Tracking steps

[NCW]

There appears to be a shortcpming

[Rich_Laue]

Could we get a little more info @NCW.

Do you have a Fitbit tracker or are you using the mobile track on the Fitbit app. 

[NCW]

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I have a fitbit charge 2 which I use to track my steps.

NW

[Rich_Laue]

Ok @NCW I'm still not sure what the system. There appears a short coming is about? 

[NCW]

How could steps keep accumulating if you are at a standstill or even sitting but simply moving your hands as if in a walking motion? No actual steps being made but steps being accumulated simply based on the motion of the hands.

NW

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[Rich_Laue]

Where is your tracker mounted on? Is it your arm or your leg? 

Is your tracker monitoring leg movements or your arm movements? 

[NCW]

On my wrist where I was advised by fitbit that it be worn. Never heard it worn on leg. Someone who was using anither app told me that the steps were accumulating when they move arm action only. I then decided to check if same was happening with fitbit and it was. Hence I drew it fitbit's attention. Otherwise my fitbit works well. Hence I called it a shortcoming. One day I tested it while driving n the same happened - steps were accumulating based on my arm action only.

NW



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[Rich_Laue]

That is my point. The watch is worn on the arm and looks at the motions of the arm. It is not looking at what the feet are doing. Fitbit has fine tuned their algorithms and looks to see how these algorithms may be improved. The idea is to look for arm motions that occur while the feet are moving. Their will be times when arm motions may register as false steps. There will also be times when the feet are walking but the arms are not moving and steps may be lost. This is one of e drawbacks of having an arm based tracker. 

[NCW]

That's just the point. So you acknowledge that it is a shortcoming. I can sit in front of the TV all day and achieve my target of 250 steps per hour simply by making arm movements.
Instead of being defensive, you need to acknowledge the shortcoming and see how best fitbit can work around/rectify it.
I accept it is not in the user's interest to try and trick the tracker and defeat the true purpose of the tracker- tracking true steps.

NW

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[Rich_Laue]

First that me point out that I'm simply, like you, a user of a Fitbit product. 

My 85 year old mom took one look at the step counter on my arm and said, "How can that work, you do not walk on your arms?". 

What I'm admitting to is knowing a little bit about physics and biology. 

As for sitting  and moving arms. Fitbit will not count any step like movements of less than 5 between pauses. There are also the hand setting ( please play with this) to help eliminate or reduce false steps. Yes because of the way the human body works, last I looked the arm can move independent of the feet, but there are certain movements that the arm usually makes when the feet are stepping. Even the wait mounted trackers pick up extra steps simply by tapping the foot. 

All I'm saying is that every arm based tracker on the market will at times pick up false strips, and at other times miss steps. My tests compared to a waist mounted unit show that they average out, with a few month totals the arm unit came within 200 steps of the clip on the waist unit. 

[NCW]

Nuff said. I'm out



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.