Elliptical instead of walking shows on activity log, why?

[KRL50]

My Fitbit alta has logged my last two walks as elliptical instead of walking, why?

[Mcore]

Welcome to the community @KRL50! I believe that this is happening because of the similar arm movement you do and your tracker registers your walks as elliptical. Do you have the same estimated autodetect time for both activities on your Device settings page? If you do, have you tried changing the time, lets say to 20 minutes, for the elliptical exercise? I encourage you to give this a try.

Looking forward to your reply.

Moderator edit: link updated 

[TGSTEPPER]

I am also having the same issue - not clear where I amend the activities can you provide help?

[LucyAP]

Thanks for taking a break from stepping to visit the Community @TGSTEPPER! To do this changes please follow this steps: 

1. Log into your fitbit.com dashboard and click the gear icon in the top right corner.
2. Click Settings > Devices. If you have more than one tracker, choose the one that supports SmartTrack.
3. Find and change the option for SmartTrack minimum duration. 

I hope this gets you back on track. Keep me posted! 🙂 

[LoriKO]

Two issues:

1. I have had my Fitbit Alta since September 8. First charged it on Septermber 9 and the battery lasted 7 days. Next time I charge it, battery lasted 5 days, now this time 4 days. I'm charging it from my PC. What's going on?

2. My daily exercise is typically a 5 mile walk. My alta tracks part of the walk as steps and part as eliptical. Why does it not track as all steps? Please don;t tell me it's my arm movement!

[Tornadoparis]

Alta is not recognizing my exercises everything I do is either walking or running
I do 45 min on elliptical moving the handles and it shows walking ! The same with weights or outside cycling! That was the only reason I switched from my previous tracker . Comments? Solution?

Moderator edit: format

[LoriKO]

Hi! I'd really appreciate an answer!

[AprilAS]

I have the same issue. My 5-6 mile walk registers as elliptical. But it does seem that the distance, steps and active time are accurate. Today I tried not swinging my arms and it registered the entire walk as elliptical. Doesn't seem to be an answer. I have the Fitbit Surge

[Tina40]

Thanks so much for the info. Never thought to try that. We will see if it works!

[move2improve]

Mine usually registers my walks as elliptical.  I never do elliptical so I went into settings and turned off auto recognize for that activity.  Update:  Now it doesn't  auto-track my walks as exercise, so I won't make my goal.  Fitbit needs to fix this.  It seems to be a problem for many people.

[Ahasinger]

I have exactly the same problem - now it doesn't track my walk at all and I do between 5-7 miles of walking a day. I even got a new Charge 2 to see if it was just a defective device. Fitbit customer service has not been helpful. 

[LoriKO]

It tracks my walks just not properly. I walk a solid 5 miles which should equate to 10K STEPS. It at most it logs 5k steps! Frustrating!

Sent from my iPhone

[Ahasinger]

Honestly - what is the point of a step tracker when it can't track simple walking!!! So annoying!!

[Tobysgranny]

Hi, I have only had my fitbit for a couple of weeks and yesterday the same thing happened to me, all I did differently on the 'elliptical' walk was that I used my walking poles...perhaps that was why the arm position was different and recorded elliptical?

[Suziesue64]

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@KRL50 wrote:
My Fitbit alta has logged my last two walks as elliptical instead of walking, why?

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[TJ_Oreo]

Hi!  The same this is happening with me, so changing the auto detect times fixes this issue?  Is it better to "ignore" one activity or the other?  Also, is there a reason people are so annoyed by this happening?  Does elliptical exercising track less steps than walking?  Is there a way to convert an exercise after it's tracked?  THANK YOU!

[jbaemom]

I had the same thing happen with my charge 2. And I've got my phone with me too. Shouldn't it detect that I walked over a mile and realize I can't take an elliptical machine with me? 

[Imaredhead946]

Twice, my Alta HR has recorded my step activity as elliptical. I know for a fact it will count steps just from swinging my arms back and forth because I sometimes march or step in place while watching the step counter increase with every swinging movement. BTW, marching or stepping in place is way more difficult and takes more energy than regular walking. Anyway, the 2 times it recorded me as being on an elliptical, my heart rate was much higher than usual (in cardio zone) vs. heart rate while taking normal steps or walking. I was swinging my arms more fiercely to try to get a good cardio workout from it. I am not sure how my fitbit is supposed to detect and record but based on my recent experience and experiment, if you swing your arms and get your heart rate pumping higher than usual, it will record step count and elliptical activity simultaneously.  

This does make me question though if it's correctly recording my steps at the grocery store since I can't swing my arms and push my shopping cart simultaneously? Who knows.  Nothing's perfect but at least having some sort of record of activity is better than none and it did seem to accurately record heart rate when I compared it to a medical device which is great for me since I'm trying to be heart healthier.

[Kirsti1]

Me too - at first if was only occasionally - now it is constantly - it does not recognise walks at all.

It also records my heart rate at a level - to low, for me to be doing exercise at all!

It lists times in zones as 0.

 I think it's broken.

[susietruett]

Has this issue ever been addressed? Here we are almost 4 years later and my Fitbit Versa 2 is doing the exact same thing. I had NO issues for a month and then all of a sudden, it started recording my walks as elliptical. 😩 I turned elliptical auto detect off and now it doesn’t record any of my walks! So frustrating! Did anybody find a solution to this?🤷‍:female_sign: