Blaze Firmware Update - 17.8.200.3 [Closed]

[AndrewFitbit]

Update 5/6/16:

Hey all,

I've been keeping a close eye on this thread, and I wanted to give a quick update.

For reports of Blaze steps and/or distance being inaccurate, I think this is definitely something worth looking into. I've passed on all the feedback to our team so they can investigate. As a friendly reminder, remember that accuracy depends on many factors.

Here's a couple things being worked on:

• Excess Calendar Notifications
• 'Auto' brightness setting is too dim or adjusts slowly

For 'Auto' setting being too dim, you can switch to 'Normal' as a workaround in the meantime. Please note switching to 'Normal' will have a slight impact on battery life.

I'll provide updates when I can. Thanks everyone. 🙂

Update 4/27/16:

The firmware update should now be available to everyone. Update your Blaze and let me know how it goes! You can read the release notes for version 17.8.200.3 in the lead post or check them out on our help site. 🙂

Update 4/23/16:

Sorry for the wait, here's the release notes!

"The Simplified Chinese, Japanese, and Korean languages are now available on Blaze. Note that Blaze is only available for pre-order from fitbit.com in China, Japan, and Korea.

This release also resolves a couple issues:

• Some customers were unable to resume a paused FitStar workout.
• Some customers reported problems with the Blaze screen (display)."

You can find these release notes for this update (17.8.200.3) on our help site.

4/21/16:

Hey everybody,

Some of you may have noticed there's a new firmware update for Blaze! We just started pushing this update out yesterday, and just like any other update, we'll be rolling it out in waves. This update focuses on a few bug fixes. Release notes will be posted here soon.

Thanks!

[Fands]

post this on facebook---see what the answer is, at least you will get one.  How many people have issues that do NOT post here...i never did before the Balze and i have had a fitbit since Jan. 2014.

[Corvettekid]

Jharla....have any of the people you gave Blaze's too updated to the latest firmware and still not had problems ?

Have they measured the accuracy of the Blaze on a high school track or a walk that is a verified distance and confirmed their Blaze is accurate ?  Very few here have measured accuracy and gotten 90% or better scores.

When you walk twice around a 1/4 mile high school track and it measures as 0.18 miles on the FitBit (with steps off as well, based on FitBit counting steps based on 0.18 and not 0.25 miles), something is wrong.

I've offered to video tape myself and the accuracy problem -- no response from FitBit.  I think if they took any Blaze and did the tests themselves they'd see it was off.  And some stores have yanked the Blaze off their shelves.

[jharla1]

---

@Fands wrote:

post this on facebook---see what the answer is, at least you will get one.  How many people have issues that do NOT post here...i never did before the Balze and i have had a fitbit since Jan. 2014.

---

Oh Lord no.  Facebook like twitter is a cess pool.

I'm not disagreeing that there are probably several folks that don't post here that have issues.  I think there are way more that are happy with the device and don't have problems however.

Again, I don't want to see anyone unhappy with their device, and if they are having issues I hope they get fixed soon.  I'm guessing you're one with problems.

I'm only replying to folks that respond to me.  I'm certainly not on some crusade to defend Fitbit (as I have my criticisms for the device myself).

Based on reviews and feedback I've seen, the majority are happy with the Blaze and it works as it is supposed to.  I stand by that statement.

There's nothing wrong with me being vocal about how happy I am with the Blaze (and Charge HR before that).  Those unhappy are of course going to be more vocal... on a support board no less 😛

Hope they resolve your situation to your satisfaction soon!

[jharla1]

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@Corvettekid wrote:

Jharla....have any of the people you gave Blaze's too updated to the latest firmware and still not had problems ?

Have they measured the accuracy of the Blaze on a high school track or a walk that is a verified distance and confirmed their Blaze is accurate ?  Very few here have......

---

I cannot speak on a couple of folks, but four of them have the latest firmware and do not have issues.  And myself would make five.

Given the outcry here I became much more vigilant on taking note of how it tracks.  I wanted to make sure I wasn't just taking the stats as gospel.

And my mother who I gave one to, there's no getting anything by her.  She takes walks with my father and she makes **ahem** sure the stats are accurate (same distance, more steps because she has a shorter stride, etc).

