Blaze count steps when I move my arm up and down.

[tuks]

I've been searching and reading about this issue:

* http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1136#extrasteps

* http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1143

* others here in the Community forum - about no step counting while in grocery, strollers etc (which I also suffer)

But I found nothing concrete as solution so I'm posting this very simple problem.

My setup: I'm cross-dominant, so I wear the Blaze in my left or right wrist as I please.  It's setup on "Dominant" wrist on the app.

How to reproduce: Sit and move your arm up and down, notice that the steps are counted with just that simple arm movement.  The Blaze does the same when I'm standing, on the bed, etc.

Practical reproduction of issue: I'm a programmer, I sit and mostly drum my fingers on the table as I listen to music.  That gives me 100+ to 1000+ steps in a day while sitting!

Effects: Cheating step counts!  My wife complains that our "competition" is invalid because I always cheat - which is not the case.

And oh, please don't tell me to put the Blaze on my feet or my pocket when doing grocery so I could count my steps as I push the cart - as a solution.

Being a programmer, I understand the algorithm to count steps as per above links.  But it should also include movement from one location to another as criteria!  As per second link above: Fitbit trackers have a finely tuned algorithm for step counting. - but it count steps when arm is moved up or down, really?!

Fitbit should fix this or I'm returning both Blazes for a refund while I can.

I'm interested to hear what the nice community members have experienced about this issue.

Thanks.

[Colinm39]

@tuksWelcome from a retired IT person and coded cutter many years ago. I'm ambidextrous and have set mine to non-dominant because to minimise the loss of steps in domestics.. This about 55% of my days steps.

I accept the hand movement gains because there are many I lose with normal use.  How do I know that, because I have a Fitbit One which I wear all of the time and that is accurate.

I have found the Blaze accurate with planned walks but lose on the domestic stuff.

In regards to your Blazes... What tracker does your wife use ?... and... have you considered the Charge HR 2 ? because that appears to be getting good reviews and results.

I'm tempted to purchase this model as well to add to my stable for my field testing because I'm interested in the HRV option which is being released on the Blaze in February.

We retired IT people need to keep the grey matter active.

About the grocery trolleys.. I "cheat" to try and make up for the lost steps when I'm in the carpark and push the trolley over the paths that have the non slip stones which causes heavy vibration in the hands..

Alas, at the end of the day the Blaze never exceeds the One. I put up with that because I don't want to manually add the difference and I get my calorie kick from the HR readings.

But I'm hoping with the success of the Charge HR2 there could be design comparisons and adjustments in the Blaze.

[Rich_Laue]

I wont mention anything about putting your trqcker in the pocket, but if you did, the tracker would be looking at the up/down motion of the body wbile walking. So if it did not look for up down motion then the tracker would not count steps in the pocket. I thi k you brought up the pocket, because while pushing a cart, the arm is not moving up and down and therefore is not counting steps.

I not sure what to say, but the tracker does not have a true motion detecter, but a three axis accelerometer. There for it is hard for tye tracker to see forward motion.

Lets think abot the movement of the arm, first notice that it somewhat follows the opposite foot. Your arm goes up and forword, it stays stationary withe the earth, as you walk past it, the arm then drops and rises up, twisting a little as the body goes by. Now tye arm swings forward past tye body, dropping back down and up, yes it also twists again. Once it gets in the forward position the process starts again, pausing to let the body pass by.

So the arm does a forward with a down up moition, then pauses and agai. Goes down/up.

If we ignore all up down motions, not many real steps will be counted. And only every other step haa a forward motion.

Im not saying it can not be done, but no tracker on the market is able to do what your asking.

If you want to, you could do what Fitbit does and use tye Arduino to design a traker, Of you come up with a better design, then there are a couple of things you could do.

[tuks]

Hi @Colinm39, glad to hear from another IT professional.  My wife and I both have Blaze and until this basic step counting issue is resolved, I'm not buying any Fitbit wearable yet.

Now that I've winded down a bit after having posted my frustration, I think it makes my wife and I a bit even: my Blaze adds steps when I work while sitting but doesn't count them when I go on grocery / trolley with her. 😜

Been with Live Chat and what they suggest is for me to "manually log the activity to the account" - which is absurd for a wearable.  They pointed me to the Feature Requests page at https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/idb-p/features - which I already visited so I've been voting there too.

Being a "solutions" guy, I think one initial "fix" is to adjust my step goal from 10K to 11K per day on account of the excess step count.  That should "negate" those excess steps until Fitbit releases a fix.

But I'm still interested with the community's experiences.

[tuks]

Hi @Rich_Laue,

I didn't say anything about "not counting steps with up and down motion of arm" or not considering the movement at all as what you're implying.

What I wanted was for Fitbit to fix the issue that "steps are counted when I just move my arm up and down".  I know the Blaze has a three-axis accelerometer and I've read a bit about how they "implemented" pedometer features on the wearable as per the links on the post.

But I think most readers would agree that a simple "up and down movement of the arm" while sitting/standing is a bug - isn't it?  Others may have just ignored it.  But for me, when it affects my goals when it manifests during work - I can't accept that.  I bought a wearable to get motivated to get fit and enjoy a healthy competition with my wife.

Now I'm also curious how this "bug" manifests on other wearables too.  Can you please confirm if the issue also manifests on your Fitbit wearable/s?