Blaze Distance Measurement is Inaccurate

[MuzDownUnder]

I have been testing the Blaze vs the Surge on my last two walks. The Blaze is not reading distance correctly using Connected GPS. Here are the detailed results from the last quite slow walk.

Unit              Blaze    Surge           Notes

Time             41:50    41:42.22      I pressed the two starts and stops within 0.5 sec

Dist               2.59km 2.20km        The 2.20 is accurate - on both walks the Flaze was well over

Avg Pace      16'07"   18'55"          The surge is closer

Hrt Avg          86         80

Steps             2953     2920            The surge step counting is a little erratic

Elevation       36.57    36.57

My phone is a Samsung S5 running Android 5.0

[bcalvanese]

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@tjsplace21 wrote:
So far my garmin is working fine and the fit bit on other wrist which I have been using for about 2 months still not accurate. Garmin only 3 weeks old and fine

TJ

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i am gald your Garmin is working for you, and I do like their products from a hardware stand point, and I updated my fenix3 every time a new firmware update came out hoping that issues would get resolved, because I wanted to love the device. Each and every time there was one bug after another. Then the servers would go down again rendering the device pretty much useless. Things that worked fine would just start not working right all of a sudden. Very inconsistant data doing the same workouts.

GPS was never an issue with my Garmin devices, but when I weigh all the other issues I had and compare it to the few issues with the fitbits (that I am sure will be resolved), and the fitbit app and community being leaps and bounds ahead of any other devices, its a no brainer.

[JohnRi]

Thanks to Fitbit support they replaced my Surge XL with a Surge L.  After losing weight, my Surge no longer fit.  I had bought a Blaze when that happened, but really was not happy with the GPS accuracy. So after finding out they would swap out my Surge, I went back to the Surge yesterday.  Take a look at the these pics.

First the is my first walk using my "new" Surge yesterday.

Notice nice consistent pace times.  Now look at my last walk using the Blaze.

Notice the pace times are all over the place.  Now let's look closer at the Surge GPS tracking.

Notice the nice smooth GPS tracking.  Now compare this to my walk the day before with my Blaze.

Crap that looks terrible.  Clearly the Blaze and my iphone are not as accurate, and not updating as frequently as the Surge.  Also notice the split locations for mile 1, 2 and 3 are completely different than on the Surge.

Clearly the Blaze for me is short, and off on distances and pace times.

[bbarrera]

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Crap that looks terrible.  Clearly the Blaze and my iphone are not as accurate, and not updating as frequently as the Surge.  Also notice the split locations for mile 1, 2 and 3 are completely different than on the Surge.

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It is a problem with Blaze "Connected GPS" and not your phone -- too many people reporting the problem on different phones (iPhone, Samsung, etc) and different exercises (walking, running, cycling).

On bike rides I've been comparing apps on my iPhone (e.g. RideWithGPS, Strava) to GPS bike computers and also to "connected GPS" on my Apple Watch. I've been doing this for over 6 months -- on every ride recording using phone app *and* bike computer *and* AW -- and there have been zero accuracy problems in over 2500 miles (averaging around 100 miles a week, or 3-4 rides per week). For example on Sunday's 47.3 mile bike ride all three agree within 0.1 miles (more than 99.5% agreement), and on Monday's 37.3 mile ride all three agree within 0.1 miles (again more than 99.5% agreement).

Unfortunately, like so many others, I am unable to get the same accuracy with Blaze's connected GPS. This issue was reported after Blaze started shipping, and is still an issue. Its been months so hoping it get fixed soon.

[bcalvanese]

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@JohnRi wrote:

Thanks to Fitbit support they replaced my Surge XL with a Surge L.  After losing weight, my Surge no longer fit.  I had bought a Blaze when that happened, but really was not happy with the GPS accuracy. So after finding out they would swap out my Surge, I went back to the Surge yesterday.  Take a look at the these pics.

First the is my first walk using my "new" Surge yesterday.

Notice nice consistent pace times.  Now look at my last walk using the Blaze.

Notice the pace times are all over the place.  Now let's look closer at the Surge GPS tracking.

Notice the nice smooth GPS tracking.  Now compare this to my walk the day before with my Blaze.

Crap that looks terrible.  Clearly the Blaze and my iphone are not as accurate, and not updating as frequently as the Surge.  Also notice the split locations for mile 1, 2 and 3 are completely different than on the Surge.

Clearly the Blaze for me is short, and off on distances and pace times.

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Thank you for posting this.

Since I just got my Blaze a week ago, i just returned it for the Surge.

I think the Surge is a little more accurate with the heart rate monitor as well as having better battery life.

[Corvettekid]

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Just got off chat with FitBit Support....they are aware of the technical glitch involving distance and steps and their tech people are working on it.

Distance is apparently calculated based on default or inputed Stride Settings....Distance is NOT GPS-calculated on the Blaze.....thus, based on my stride length I figured that a mile should be 2,400 steps (2.2 feet = stride length) and indeed it is showing up like that.....BUT....I have to OVERWALK to measure 1 mile which means if you actually walk 1 mile the Blaze reads it as about 0.75 miles which means 2,000 steps instead of 2,400.

I noticed because I was walking the same distance/time and getting fewer steps.

[MuzDownUnder]

@Corvettekid Well done getting Fitbit to admit that. I have been trying for months to get this resolved and have got tired of continually getting canned replies and always talking to different people who never know the history.

My own testing has concluded that the "connected GPS" doesn't actually use the GPS at all and in fact uses the cellnet towers as locators. You can test this but setting the phone to use GPS only and then it will not work at all. My distance error is actually over measuring by 10% so I will get 2.1km when I walk 1.8km.

The step length thing is wrong too. I set mine to 'Bike', took it for a drive to the shops with 0 steps and got exactly the same +10% error.

