Blaze under counting steps

[DonShula]

Did some googling on this and found similar accounts, but no fixes.

My Blaze has made a habit of undercounting steps. I've actually owned two of them, and both have acted in the same manner. When I go for a long walk, I end up with 20-30% fewer steps in the end than what I'd expect. I've noticed that in colder months, when I walk with my hands in my jacket pockets, the step count is correct. It also correctly counts steps when I hold my tracker up to look at it while walking (which makes sense as my arm is making the same motion as if my hand were in my pocket). But when the arms are swinging, it doesn't count all my steps.

I did some spot checking on a walk a few days ago, where I'd walk and count, then check the tracker. In batches of 100 steps, the Blaze would fail to count anywhere between 20 and 35 of them. 

I also did some math on my most recent walk, where I used the "Walk" exercise function with GPS enabled. At the end of the walk, the app reported 3.25 miles walked for a total of 5,021 steps. My stride length is set to 29.9 inches, which is accurate by my account. Based on simple math alone, the walk should have resulted in 6,887 steps. Quite a difference between 5,021 and 6,887.

I contacted Fitbit support over chat regarding this issue. They had me do a simple "test" where I restarted my tracker, walked 100 steps (indoors) and then stopped and checked to see if my tracker was accurate. It was, in this case. The rep I chatted with then asserted that since the count was correct, my tracker must be working correctly. I suppose I don't blame him, but this is a really lazy way of investigating a problem, especially considering the other reports I've read.

Maybe simply resetting the tracker will prove to have fixed the issue. I doubt it'd but I'd like to be wrong.

Anyone else experience this and have success with a fix? I did try changing from non-dominant to dominant in the app, which resulted in the tracker recording even fewer steps.

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[reecejmail]

I notices that my blaze doesn't register all my steps as well. I was walking in store and notice, it I have to be moving my arms as well, or it will not collect all the steps, and if I'm not walking fast enough it won't collect steps.

[Psbuhrmann]

I am having the same issue and even when watching sometimes it stalls out at a certain number and and then after about 10-15 steps it will start again. I have adjusted my stride and counted off 20 steps and continued to adjust stride length until the count was accurate. That was 10 days ago...I have noticed that my husband and I can spend the day together, going to same places and his tracker will have 250-1000 more steps. We have calibrated his the same As mine with his stride length. Still feel like I am shorted steps throughout the day. I am a dog groomer and move the entire day but will almost always be short of 10k steps even when working an10-12 hour shift. My old Fitbit charge always calculated me having a minimum of 10k steps at the end of a workday. 

[reecejmail]

Yeah my old one worked a lot better. It's was the original Fitbit. I like the blaze but it could be better.

Sent from my iPhone

[Psbuhrmann]

I agree....am confident they will continue to work the bugs out, in the meantime it makes me more mindful!!!

Sent from my iPhone

[beth1981]

I just got my Blaze a couple days ago and just decided to see how accurate it was, for fun.  I really expected it to be within a couple steps per 100, but I found that when I counted 100, it was about 88.  I thought that was bad, but obviously some of you are experiencing even worse accuracy.  People keep telling me to adjust the stride length, but that won't do anything to change the COUNTING OF STEPS... it would only change the distance calculated by multiplying step count x stride length.  I don't care about the distance at this point--I'm more interested in the number of steps.

My FitBit One was CRAZY accurate.  I loved it.

I'll try resetting it, but I'm not holding out a lot of hope that that will fix the issue.

[Rich_Laue]

Durring walks, the arm based tracker should be as accurate as the One.

My thought would be to do a 200 and 500 step count test. I find my Blaze still loses about 10 steos in the first 100 steps. My 500 step amd 1000 step tests are still only off by the same 10 steps.

During the normal day activity an arm based tracker will almost never be as accurate as the One.

As for your one, take a walk over a very thick carpet ir a miss covered field, youll find it has trouble counting steps since the body sinks in and doesn't have as much of an up/down motion.

[beth1981]

I did a 500 step test. Fitbit counted about 390. 😞

I find that it's accurate if I'm running (arms held up, less swinging but more "bounce").  But I thought he whole point was for it to be accurate during walking. Really sucks that 20% of my steps aren't counted. 

