Blaze not keeping accurate steps

[PamSue]

This is ridiculous. I've had my Blaze since Christmas and have been using it faithfully since the beginning of January. It's not accurate, not by a long shot. This morning, I walked 3.5 miles on my treadmill. At 1 mile on the treadmill, the Blaze recorded .66 mile. Til I got the 3.5 miles in, the Blaze recorded 2 miles! I've tried using the Exercise/Treadmill app on the Blaze and got the same thing. According to the Blaze, it's taking me 33 minutes to walk one mile. No way. Not at 3.8 mph. No way.

When I go for my 3-mile walk over lunch at work, I'm lucky to have the Blaze record 1.5 miles. Those are a lot of miles for the Blaze not to track during the week. Think about it. That's 3 miles a day, 21 miles every week that the Blaze isn't tracking. That's a lot of steps!

I'm also doing the 250 steps every hour. Obviously, that's not accurate either.

Yesterday, I was about a half-mile short of getting in 100,000 steps for the week on the Blaze. So I started walking. I got to where I needed two steps to finish. After I walked 11 steps, the Blaze finally recorded the last step I needed to get my 100,000 steps in. It's not accurate. Not at all.

I've been trying to adjust my stride length. My stride is about 2 feet, 6 inches. I moved it up to 3 feet, thinking that might give me more of a decent recording for the Blaze. It's not working.

This is an expensive paper-weight. Can somebody help me? Please. 

ETA: It doesn't matter if I walk with my arms down and moving by my side or if I walk with my arms crooked at the elbows and moving that way. The result is the same. I used to put my Flex in my pocket when I walked to get a more accurate reading. I don't want to do that with my Blaze because of tracking heartrate.

Thanks!

[WendyB]

It will not be accurate on the treadmill. The stride is different for one thing. But you are probably holding on to the bars. When holding on to anything it wont count steps. It needs to see the arms swinging.

When walking are you holding on to anything?

Have you set your stride under settings?

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-do-I-measure-and-adjust-my-stride-length/

[PamSue]

Thank you for responding.

I don't hold on to anything when on the treadmill, precisely to keep my arms moving. I never hold on to the bars. And that doesn't explain that I get the exact same inaccurate readings when I'm walking outside. And it doesn't explain why I have to actually walk 11 steps with arms swinging in order to get one step counted on the Blaze. I am losing many miles throughout my week because it's not tracking accurately.

My stride is 2 feet, 7 inches. I have it set for 3 feet, though, simply because I'm trying to make up some of the miles that I'm losing every day. Should I increase my stride? If so, by how much to make up for the inaccuracy?

Thank you.

[SophiaLeeK]

I have the very same issue  - what I do is take a screenshot when I start my exercise then track my exercize on treadmill or walk - then subtract and then add the shortage manually. Not really a solution but has helped me mentally when looking at my week...

[PamSue]

Thank you. I'll have to start doing that as well.

It seems a shame to buy a piece of equipment and then not be able to use it the way it's meant to be used.

[ironbull45]

Just went on the treadmill. No step count while holding the rails.

Walked without holding the rails & my steps were tracked accurately.

[PamSue]

Thank you for responding.

As I said in my second post to this thread - "I don't hold on to anything when on the treadmill, precisely to keep my arms moving. I never hold on to the bars."

So that's not a solution at all for me. I'm already not holding on to anything while I'm on the treadmill!

[PamSue]

I decided to not use any of the Exercise Apps and just started to do what I do without turning anything on.

This morning, I walked 3.5 miles on the treadmill. Recorded the Treadmill mileage under Activities. I had my steps for the 3.5 miles which were tracked by the Blaze. I have been doing the hourly 250 step count all morning.

At noon over lunch, I walked 3.15 miles. I did not use the Walk app, just wrote down the number of steps I had up to that point: 9,179. The total steps on my Blaze when I came back into the office was 15,921, which included my treadmill this morning and all steps taken for the morning thus far, including my lunch walk. However, when I recorded my walk under Activities, the Blaze changed and said 13,982 steps. It took 1,939 steps away from me? 

