Blaze....steps and distance useless

[Walk-a-holic]

Just got a Blaze after having the Charge HR.  Looks great and was looking forward to the exercise tracking feature instead of using my phone app.  Huge disappointment.  Walked my normal route this morning and it showed not even half the correct distance.   Decided to test and used phone GPS to determine a route.  It was .7 miles, Blaze recorded .43.  Adjusted stride and it went to .34.  Then I tested steps...actually counting in my head the entire distance.  My count 1500, Blaze 853.  Unpaired the Blaze and put my Charge HR back on and did same route.  It recorded 1557 steps.  I know trackers aren't perfect but the Blaze is wayyyyy off to be of use to me.  Returning it and going back to the Charge HR until they work out some bugs. 

[bcalvanese]

If you walk fast (and depending on how you swing your arms) the Blaze tends to count about half the steps. I power walk at 4+ mph, so if I swing my arms like a power walker (90 degree angle) it counts every step, but if I walk that fast and swing my arms as in normal walking it only counts about half the steps.

You can test this by starting a walk exercise and swiping the screen to the steps page. As you are walking count the steps in your head and swing the watch up to check every so many steps to see if it is counting correctly. You can keep adjusting the way you swing your arms and keep testing until you find a good arm swing.

The reason the distance is off is probably in part by the step count being off. I think if it loses the GPS signal, it starts calculating distance by steps * stride length, so if its not counting the steps correctly, that could throw the distance off.

Try setting it back to auto calculating your strid length, find an arm swing that it will count the steps correctly, do another walk using GPS, and see if the ditance calculation improves.

Hope this helps,

[Walk-a-holic]

Took your advice and did a brief test.  If you do a power walk arm swing it does seem to calculate within a step or 2 of the Charge HR which is great....not so great is I can't walk around swinging my arms like that all the time or I'll look like a nut.  Too late today but I may wear both tomorrow and see how they compare at the end of the day.  I rely pretty heavily on the calorie calc and worry that the Blaze would be unreliable.  Have had success dropping weight with the Charge HR and don't want to lose that functionality.  I also have a Galaxy S7 phone which isn't supported yet with the Blaze so the connection isn't great.  Maybe I should try the Surge?  Thanks for the input!

[bcalvanese]

have a Galaxy S7 too and it works great with my Blaze. Just moved from the iPhone 6s plus to the Galaxy. I had issues with my iPhone in calculating distance on my power walk workouts using the "walk' exercise and connected GPS. Sometimes it was up to half a mile off, and one time it was a mile off. I can live with a couple tenths of a mile off, but half mile or a mile? Thats way too far off.

I went to Garmin (fenx 3 HR) for a while and just got a new Blaze (the gunmetal one) when I got my Galaxy S7. I'm not sure if the S7 just has a much better GPS than the iPhone, or if the New Blaze is just a realy good one. I'm leaning toward the S7 having a much better GPS though, but every walk I do with the connected GPS has been within a tenth of a mile so far.

PS: I only swing my arms like that when I power walk. When i walk at normal walking speed I swing my arms normal and it counts all the steps. It only starts mis-counting when I start getting up around 4 mph.

[Rich_Laue]

Officially the S7 is not comparable with any Fitbit model, thus simply means they have not finished their testing.. This requires more work than simply hooking it up and notice img that everything works. 

Unofficially like @bcalvanese and many others have found out the S7 works fine. My thought I'd that if the S7 is not working let's treat it and troubleshoot it as if it was supported. It defanitely should sinc.