[Corvettekid]

Jharla, some may be UNAWARE of the inaccuracy of their Blaze's.

[meresydotes]

Some people may also not use them in a way that highlights their inaccuracies. Mine is very accurate on normal daily steps, but it drops to about 70% when I'm on the treadmill, if I don't keep my blaze hand on my body. I guess some people also have trouble with power walking and GPS calculated distances. So, if you just use your fitbit to montior normal daily activities, with perhaps some post meal constitutionals, it would be accurate.

It also took me a while to realize how inaccurate it was. I had to get used to working out on a treadmill in order to get comfortable enough to watch the countdown timer and realize that my right foot was hitting more than once every second, which made <3000 steps in 30 minutes VERY incorrect.

It's definitely a firmware problem, though, as I had the same problems on my Charge HR.

[AndrewFitbit]

---

AndrewFitbit wrote:

There's a ton of variables when accuracy is in question, so it's difficult to diagnose. The team and I are still in the investigative stage, but so far, most discrepancies seem to be with distance being undercounted.

Specific details would be really helpful when people post about data discrepancies, such as:

- What day was it (was it multiple days)?

- What was the discrepancy? What were you expecting it to be?

- What type of activity were you doing?

- Do you have a manually entered stride or are you using the default stride (auto stride)?

- Is your daily total(s) correct?

- What troubleshooting have you tried, if any?

Any additional information you guys can provide or think is relevant would definitely help. 

---

I posted this a few pages ago, but here it is again for those that haven't seen it (see above). Couple things to add though:

- If multiple trackers are syncing to your account, this can potentially cause discrepancies

- Use of GPS can affect accuracy (depending on GPS signal or good/bad GPS data) 

Thanks to the few that have already provided more details. 🙂

[Corvettekid]

Andrew, I don't mean to act peeved, but there have been so many people complaining about steps/distance accuracy that I found your post a bit upsetting.

FWIW, I walked around a high school track twice.  That is 1/4 mile -- 0.25 miles.  The Blaze measured 0.18, or 72% of the distance, twice.  The step count was accurate for 0.18 miles, but not for 1/4 mile.  I verified this on other distances walking around my complex with the Blaze and a Garmin GPS to track the walk route.  Same thing: on average, 70-75% accuracy.

Is a software fix coming or not ?  Have the FitBit engineers seen the problem with randomly selected Blazes's or not ?

We can't get a straight answer out of the Mods or the Customer Service reps and it's frustrating.  If a batch of Blaze's made at a certain period had a defective part and a return/refund is in order, just tell us.

A company's new product, built on successul older ones, should not be off by 25% compared to the inferior products.

Moderator edit: format

[earnesj]

I've been having an issue with the Blaze not updating on my phone. It's not communicating at all. I had already planned to take it back to the store where I purchased it about 3 months ago. It's been very problematic since I've had it.

[Fands]

Well the Blaze is on QVC today as their Special Value at a price of $180.00. Who is going to tell the 50,000 people that buy it that there are issues...i think that it is very irresponsible of fitbit to even go there with this giant binge of sales without fixing the problem...buyer beware indeed...

[bmiller1969]

could not agree more!

[Rich_Laue]

I know a few with the Blaze, no problems they have. For me I seem to have to restart the Bluetooth after every. Ok upgrade, this is probably because Fitbit drivers get buried into the os. 

[ErickFitbit]

@Corvettekid @Fands @bmiller1969 Specific details would be really helpful when posting about data discrepancies, such as:

- What day was it (was it multiple days)?

- What was the discrepancy? What were you expecting it to be?

- What type of activity were you doing?

- Do you have a manually entered stride or are you using the default stride (auto stride)?

- Is your daily total(s) correct?

- What troubleshooting have you tried, if any?

Any additional information you can provide will help.

[meresydotes]

@ErickFitbit@AndrewFitbit I've answered these questions many times, but I will again:

- What day was it (was it multiple days)?

Every day - every minute I spend on the treadmill.

- What was the discrepancy? What were you expecting it to be?

Only counts about 70% of steps on the treadmill - I do NOT hold the rails or anything like that. Seems to count fewer steps the more I swing my arms.