So for 9.89 miles, I only have 13,982 steps? Say what? Seriously?? I can't win!

ETA: I deleted my lunch time walk. When it all synced again, I got the 15,921 step count back. Screw it. I just won't include the walk on my Activities Log. Evidently, it doesn't believe me anyway.

[Colinm39]

@PamSue  That can happen if you enter a manual activity with Distance. It will divide your distance by your walking stride to give you steps.. If your stride isn't set and the auto stride invokes Fitbit uses 0.413 x Height for females and 0.415 for males.

It would have been interesting to observe and see the result if you entered steps instead of distance..

Keep up the effort, great day...

[Rich_Laue]

@PamSue your manualy entry if your walk will overide anything that your tracker recorded. The reason to manualy enter a walk is for times when the tracker waa not being worn.

Now if your Miles are off it usually means your stride setting is off.

[PamSue]

Ok. I think I got it. I have my stride set a bit above what it should be because it is so inaccurate. That would mean that my Walk distance/steps would be off. Thanks!

[PamSue]

All right, I think I have it figured out to keep my steps fairly accurate.

I've completely turned off all Activities.

When I'm on the treadmill (3.5 to 4 miles) in the morning, I must keep my non-dominant arm crooked and moving back and forth. I cannot let my arm dangle at my side; it must stay crooked at the elbow with a minimal swing. Same thing when I'm on my lunch time walk at work (3.15  to 3.5 miles). Non-dominant arm must be crooked at the elbow, minimal swing.

However, when I'm doing the 250-step count (actually I'm doing a 300-step count and just count the extra 50 steps) for the 9 hours, then I have to keep my non-dominant arm swinging down at my side and do a wider swing. 

Doing it this way, I've gone from a bare 14,000 - 15,000 steps per day to now over 19,000 steps per day. Much better.

I don't know why this works out better, (the whole thing sounds really screwy, I admit) but it does. I still need to work a bit on my stride length; something isn't quite right there. And I think that, once I figure it out, I will get more steps for my day.

[Colinm39]

@PamSueWhile you are doing your testing, it would be interesting to know at the end of the day what your average stride length was, by dividing steps into distance, and comparing with your settings. If the settings are auto your stride for walking is 0.413 x height. Males 0.415 x height.

I have a closed case at Fitbit Support where it was shown over thew 24 hours my distance was under reporting by about 15%. My test involved all of my Fitbits and fortunately for the Blaze test I have two of them for comparison and they both performed the same way..

All of the other Fitbits, those listed, and I have 2 x Surges in the test, reported distance perfectly as steps x stride = Distance. I don't run so it was easy to compare because I have both stride settings the same.

Both Blazes under reported distance. Support offered no solution, they kept forwarding the weeks of test data to engineering. I went through all of the requests about stride, connected GPS etc... to no avail..

I also found that on planned walks, 3.5 mph (5.6kmh), walking at exercise speed the Blazes were reasonably accurate on steps and distance as were the others and comparatively all within the 5% criteria used by Fitbit Support..

It was the domestic stuff (without trolleys) where I lost the distance. Carparks, malls, at home.. I compared the steps and wasn't worried about the missing steps. Because, the definition in "help" states, Distance=steps x stride.  I even used the auto stride and that didn't work. Even exaggerating the stride length, again lost distance until I found a correct stride

Now I have the stride set to 90 cm, and calculating using distance/steps it comes to 75 cm which ironically is close to being correct. So in my case increasing the stride by 25% gave me back the lost distance of 15%.

This problem has been with me since this time last year. The only time it was reasonably correct is when I multied my Fitbit One with the Blaze.

In summary... When I do my planned walks.. 40% is walks and 60% is domestic.

With the calculation mentioned at the start, and using total steps and distance for the periods, the results were.....  I always wear the Fitbit One...

Blaze

November 2016.... Stride ave 60.8 cm

Jan/Feb.... 2017.... Stride ave 73.4 cm with stride set to 90 cm.