Fitbit have known about this for months but still have not fixed it. I am starting to think this may not happen as they are more concerned with upgrades that increase sales like the Chinese language support in the last update.

[trevorms]

Very encouraging that Fitbit have acknowledged that there is an issue with the Blaze's connected GPS and distance estimation.  I'll now keep my Blaze and hope there is a firmware upgrade soon to fix these issues.

It would be nice if the Fitbit engineers would post this sort of feedback sooner rather than later...happy that they are working on the issue though 

[jwebb72]

@Corvettekid Support is giving out wrong info. Check out this from a different thread in the Blaze forum. EmersonFitbit moderator knows his stuff. @EmersonFitbit could we get an update on how Blaze calculates distance when using Connected GPS? There is some confusion, not sure if its a) steps x stride, or b) GPS distance. Thanks in advance. Sure thing, @bbarrera! Like with MobileRun, Connected GPS will use your phone's GPS capabilities to determine distance. If you're running an exercise without GPS, steps/stride length. If you're using a tracker with GPS and start moving before you get a GPS signal, the tracker will use steps and stride length as described above to calculate the distance you travel until a GPS signal is found. Relevant help article.

[Corvettekid]

Jwebb, no that jibes with what FitBit Support told me.  If you have your phone and GPS is activated, FitBit apparently (???) uses that to calculate distance.   Otherwise, it uses Stride to calculate distance -- which is weird because I manully inputed my stride (2.2 feet or 67.1 cm) and it should then say "1 Mile" after 2,400 steps.  

But I'm having to walk a LONGER distance to get that "1 Mile" and 2,400 steps.  I am walking closer to 1.25 miles and 3,000 steps.  Hence, the shortchanging on Steps.

So in the abscence of GPS, it appears that the Blaze is using something to calculate Distance but it is NOT my stride length because if it did it would be 2,400 or so on the button.

I will do a longer walk tonight using my Garmin eTrex, Galaxy S4, and Blaze and report back.

[trevorms]

After experiancing these connected GPS distance issues, I wanted to see what the accuracy of my Blaze was if I did not use connected GPS.  Last night I repeated a walk I did the night before, but this time I set "Use Phone GPS" to OFF.

I did 8806 steps on this walk and Fitbit reported I did 6620m...this is right on the money!!  My Blaze therefore used the stride length I had set.

However in the web Dashboard, and the Android app, there is obviously no track recorded for this walk and no pace (time/km) calculations.  It would be nice if Fitbit could add pace calculations to the exercise data even when connected GPS is not used...this should be simple enough to add.

[tjsplace21]

I really liked the blaze but was running out of time for returning it. Garmin doesn't sync up with my Motorola headset with Pandora only Apple Music. Oh well. I hope I don't have the issues u had, only had this about a month now.

TJ

[tjsplace21]

Does anyone know y my walking buddy and I have different pace times using map my walk when we start and finish the same time. Sometimes it's a 30 sec difference but times on Garmin and the 2 phones r the same, pace is just different

TJ

[trevorms]

I have just been contacted by Fitbit support regarding the distance inacuracies I have had with connected GPS.  They said I need a compatible phone to use connected GPS.  My Blaze connects to my phone via Bluetooth, my phone starts up the GPS (via the Fitbit app), and my Blaze reports green bars on the Lets Go screen before I start my walk...I expect that this means I have a compatible phone or does it????

Does anyone here know of a list of compatible phones designed to work with the Blaze?  I have never come across one.

[SunsetRunner]

@trevorms check out this page https://www.fitbit.com/uk/devices

[Royboy50]

Me neither. His watch is a dud! No good for using it to track your bike ride or activity accurately.

If it can't work with an iPhone or Samsung then what does it work with ?

Moderator edit: personal info removed

[Rich_Laue]

@tjsplace21 about MMW amd your walking buddy,  are you saying that using the connected GPS different from MMW. First thought is they use different software. Second looking at the traked maps might shed some light. I would try again without MMW running on the phone the Blaze is connected to, there could be a conflict.

[JoePC]

Yes, mine is usually short, and it varies. The place I walk/run is a half-mile track, and I do 3 miles. This past Wednesday I did 3 miles as usual and it showed 2.70 miles. Today, when I reached the 3 miles the Blaze showed that I had only done 2.54 miles, so I walked one more half mile lap and it finally showed 3.01 miles, when I had actually walked 3.5. It's very frustrating because there is no way it can give you an accurate pace if it gets the distance wrong. Oh, the phone I'm synching to is a Galaxy S7 Edge.

[jwebb72]

@JoePC the inaccuracy your seeing is due to the fact your phone is not compatible with the Fitbit app. Let's hope they start making more android devices 100% compatible in the near future.

[Royboy50]

ATTENTION FITBIT.

CLEARLY YOU HAVE AN ACCURACY/GPS PROBLEM WITH YOUR PRODUCT AND THIS FORUM HAS PROVEN IT.

THE QUESTION IS PLEASE BE SO KIND AS TO TELL US WHAT YOU GOING TO DO TO FIX IT?

[MuzDownUnder]

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@jwebb72 wrote:
@JoePC the inaccuracy your seeing is due to the fact your phone is not compatible with the Fitbit app. Let's hope they start making more android devices 100% compatible in the near future.

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@jwebb72 I have had this exact distance error on a Samsung S5 running Android 4.3, a Samsung S5 running Android 5.0 and a Samsung S7 running Android 6.0.

That must cover a large percentage of the Fitbit users and most of the android users.

@Royboy50 Shouting at Fitbit will not achieve anything. Also reasoning with them, offering to help by testing etc, or asking them to even admit there is a problem will not achieve anything either. It's not very good PR on Fitbit's part but the 'stone wall' system seems to be the way they want to operate.