Blaze greatly undercounting steps

[Amyberr]

I got a Fitbit Blaze on Friday (April 14, 2017) and have been wearing it for 5 days now. Now that I've set up and started tracking the daily goals, it has come to my attention that the 250+ steps per hour goal is particularly hard to meet because of how many steps my tracker skips.

At first I thought it was missing steps because of the way I walk (9 years of marching band taught me to always roll my feet) but after experimenting with how I walk all day, I don't think that is the issue.

Not only does the Blaze skip roughly half of my steps, but after looking through the forums for troubleshooting I see that this issue has been going on for at least a full year, through at least two firmware updates.

I have restarted my tracker 3 times in a row (several times) and I have taken into account several posts suggesting that the tracker only begins​ counting at a threshold of 5+steps.

This tracker is brand new and the only thing I can think of that might be affecting the sensitivity is the battery level - it might be skipping more steps today than it did yesterday. I will charge it fully before I go to the gym this evening and see if that helps.

Update: This issue seems to be less severe when the Blaze is fully charged. It is still under-counting steps, but not to the degree that it does on a low battery.

[WendyB]

Welcome to the forums!

I find mine to be accurate.

Have you changed the settings for wrist to the opposite that you  wear it? Its under settings. But I wear it on my left arm and have it set to right. I get better results

Hope to see you around the forums! Join in on the discussions forums!

[Amyberr]

I have not tried that because I don't consider it to be a valid solution, just a workaround.

[McMellyC]

I have the same problem. Just bought it last Tuesday. I have gotten so frustrated with this problem, that I have taken it off and am considering returning it. I thought the count was low based on my average steps in an average work day from my previous device. I just assumed I was spending too much time at my desk, so I made a point to get up and move more. Very little change. It counted NO steps at all when I went to the grocery store, and yesterday when I ran errands all day I clocked in at 1250 steps for the whole day. I was out walking for hours. It has been reset too many times to count, which is silly. I didn't buy it to have to fiddle with it all day. I bought it so I could put it on, set it up and go. I would like to stop hearing reset it, change settings to dominant hand, reinstall the app, check your stride settings again. None of that should be necessary. My $10 tracker was more accurate and less frustrating. 

[Edwin55]

I have a Blaze and a Surge. I take the same 6 mile walk 3 days a week. I alternated several times between the blaze and the Surge and the blaze is always about 900 steps less than the Surge.

[MikeF]

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@Amyberr wrote:

I have not tried that because I don't consider it to be a valid solution, just a workaround.

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Then I'm afraid your limiting yourself unnecessarily. Everyone is different so a tool aimed to cover everyone is never going to be completely accurate for all. Some of the 'workarounds' as you think of them are valid adjustments for those on the margins of trackability.  Simply dismissing them out of hand does limit your options somewhat.

[Amyberr]

My response keeps getting "rejected" and I'm not sure why.

I was under the impression that this forum is also aimed at bringing issues to the attention of the Fitbit team, so sorry if I posted this issue in the wrong place.

While I understand that statistical outliers would need specific adjustments to increase their accuracy, I'm an average height female with average length legs and a pretty average stride length, so I'm not in the fringe of anything I can think of.

I also thought that the primary functionality of Fitbit tracker hardware is supposed to be accurate step counting, and it follows that making that function as accurate as possible for the widest range of different users should be the primary objective of the developers. I personally think that relying on workarounds rather than improving your product is bad practice. Using them short-term until improvement can be managed is totally ok, but doling out workarounds and never addressing the issue is not.

I'm just trying to increase the visibility of this issue and highlight it's persistence in the product, because there a ton of forum posts about it and it's still a thing..

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[Rich_Laue]

Im not sure what you mean by rejected answer.

@WendyB did not post a work around, but was pointing out the proper way to setup the tracker.

As for pushing a cart, yes with your hand on the cart, this keeps the arm from moving in a way that will tell the tracker that your feet are moving.

My thought, have you done a step count test while on a walk outside? Simply take a walk, counting your steps then compare to what the tracker says.

