On the web app, under the Repeat Fast dropdown, "No Recurrence" has a typo as "No Recurrance".

Hilary

We just noticed that one too @Vickie (So embarrassing ) We are actually going to update it to use the word Repeating in order to keep it more consistent!

efrose

Are there plans for post fast recording/editing and charts?

Thanks!

Hilary

@efrose yes! You should be able to access this now! You can edit fasts on the settings tab, and you can add a fasting overlay on your charts by going to the chart settings

efrose

Must have missed that will go look again.

Hilary

It's good to know you missed it though, as this means it may not be discoverable for other users, and potentially is something we should look into changing. Did anyone else here have trouble finding the charts overlay and the fasting section in settings?

Cuttlebranch

Hi all,
There are a few features my current fasting app, Fasti, has that I would love to see in Cronometer. First - notifications of when to start and end the fast. Second - it starts counting my fasting interval when I tell it to, and then tells me when I've met my goal. I'm not always eating on the same schedule, so having a fixed interval doesn't work well for me. It's nice to be able to have it move along with me. If it's just going to say "fast from X time to Y", then I could replicate that with a regular alarm. And that would have notifications!

Hilary

Thanks for the feedback @Cuttlebranch , yes I think notifications would certainly enhance the experience! I will pass this along to the team. Might not make the cut for the first public release but certainly something we would like to see in future iterations.

Hilary

We are hoping to get fasting out to the public soon! Anyone have any more thoughts since the latest build before we get it out there? (There are a couple of known outstanding bugs that we are still in the process of cleaning up)

janfrey

Hi Hilary, would love to test fasting. Could sign me in. Thanks Jan

Hilary

Hi Jan! Looks like you're signed up and ready to go! Simply download the latest beta build! If you aren't sure shoot me an email at support@cronometer.com with a screenshot of your version number found at the bottom of the settings screen

Mercergirl

So glad to hear about fasting options, but I just updated to 3.3 and don’t see any hint of fasting. Did you pull that at the last minute?

Hilary

Hi @Mercergirl you should have it! Go to settings, then scroll down to the fasting section. If you don't see it, please email me a screenshot of your settings tab, including the version number code listed at the bottom of the screen so that I can look into it further

Mercergirl

Found it. I thought it would be in the “add” menu/links. Looks good. Thanks

Misko

Good job on getting a dedicated fasting feature, been waiting for this for a long time!

Only one request: It would be extremely helpful if there would be a possibility to simply push START to get the fasting counter running and then STOP it when I'm finished fasting.

I do intermittent fasting every day, but even I never "plan" the fasts, I do TRACK them. Currently, I'm tracking them with a dedicated biometric and entering the fasting hours manually every day. This method works fine and allows using the fasting data against the other metrics, but since there now is a dedicated fasting function available, would love to be able to make use of that instead, the counter is excellent

Thanks again for all the hard work, your app has made a big difference in my health.

ndanda

I have it on the website, but not on the phone (Android).

On the site it looks rather unusable. What should be "the name of the fast", really? "Fast"? "Yet another fast"?

I very much prefer the app I'm currently using, Zero (https://zerofasting.com/). It has everything I need. Would be great if you could add a possibility to connect to it!

Hilary

HI @ndanda, thanks for the feedback.
We are hoping that this feature will replace the need for a separate app to be integrated with Cronometer. Could you tell me which features you are finding you are missing most in the Cronometer fasting feature? What would make it more usable for your purposes?

ndanda

@Hilary

Well, first of all, as I said, I still do not have it on my Android phone, only on the website, so I don't know what features it'll have.

To me, there are some crucial points in Zero app.

1) widget (Cronometer Android app doesn't have one at all, which is a serious problem for me),
2) preset fasts, like 16-8, 18-6, 20-4, 24, 36, as well as the ability to make any duration,
3) mood tracking during the fast,
4) ability to change start and end date and time (in case you forgot to click the button),
5) yes, button – one should be able to start and a fast with one click, without typing "name of the fast"
6) statistics page: completed fasts, longest fast, longest streak etc.
7) badges (it motivates me),
8) notifications (halfway done, one hour left, start fasting),
9) widget can count time left, or time fasted.

Right now, too many features are lacking, so I very much prefer the integration. A fasting app without a widget where I can see how much time is left doesn't make any sense to me.

Hilary

thanks @ndanda this is great feedback, and will really help us determine the direction we go with updates to fasting in the next phase!
For now, there are a couple of points you raise for which we have some functionality that may help you reach these goals.

To start a fast with the click of one button, schedule some recurring fasts around the times you think will be most likely to happen. Then simply start the fast whenever works for you! You can edit the duration via the widget on the Cronometer diary page, and you can even edit after the fact in the settings > fasting tab in your fasting history (where you can view all your past fasts as well, as you mention) You can also see your fasting history as an overlay in any of your charts on the trends tab.

The widget on the diary screen also keeps count of where you are at within your fast, or how much time you have until your next fast.

If you are using Cronometer when your scheduled fast ends or starts you will see a popup indicating this. We hope to start using notifications soon, so that you will be able to see this if you like even if you aren't using the app or website at that time.

What version of the cronometer app are you using? If you have fasting enabled in the fasting > settings page you should be able to see your current/scheduled fast timer in the top diary header.

Learn more about the feature in our user manual:
https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036371551
https://cronometer.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360036016612

ndanda

@Hilary I use Cronometer v. 3.2.9, and the lastest update in the Playstore is from Nov, 5. No fasting in the app settings.

Hilary

@ndanda, are you signed up for Beta testing? Fasting is available in version 3.3 and higher. The latest version available for Beta testers is 3.3.1 (541) for android, or if you are ios it will be 3.3.1 (539) If you do not have access to this build please email spencer at beta@cronometer.com

ndanda

I was sure I'm in beta testing, but now I have doubts!