- What type of activity were you doing?

Walking/ running on treadmill.

- Do you have a manually entered stride or are you using the default stride (auto stride)?

Manually - based on caculation of correct number of steps and distance measured by treadmill.

- Is your daily total(s) correct?

Seems to be, but only because of my workaround - see below. Seems correct for regular daily steps.

- What troubleshooting have you tried, if any?

Steps are correct if I keep my blaze hand on my body.

I tried lying and telling the app the blaze was on my non-dominant hand. It counted 90-95% of treadmill steps and only about 95% of total daily steps.

Before I disabled auto-workouts, it was counting, max, 80% of total daily steps.

[ErickFitbit]

@meresydotes I recommend recalculating your walking and running stride lengths with these instructions to improve your distance while not in a stationary activity. Your running and walking strides will be different measurements as one is while walking and the other is while running.

As for the step accuracy while on a treadmill, what are you comparing the step number to? What is the exact difference in steps/distance? That will help me understand where you're getting that it is inaccurate and help me to further investigate.

[Fands]

oh good grief...I have told customer service the problem for at least a month in an ongoing case i keep open....what is telling again in the forum going to solve?  wh  it is not anything the customer is doing wrong --it is a FITBIT problem.  (one of many)---as i previously mentioned, we are only talking to eachother--if you want a response tell your issue to fitbit's facebook page where they advertise---althought they too say the same thing--over and over.

again, the same as @meresydotes my treadmil discrepancy is  anywhere from 30% or more the longer i go on the treadmill.  my stride is correct, i do not hold the rails

i have no idea if my daily count is correct, i rarely can hit it--with my One i i often did.

i am going to try setting it to the non-dominant hand tomorrow but keep it on my dominant.  and disable the auto-workouts.  

we would really appreciate an update on when there will be a firmware update to fix these issues,  thanks--

[meresydotes]

@ErickFitbitI'm not worried about the distance so much. I just calculated my stride length based on the correct number of steps and the distance my treadmill told me I went. It's just frustrating to me that the blaze fails entirely to detect every step. That's its one job!

It took me a while to notice there was a problem after I disabled the autoworkouts. I would to a 30 minute treadmill workout and my blaze would count between 2200-2700 steps. That was frustrating, as it should be about the same number of steps for the same workout, but it got more consistent after I disabled the autoworkouts (it had been telling me every workout was Elliptical). I just noticed that more wildly swinging arms would lead to fewer steps.

Then, as I got used to my new treadmill, I noticed that my right foot was hitting more than once every second. In a 30 minute workout, this should be a minimum of 3600 steps (2+ steps/ second).

I'd seen suggestions to keep the blaze in a pocket, but you lose the HR that way (plus my workout clothes don't have pockets. So I decided to keep my hand on my body (upper thigh for walking/ chest for running). This way, a walking only workout counts about 3800 steps and walking/ running counts 4200-4500, depending on speed. That seems reasonable. 

I just adjusted the stride length so the workout distance matched what the treadmill was telling me. I'm, again, not THAT worried about distance, I just want my blaze to count all my steps. Again (again) its ONE job!

[meresydotes]

@FandsI think  I got it backwards? I wear on my right wrist. I'm left handed. So I keep it set to non-dominant. Lying and setting to dominant got the results I described - 90-95% on treadmill/ 95% all day.

[ErickFitbit]

@Fands To clarify, stride length only affects your distance measurement not step count. Step count is based off of accelerometer movement reading that is put into an algorithm and converted into steps in the backend.

@meresydotes You definitely shouldn't have to turn off features or lie about the dominant hand setting or even keep your hand on your thigh when running (sounds uncomfortable) to get an accurate step count. 

@Fands @meresydotes Before your next treadmill activity, restart your Blaze, put the dominant hand setting to the correct wrist and share your Blaze statistics along with your treadmill statistics here. Make sure that your arm movement is natural when walking/running.

[Fands]

ok i will do that tomorrow morning.  although i am afraid if I have to re-start the blaze it will again screw up everything i finally got to work properly.

(that in itself is a statement of the product).

thanks meresy, i am left handed and wear the blaze on my left hand--i have it set to dominant.