Blaze not accurately counting my steps

[loliver773]

I have tried to restart my Blaze, but I am still not getting an accurate step count.  It is significantly cutting me short on steps.  After restarting my Blaze, I walked 20 steps with my Blaze while holding my husband's zip.  The Zip gave me 24 steps.  My Blaze only gave me 12.  That is a significant deficit.  I would appreciate any advice to get my accuracy corrected.

[chilehead]

I would do at least 100 steps as a test.  20 isn't big enough to account for the delay in how it starts to count.  That said, I have found mine to be in accurate for me personally (about 20% less than actual), but that might be peculiar to me and a few others in how we move when walking.  

[Rich_Laue]

I too have found my blaze to be off by 20 steps in the first 100, but by 200, 500, or 1000 it is still off by only 20 steps.. The error is only in the beginning of the walk.
Start walking 30 steps pause just long enough to press start, you'll findstep count really close

[loliver773]

You are right, 20 steps isn't enough to get an accurate picture. I did
test it though due to the disparity I felt I was finding.

You mentioned inaccuracy due to the way you move when walking. Have you
found a way around that or do you just accept that it won't be accurate?

I used to have a Zip and found it to be very accurate for me. I expected
that same from something that cost four times as much.

[chilehead]

---

@loliver773 wrote:
You are right, 20 steps isn't enough to get an accurate picture. I did
test it though due to the disparity I felt I was finding.

You mentioned inaccuracy due to the way you move when walking. Have you
found a way around that or do you just accept that it won't be accurate?

I used to have a Zip and found it to be very accurate for me. I expected
that same from something that cost four times as much.

---

I wasn't interested in changing how I walk.  I walk normal. At least I think I walk normal, but perhaps I walk like an ape or something.  🙂

I did not find a solution to my problem.  I would always do at least a few 100 steps counts back to back w/o stopping, as I'm not surprised or concerned that the first or last might be off a little.  But I found often when I counted 200 steps, it would track between 150 and 160.  And sometimes it was spot on.  No idea why there is such a difference like this.

After getting a new one sent to me by fitbit support, and having the same problems, I decided to return it.  I hope to get a Charge 2 to see if a different model helps, as my wrist worn flex never had problems, and my one was pretty accurate as well until it decided to hop off my waist deep in the woods off trail.  Somewhere.

[MikeS1971]

---

@loliver773 wrote:

I have tried to restart my Blaze, but I am still not getting an accurate step count.  It is significantly cutting me short on steps.  After restarting my Blaze, I walked 20 steps with my Blaze while holding my husband's zip.  The Zip gave me 24 steps.  My Blaze only gave me 12.  That is a significant deficit.  I would appreciate any advice to get my accuracy corrected.

---

This has been an ongoing issue since April when the recent firmware was released. Before that, the Blaze counted steps fine. I would go on very long walks where I'd walk for several thousand steps in one direction and the walk the same exact route back to my starting point, keeping the same pace. The walk back would be thousands of steps different than the walk out. 

I could walk the same route, over and over and over and the step count would be off.

You can wait and hope the upcoming software update will address the issue. I cant speak for the users here, but everyone I personally know who has one has either returned their Blaze, or stopped using them completly. 

[Driver8666]

Try this:

Dial down the stride. I cut mine down from 70.5cm, to 50cm about a normal stride for me, not waling fast or anything. If you haven't dialed down the stride, you will get inaccurate results. Doing this gave me almost accurate results. It might be one or 2 off, but I'm not too concerned. 

This is also trial and error. 

[bbarrera]

---

@Driver8666 wrote:

Dial down the stride. I cut mine down from 70.5cm, to 50cm about a normal stride for me, not waling fast or anything. If you haven't dialed down the stride, you will get inaccurate results. Doing this gave me almost accurate results. It might be one or 2 off, but I'm not too concerned. 

---

Step counting is the most basic feature of a Fitbit, changing stride will not change step counting.

Stride is only used to estimate distance (without GPS), using the simple forumla "steps x stride"

[Driver8666]

This did work for me. Not to get into an argument.

[bbarrera]

@Driver8666 what problem did you fix by changing the stride? You didn't mention in either post. Thanks.

Changing stride will definitely change your estimated miles on Fitbit dashboard. At its core, every Fitbit tracker counts steps, and then uses steps to estimate miles and calorie burn. Some trackers measure heart rate and use that for calorie burn. The Surge has GPS chip used by some exercise modes to replace step-based miles estimate with GPS distance (and for mapping). The Blaze/Charge2 have exercise modes with Connected GPS for mapping and to replace step-based miles estimate (with fallback to step count and stride if Bluetooth connection between phone and Blaze is interrupted).