Fitbit One

November 2016.... Stride ave 71.4 cm  Stride set to  71.4

Jan/Feb.... 2017.... Stride ave 71.9 cm

So it proves two things.. The Blaze does odd things and with the artificial stride set to 90 cm it is  close to my 72cm stride. I'm about to drop the stride to 88cm because 85 cm still robbed me of distance.

[ironbull45]

When I was on the treadmill, I noticed that if I held the Blaze at a certain angle, it would record the steps. If I held the bar, it would not record any steps. If I swung my arms, it was pretty accurate, but holding in place at a certain angle seemed the most accurate.

[PamSue]

According to what I did today, my average stride length is about 27 inches. I have stride length set at 30 inches. 

As long as I keep my non-dominant arm bent at the elbow with minimal swing the entire time I'm either on the treadmill or out walking, the Blaze seems to be tracking fairly accurately. Similarly, if I'm doing the hourly 250-step task, if I keep my non-dominant arm down at my side and swing more, the Blaze seems to be tracking accurately. I have noticed that it may stick for a number of steps (say getting "stuck" at 210 for a few steps), but then it will suddenly increase to 217 after sticking at 210 for a few steps. I believe I read on another thread that that can be expected.

I think I'm fine with this. I was hoping for more steps per mile, to be honest, but really, I'm more concerned with the Blaze being accurate than anything. While I don't want to short-change my daily step total, I also don't want to be credited with more steps than I'm actually walking. It's all about accuracy, if that makes any sense.

My thanks to all of you for your help.

[Colinm39]

@PamSueGood to hear from everyone involved in the testing..

On my testing today, my domestic, mall shopping and general walking in and out of carparks, my average step was 75.4 cm's. That is with a stride set to 90 cm... So again proves that the Blaze "does things" to the stride.

I have just created a manual step of 1500 steps to account for my missed steps. That back calculated at exactly the 90cm, my inflated stride setting.  SO, the Fitbit definition works for manual .... steps x stride = distance.

My Fitbit One for the day to this minute has my typical average stride as 71.3 cm

Today's alteration is to drop my stride to 85 cm and see if that equates to my natural stride length, but after a Connected GPS test which I will do when it cools.

[Colinm39]

@PamSueHere are the results of the 10 minute Connected GPS test in cm's. Speed was 5.82 kmh, 3.6 mph average.

Fitbit     Walk    GPS

Blaze     75.4      76.1   The Blaze had 8% more steps than the Fitbit One.

One       71.3      71.1

I have now changed the stride to 85 cm on both Blazes and we will see how that goes.

..

[dtrongone]

I am having this problem as well and I do periodically from time to time put my hands on the either the bar in front or on the side.  There should be a way to be able to edit the miles you've walked this is supposed to be encouraging you to continue on not frustrating you to give up.  Whether it's 1/2 mile or 3 miles being missed it's nonsense they need to create an update on the Blaze and or this webside to be able to edit things, and if people lie about what they put it it's on them it's only hurting themselves.

[PamSue]

I agree with you.

And since my last post, when I thought I had it all figured out, well, this weekend, my Blaze started under-tracking again. I'm losing about 500 steps per mile. If I walk six miles, that's a lot of steps. It's also under-tracking my 9 out of 9 hours, too. And I've changed nothing. It started up again when I put it back on my wrist after charging the other night. It's not as bad as it was, but it's definitely messing up. 

[SandpiperMc]

I read you with sympathy!! 😞

I've had my Fitbit Blaze since September 2017 and have been on a constant mission to try and get it to accurately record my steps and distance and even though I am continually remeasuring my stride length (66 cm btw) it's to no avail!  It robs me approximately 40% of steps and distance.  For instance just before posting this I've tried 7 sessions of manually counting 100 steps only to see documented 60-62 each time.  (At least I'm increasing my step count today, albeit not the full 100% haha).

I've tried synching to my phone, bluetooth on, bluetooth off, wrist dominant etc (it's on my left wrist and I'm right handed but I wear Pandora on my right arm).

Any suggestions apart from just adding 40% onto the total?  I agree with everyone else -- it's an expensive tool to have to manually recalculate if you want an accurate reading.

Thank you.

🙂