[Rich_Laue]

@Edwin55 ive moved your post out of an unrelated thread, to one with the same subject

[SunsetRunner]

Hi

I understand how you feel Amyberr. My Blaze is over counting. I have tried various solutions suggested but it remains the same. I've changed stride length & changed the dominant wrist setting. With my Blaze, it calculated steps whilst I was sitting down doing my hair.  I've asked for help but had no reply to an email I sent and am also considering returning mine.

[Amyberr]

@Rich_Laue I posted the block-quoted response twice and it didn't show up on the thread, giving me a notification that 'it will appear once it is approved' and a link to check the status of the comment. It was moved from pending to rejected items both times.

I gesture a lot with my right hand when I'm talking, and I don't want it to count excessive arm movement as steps, so wear it on and I have it set to my left. Is it just supposed to be set to the wrist opposite the one you wear it on? That seems mildly unintuitive, but if that's genuinely the proper setup, I'll try that and report back.

I have tried counting my steps myself to compare to the tracker both while waking normally and while holding my wrist up to look at it. Occasionally the step count will be correct, but it is more often than not behind my actual count by anywhere from 3-30 steps in a walk of 50 steps. I have manually counted a whole 250-step active hour while walking with my arms moving naturally, and the tracker missed the entire thing - this has happened at least 3 times.

If I hold my wrist up and watch the count, it usually counts every step until the screen times out, and then sticks on the number it had​at that moment. It will usually unstick with another 5-10 steps, but it doesn't always add those steps back in when it unsticks.

[Rich_Laue]

Im unawate of any area where posts need to be approved,  so cant help with this.

As for the way the trackers work. They look for 5 steps before they start to count. Walk 4 steps, then stop, no strps counted. Walk 5 steps, stop, 5 steps should be added.

As for dominant non-dominant, this changes the sensitivity to help weed out false steps. If set for dominant and to little steps are being counted, changing it to non-dominant coild be whatbis needed to get those missing steps counted..This setting was not put in to simply make the user do more thinking. I also noticed that on the Alta it will flip the display.

As for step counting o can take a 1000 step walk and the tracke is within a 3 steps.

[Amyberr]

I'm sorry if I've come across as snarky on the issue, and I know I'm being more than a little picky about the HCI design of the device.

In the initial setup process I was just led to believe that if I am right-handed and wear the tracker on my left wrist, the wrist placement should be set to non-dominant. I've done a whole week with these settings in place, so I think it's fair to switch to the dominant wrist setting for a week and see if this week gets more accurate numbers. I will report back.

[Rich_Laue]

I did the same thing when i got my first arm based tracker,  two weeks for each setting on both arms. snd compared it to the Fitbit One. So why two weeks? I was using the 7 day leaderbord to compare. Data useless during week 1

[SunsetRunner]

Hi

I have mine on my non dominant wrist with the setting as the dominant. Have you tried a reboot ?

I've basically got to accept that it counts steps if I type or move my arm about or return it to the retailer.My partner has a tracker (not a Fitbit) and he does not experience this issue. 

[SunsetRunner]

I'm right handed and also set it as non dominant and wore it on my left. I then changed it which helped a little so that it's on my left wrist with the setting as dominant. I don't feel comfortable wearing it on my right wrist.

[Edwin55]

My post has nothing to do with active minutes diapering but about undercounting steps. Why is it in missing active minutes? Did I put it in wrong place with wrong heading?

[beth1981]

So setting it to "dominant" instead of "non-dominant" would make it LESS sensitive, which is exactly the opposite of what you want if it's already undercounting. So that suggestion doesn't make any sense. 😕

[beth1981]

I did a step count test and I'm only getting 88-89 steps counted on my Fitbit for every 100 I count. And I have tried it several times, even enlisting my spouse's help to ensure my counting is accurate. It seems accurate when I'm holding my hand up to look at the display but it's not counting accurately with my arms swinging at my sides which is natural and when it SHOULD be accurate. 

[JFontanini]

I just counted a segment of my morning walk.  I counted 880 steps, Blaze counted 500.  Total walk was 2.25 miles, Blaze counted 3,736 while Apple Health on iPhone counted just under 6,000.  I've reset, checked    hand dominance settings, etc.  Fitbit needs to solve this or stop selling a product that fails to do the basic thing it is made to do for so many people.