[Driver8666]

When I got my Alta, the stride was set as an absurd 70.5cm. I dialed this down to 55cm, and then to 50cm after I wanted the tiny steps to squeeze myself aboard a subway train to count. I did a lot of pacing around, counting out the steps in my head and then comparing them to the tracker and adjusting. It's trial and error, but this worked for me. 

So for me at least, changing the stride definitely helped, although one other method is to get measuring tape out and do it that way. My running stride is set at 119.5cm, so I'll be changing that unless I'm a giant, which I', not. 

[sf49erfan1965]

seriuosly considering switching to the Garmin, This thing doesn't even get close to an accurate count, gets worse week by week. I think it can't keep up with me, my charge had the same problem, but this is worse. I think I will return this.

[chilehead]

---

@sf49erfan1965 wrote:

seriuosly considering switching to the Garmin, This thing doesn't even get close to an accurate count, gets worse week by week. I think it can't keep up with me, my charge had the same problem, but this is worse. I think I will return this.

---

It's disappointing, but I'm somewhat relieved to see others having the same problem so I know it's not just me.

My Blaze is in transit via FedEx now, and I'm disappointed they won't let me use the same 25% discount code (or issue another) that I originally used to buy a Charge 2 until they receive the Charge, so I'm fitbit-less for a couple weeks.  😞

[meresydotes]

@loliver773 I've found that Blaze counts fewer steps the more I swing my arms. If you find that it counts accurately throughout the day, but seems to undercount when you're doing a step based workout, like walking or running, that could be it. Not that we should be expected to change the way we walk in order to have a step counter count steps, but here we are.

You should also disable the auto-workouts, if you see that you're walking or running and the workout is recorded as Elliptical.

The big difference with my situation is that my undercounting problem started with a Charge HR and always existed on my Blaze. Most people are reporting that the problem started with the April update, so their problem may be different.

[bbarrera]

---

chilehead wrote: 

My Blaze is in transit via FedEx now, and I'm disappointed they won't let me use the same 25% discount code (or issue another) that I originally used to buy a Charge 2 until they receive the Charge, so I'm fitbit-less for a couple weeks.  😞

---

@chilehead If you have a compatible phone the take a look at MobileTrack:

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1875/

I use MobileTrack to make my iPhone 5s a Fitbit tracker and it works great, because my phone is always in my pocket. 

I've told several friends about it, to use when they had to replace a Fitbit due to band failure.

[chilehead]

---

@bbarrera wrote:

---

chilehead wrote: 

My Blaze is in transit via FedEx now, and I'm disappointed they won't let me use the same 25% discount code (or issue another) that I originally used to buy a Charge 2 until they receive the Charge, so I'm fitbit-less for a couple weeks.  😞

---

@chilehead If you have a compatible phone the take a look at MobileTrack:

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1875/

I use MobileTrack to make my iPhone 5s a Fitbit tracker and it works great, because my phone is always in my pocket. 

I've told several friends about it, to use when they had to replace a Fitbit due to band failure.

---

That's actually almost what I did.  My phone isn't in the list that supports MobileTrack, but my wife's is.  She she unpaired her fitbit from her iphone and is using the iphone "tracker" temporarily, and I took her fitbit.  Though she wants it back soon as she's missing some features like flights and active minutes.

[JenkinsA]

Ive recently started running again. My Blaze is always off compared to the GPS on my phone. My phone says I ran 2.17 miles this morning and my Blaze said 1.8 miles. Thats a pretty big difference and explains why I have such a hard time getting my 10,000 a day with the Blaze compared to when I had my One. It seems to be consitantly off by about 0.3 miles every time I run for the last 3 weeks. Is there a new update coming soon that will fix this? Pretty disappointed that I spent this much on "an upgrade" only to have it be less accurate.

[loliver773]

Thank you everyone for your responses. It is very disappointing to spend so much money on a device that can't accurately act as a basic pedometer. I worked out with my husband today. He had 600 more steps on his Zip Than I did even though he took more breaks, bigger steps, and went slower than I did.

[Rich_Laue]

@JenkinsA i see two unrelated con earns in your post. 

Gps being off

Steps being off. 

There are several reasons the GPS may be off but I'll address the steps. 

Have you actually walked at least 100 preferably 500 steps while counting them with your mind? On the Blaze i find if i take a walk of 100 or 1000 steps my count is off by 20+- 1 step

[JenkinsA]

I tried the 100 steps i saw several perlople mention. I got 89 to the 100 I counted. I also saw someone mention to run using the Fitbit instead of tracking the gps through my running app so I will try that tomorrow


Sent from my Sprint Samsung Galaxy S7.