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

[tjsplace21]

I sent mine back and got a Harmon vivoactive and it's not accurate. At least compared to map my walk, maybe it's my map my walk that's off

TJ

[jaynana]

I'm back with Strava - absolutely accurate.
--
Sent from my iPhone

[celticmoose]

My wife and I went for a run last night, she has a Charge 2, I have a Blaze, both connected GPS.  I ended up with 2.89 miles, she ended up with 3.01.  I "mapped" it afterwards on onthegomap.com and it shows about 3.06.  So my wife is pretty close, acceptable range.  Mine is pushing past the 5% variance, which is unacceptable to me.  

Would would explain the difference between hers and mine, if we ran the exact same route using connected GPS??

[SunsetRunner]

Why doesn't fitbit adress this issue? Why is there no product expert on this forum who can answer the questions? Or is it just because they know of this problem and can not or will not fix it?

The reply about losing connection and accuracy deviations in gps devices is not correct because strava on my phone gives me almost exact the distances of google maps... Only my fitbit blaze is off by an unacceptable amount of 20%... 

I have my fitbit for almost a year now. I was very pleased with it, made incredible progress in running in almost no time. Now I know why. I went running with my girlfriend today for the first time, and my fitbit blaze overestimated the run by 2 entire kilometers on a run of 10km.... she had 10km on her strava, I had 12 on my fitbit...

This bums me out a lot... 

[Mczech]

I dont want mine anymore either....  too bad I cant even resell it, as it is useless

[Medic1720]

Mine is off, too. At a 1/2 mi. track, Blaze measures .31 mi while my Samsung Galaxy measures .51 mi. I've corrected my stride as suggested but same measure next day.

[Medic1720]

I adjusted my stride length today (70 ft ÷ 26 steps =2.69 ft) and same inaccuracy today, .31 mi on a half mile track with Blaze while Galaxy phone measured .51 mi.

[SunsetRunner]

I had enough of it. I bought the garmin vivoactive 3. Has a lot of bugs but they are working on it.

This has gps + glonass in it (without phone). Had one glitch (where it was waaay off) but mostly very accurate. 

Also, my stepcount on fitbit blaze avaraged 13k a day, now i'm at 6k... apparently fitbit is way too generous with steps and registers arm movements as steps all the time.

[Mczech]

Same here!   I went to Garmin and now only average 8K steps a day was at 12-15K. Very upsetting to say the least.

[Rich_Laue]

@Medic1720 are you running or walking, using the GPS or not? 

When figuring out the stride did you do an average? 

[Medic1720]

I have the GPS on but I'm using it with the "Exercise"-"Track"- "Tracking" part of the Fit bit App in my phone and tracking movement that way while simultaneously tracking my movement on the fit bit under "Exercise" - "Treadmill" because "Walk" is not a choice. I've measured a 70 ft area, walked it x3 and averages 26 steps, divided into 70 ft for a 2.69 ft (2.69 x 12 in {per ft} = 32.28in) stride length (walking).

[Rich_Laue]

@Medic1720 of ypur blaze doesn't have walk then you will need to add it. 

70 feet is ok but make sure you walk up to it and out of it.. When trying to start and stop at the lines, the first and last few steps will usually be short. 

[Medic1720]

I did. Works fine, now.

[CoachL]

This is most frustrating. I have been out of the country training alone for the last 3 months, and just ran 9 miles with my niece. My Blaze recorded 9.64 miles and her Garmin registered the run as 8.9 miles. This makes nearly a minute difference on the average mile pace. We used MapMyRun, and another map app and they each measured the run at 8.9 miles. 

Why has FitBit not done anything to address or resolve this issue? My Blaze is only a few months old and I am very frustrated by this inaccuracy.

[Colinm39]

@CoachL Have you done a specific East/West test because in the Southern Hemisphere (Chile and Melbourne) we get a gain of about 2km/hr. North/South ok. This is comparing with my Surge. When I turn a corner to the East/West you can see the pace jump on the Blaze.

[MarkInTheDark]

Late to the party : but the measurements for other activities (eg. cycling) are also quite inaccurate. A 20-mile ride becomes a 2 mile walk-in-the-park when looking at the Blaze's dashboard. (Sig line : Pedants are never aware of their pedantry until their spontaneous implosion brings it to light)