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!

[meresydotes]

@gretchenmoll Seriously, don't let them scare you:

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20130820154155AAeQK3j

[herget]

An excellent point! Inputting our height alone doesn't give the Fitbit lines of code enough data to accurately calculate a human's stride. I feel Fitbit does their best to estimate based upon the basic data entered when someone created their profile. If anyone thinks their distance or step-county is inaccurate then they can add further details to give your account the necessary data. An easy way to measure your walking and running stride is on pavement. 

1. use some water (preferably on a warm day to avoid slipping on ice) pour it on the sidewalk
2. walk through the puddle of water and measure your walking stride
3. run through the puddle of water and measure your running stride
4. update your profile account settings
5. talk a walk or run around a local track
6. repeat as needed

[Kawaiikoneko2]

Have we gotten an exact date of when the update should be starting to roll through? I know its only Sept 1 but I am ancy and want to know if we are talking Sept 5th or Sept 30th. Don't want to get my hopes up too high if we still have almost a month to wait.

[MikeS1971]

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@herget wrote:

If anyone thinks their distance or step-county is inaccurate then they can add further details to give your account the necessary data.  

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Updating or changing you personal account info will have no effect on step accuracy. If the Blaze is severly undercounting steps, even with entering your stride perfectly, total distance calculated will be off as well. 

[MikeS1971]

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@gretchenmoll wrote:

@meresydotes thanks. your comments are valuable to me.

I checked with Fitbit and my blaze is rated for 5V and 500mamps (0.5A) which means finding a usb wall charger that doesn´t exceed 0.8 A or else components will fry or battery will deplete.

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If the part that I bolded is what someone told you, they either don't know what they're talking about or are flat out lying to you.

[meresydotes]

@MikeS1971 EXACTLY. If they were worried about the chargers people were going to use, they should have provided an actual charger. Batteries will lose capacity just from being charged and may lose capacity a tiny bit faster from fast charging, but that's the only danger.

[ssball]

The press release said it would be this week, so it better be tomorrow.   However, I asked a CSR, and they seem to have no idea when the release will happen.  They obviously announced prematurely. I woudln't hold my breath for any time soon. At this point, I'm not optimistic for an actual September release.

[Corvettekid]

Gretchen, when I walked around my 1/4 mile high school track I also carried my Garmin eTrex hand-held GPS which I use for camping and other stuff.

While the Blaze measured 0.18 miles each time (72% accuracy) I believe the Garmin got 0.24 miles and 0.26 if I recall correctly.  MUCH more accurate, even if 1 time it overmeasured.

When I do the Blaze again after the update, I'll bring along my Garmin.

[rushmere]

The press release states that the software will be available in September, it doesn't say anything about "this week".

You can read the full press rease here 

[igor.kof]

I was hoping that the new update will include the basic feature fix for non-english speaking people around the world but still no luck, I'm dissapointed badly....

[wardrich]

Emoji support would be great, too!

[gretchenmoll]

@Corvettekid

I would love to exhange data with you. could you download your data in csv format off the fitbit portal and I´ll run it through Strava to see if stride length has anything to do with the 18% inaccuracy that im experiencing

I assume you´re stride length greatly differs from mine and as soon as we know by what factor that affects accuaracy,we could email fitbits support informing them that there has to be another update that compensates for the inaccuary in measuring distance,steps walked and gps measured distance.

[Corvettekid]

"CK, I would love to exhange data with you. could you download your data in csv format off the fitbit portal and I´ll run it through Strava to see if stride length has anything to do with the 18% inaccuracy that im experiencing."

Gretchen, I really don't have any "data" -- but I do have lots of posts here documenting my measured walks, both irregular ones around my neighborhood and also the HS track ones I measured.  Check those out.

The inaccuracy DID not change after I went from Default to my Stride Length being inputed.  In fact, I am at 2.2 feet and change for stride, such that for me 2,400 steps is exactly 1 mile for me, give or take a few feet.  I walk an actual mile and the Blaze will register about 1,800 steps and maybe 0.75 miles.

This is what screwed me up when approaching Midnight (when the Blaze resets) and trying to hit my 10,000 goal target for steps.  I would need maybe 1,000 steps by 11:30 PM and know that I could/should get that with about 8-9 minutes of walking, 10 tops.  But that assumes I am getting full credit for about 120 steps per minute.....or 1 mile every 20 minutes.....or 3 MPH (which is pretty much what I average when I track it with my Garmin using the MPH counter -- 2.8, 2.9, maybe 3.1 MPH tops).

Instead.....I got shortchanged closer to 80-90 steps per minute and the shortfall is magnified.  I'm outside at 11:50 PM and need only 100 steps per minute to get my goal and instead I'm behind the pace at 11:55 PM when I double-check.  So I have to jog a bit or walk at a much faster pace (~4.5 MPH) to make up for the undercounting.

Frustrating, and cost me a few streaks !

So this is not a Stride or GPS thing with Steps/Distance....it's something they have to get right with the new update.  Stride and/or GPS might make a difference getting from 95% to 98 or 99% accuracy....but not 70% to 95%.

BTW, Mods.....if you want, happy to run another 1/4 mile HS Track Test and video tape the start-and-finish and post a link here to DropBox....I will measure with both my Blaze and my Garmin eTrex.  You and your tech people can see for yourself (not that they shouldn't have been able to see for themselves or confirm it by now).

[gretchenmoll]

@Corvettekid

Great Idea

I´ll run a quarter mile on video with measured steps . About for or five trials to determine accuracy.

Then repeat the test using a Garmin with a external gps chip attached to my inner sole.

If we can get enough volounteers to do the same thing, maybe there will be more focus on accuarcy in the future fibit products

[topaz1s]

I've been seeing references online about a Fitbit Blaze firmware update to version 8.301.4. I've confirmed that I'm running the latest versions of the Fitbit app and Fitbit Connect for Mac, however when I try to update the firmware for the Blaze, it says it's already running the latest firmware version 8.200.3. Could someone please help straighten this out? Thanks.

[Corvettekid]

Gretchen, try walking the 1/4 mile with both the Blaze and the Garmin GPS at the same time.

Walk the track, don't run it. 

[bbarrera]

@topaz1s everybody is patiently waiting... for some reason, not the way I would have done it, they put the part about "available in September 2016" at the end instead of the beginning. I've highlighted in blue below:

 

[Corvettekid]

Nothing about Steps/Distance Accuracy ?  Good Grief........

And why would you need to synch just to show time ?  It's a watch, for crying out loud.  Why does it need to hook up to anything ?  Does that mean if the batter runs out, just re-charging doesn't get you the time ?

[Rich_Laue]

@Corvettekid like any other watch the time needs to be set before it will be correct, a sync is the only way fitbit has to set the time. 

I'm not sure why but when the unit is turned off the time will no longer be saved, mAybe because the turn off turns more of the watch off. 

All of my fitbits after a dead battery need the time adjusted, and a sync is the only way. 

[bbarrera]

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Keep in mind you must now sync your tracker after shut down to see the correct time. In other words, if your tracker runs out of battery or if you manually shut it down, you must sync it after it turning it on to see the current time. 

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1372

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sad and unnecessary.