Blaze - Distance Incorrect

[alex.harvey]

Hi There,

I've had a Blaze for the pas 2 months or so and use it everyday and love it!

The only issue is with the distance when running - I use it inconjunction with my phone and the fitbit app when running but the distance is never correct.

I have a particular 6km loop I run but it only logs 5km for example. I did a different 5km loop but it only recorded 4km and when I completed a 9km run it logged it as 15km!

Any ideas on how to sort this out? I have the stride setting set up as automatic.

Cheers

Alex 🙂

[Rich_Laue]

@alex.harvey I'm not sure the best way to sort this. If your starting the Blaze with connected Gps or run mode, with mobile run through the app the the stride will have no affect. Fitbit uses the GPS to record the distance..
If your able to post screen shots of the tracks recorded it would be helpfull.
Now if your not using gps then indeed the stride will have a big affect.

[alex.harvey]

Cheers Rich,

Its really strange I use the phone and watch together when running but it
seems like the GPS is not accurate.
I haven't got any screenshots I'm sorry.
I am quite short 157cms so maybe that is skewing the results?

On my Nike Run app its 100% accurate so its super frustrating as I
researched quite a few watches before deciding on the Blaze.

[alex.harvey]

Cheers Rich,

Its really strange I use the phone and watch together when running but it seems like the GPS is not accurate.

I haven't got any screenshots I'm sorry.

I am quite short 157cms so maybe that is skewing the results?

On my Nike Run app its 100% accurate so its super frustrating as I researched quite a few watches before deciding on the Blaze.

[Rich_Laue]

Here is a map of the unionbeach5k from saturday. I forgot to turn it off at the finish line, but the distance seems to be right at the certified 3.2 miles.. The Blue line is close to the finish which was at the intersection to the right. I was using the run mode and not the walk. 

[JossP]

Hi have you managed to make any progress with this? I ran a 10km today, my nike watch says 9.96km and the blaze recorded 11.51km! That's 1.55km difference. It affects pace and all the other metrics too. Very frustrating.

[alex.harvey]

Hi there,

No I still haven't been able to fix this. I've tried escalating to fitbit directly too and they were pretty useless if I'm honest. Told me to update my firmware (which was already up to date) and that was it. Pretty frustrating!

[rgajada]

Hi @alex.harvey, Yes, you are correct Balze is showing 10% than the actual distance. I am still waiting response from Fitbit Techo...

also find and read the thread below... 

Re: Inconsistent and Inaccurate Blaze

[JossP]

My response from fitbit:

Thanks for the screenshots! This is a known issue and our site team is working to correct it. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope to have things back to normal very soon.

Response back to them:

Well its good to know they are working on it, but it seems astonishing to me that these devices could go on sale with such glaring bug, with our only hope of recourse "wait and see". Is there a turn around time? In the meantime we are stuck with rubbish metrics. That is simply unacceptable.

Final Response:

Thanks for the reply. At this time there's no estimated time on the fix, however our engineering team is doing their utmost best in resolving the issue as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience and understanding on this.

It looks like we will just have to hold thumbs and hope for the best

[Giampi71]

JossP, 

I had miracle deactivating the Run Cues (from the gear icon in the Blaze before starting the run). In my tests I had the distance measured with an accuracy of 10 meters (on sessions around 12-13 km long) if compared with Runtastic running in the same smartphone at the same time.

You might want to try and report back?

Thanks

[JossP]

Giampi71 , thanks for the info, just checked, mine are already off. Had a small spark of hope there for a second. Maybe I will try turn them on and see what happens. Although I doubt anything.

[Giampi71]

This weekend I will give another try. In another topic I saw that good results have been achieved keeping the Blaze running session active for a while before to push the start button *but it looks strange to me*

[JossP]

Thanks for the info, although as you say that does sound strange. I will give it a go on my next run and see what happens. Please keep us updated on your experiments.

[Giampi71]

Hello, 

as anticipated last Sunday I went for a run and had a test with the following configuration

- Fitbit Blaze with cues off and long time (around 15 minutes) with GPS connected before starting the run 

- Polar m600

- Zombies Run app on the very same Android device (Nexus 5x) connected to the Blaze

These are the results
- Fitbit: 10.14 km in 59'47"

- Polar: 10.55 km in 95'51"

- Zombies Run: : 10.11km in 59'59"

Of course the different times are due to the different start and stop instants I press the buttons.

It seems that the Fitbit is really precise (it shall be noted that the difference of 500 meters between Polar and others have been constant all along the session so I think it is an initial GPS fix error of the Polar at the start of the session).

I will test again.

EDIT: typo errors

[Rich_Laue]

If I'm looking at your decimal point correctly, the polar is 410meters more than the Fitbit and 440more than the Zombie. 

[Giampi71]

Yes, you're right, I had a typo, I meant 500 meters got initially. Frankly speaking the Polar has been a real disappointment. Hopefully the update to AW 2.0 will make miracles.

[JossP]

Hi. what do you mean by "and log time (around 15 minutes) with GPS connected"? I ran again today and it was waaaay off, almost a km ahead.

[Giampi71]

I've connected the Blaze to the smartphone GPS and had it fixed to the position for at least 15 minutes before starting my running session.

Apparently the combination of cues off and long GPS time fix is providing good results to my Blaze. I will try with a walk tomorrow.

[JossP]

OK thanks, I will give that a try on Thursday when I got for my next run. Thanks for the advice. Will update you when I have done so.

[Giampi71]

No problem, we are on the same boat. I'm still puzzled why it doesn`t work out of the box and why FitBit is not able to have it fixit!