[reecejmail]

Yeah, it makes me cranky but I makes determine to get my steps in too, but it should be a little more accurate, 😒

Sent from my iPhone

[DonShula]

No solution yet. But I experimented this week...

I took the same walk on consecutive days. I walkes the same distance (give or take 50 steps maybe) on the same path. There were slight variations in duration due to traffic - maybe 60-90 seconds total. On the first day, I walked like a normal person, swinging my arms in a natural motion. On the second day, I spent the entire walk with my Blaze-wearing wrist above my waist, holding my phone. Here are the results...

Day 1:

3211 steps

1.94 miles

Day 2:

4912 steps

2.31 miles

Note that I used the "Walk" exercise function both days, but the second day the tracker failed to connect to my phone for GPS (I opened the app, and refreshed a few times - it simply didn't connect).

4912 is 35% more than 3211, which just happens to be pretty close to the percentage I suspected my Blaze was undercounting to begin with.

It's evident now to me that the Blaze (at least the two I have owned) can't get an accurate step count from a natural walking motion. For whatever strange reason, it IS accurate when I hold my arm above my waist while walking.

Fitbit support has already denied I have an issue. My only choice now is between trying another Fitbit product and picking a different brand altogether.

This all just seems very silly.

[beth1981]

YES!  This has been exactly my experience!  It was counting approximately 65% of my steps when I was walking with my arms swinging down at my sides LIKE A NORMAL PERSON LOL.  If my arms are "up" (like jogging/running or looking at my wrist), it's accurate.  I have a replacement on the way but it sounds like there's no need for me to hold out any hope that it'll be better. 😞  

I can't believe they just keep sending out new devices instead of trying to correct the problem somehow.

Oh, it's also very "accurate" when I'm shaking my protein shake to mix it.. that is, 1 "step" counted for every shake LOL.  I guess we can't have it all--something that detects an arm swinging motion and an "impact"/bounce type motion.  

I will say that the Fitbit Zip and One are REALLY accurate... I'm just bummed because I really like the smart watch features of the Blaze but I am going to either have to suck it up and accept that it's not counting all my steps (not even close) or toss the smart watch idea and just go back to a Zip or a One for an accurate step count. 😞

[AlejandraFitbit]

Hello all, I hope you are doing great! 

Regarding the inconvenience you all are experiencing with your trackers, if you haven't tried this, I recommend restarting your devices. After this process, place your trackers on your wrists, walk 100 steps and let me know how many steps your trackers registered.

Hope to hear from you soon. 

[beth1981]

Alejandra,

Per your suggestion, I reset my FitBit Blaze and then walked 100 steps.  It counted 78 of them.

[Psbuhrmann]

I restarted mine, walked 100 steps and it counted 90.

Sent from my iPhone

[smallz74]

I have noticed mine in the last 2 weeks not getting the steps right.  I go for 5 mile walks on the weekend and now the counts are coming under what they used to be by at least 2000 steps. I have restarted and then unistalled the app and re installed but not seeing a change.  Seems worse since this latest android update not sure if that pushed a firmware to the blaze but come on Fitbit you gotta do better than this. I love being able to track my step goals as it as done wonders for me these last few months but you are making me want to search for other options if this can not be dealt with in a timely manner. As a business it is your job to make sure things run correctly and issues fixed swiftly or at least let your customers know there are issues and you are working on it in a timely manner.  Worse case scenario for Fitbit is that you lose your customer base and close shop to a competitor and lets hope a competitor can do better.

[Almostthere1234]

I am having the same problem. For the price a blaze is I expected it to be a lot more accurate 

[reecejmail]

Me too, Fitbit consultant suggested I turn off device and restart app, but I tried that already. It just doesn't count steps but motion, I can play drums for an hour and hit 10000 "steps", just because my arms are making up and down motion


Sent from my iPhone

[Rich_Laue]

I see everybody's 100 step count test results,  but what are your results when you walk 200, 500, or even 1000.

Here is my results 

100 step test, tracker reoorts 90 steps.

200 step test, tracker reports 190 steps

500 step test, tracker reports 490 steps.

1000 step test, tracker reports 990 steps.

Do you see a pattern, i do.

Now if i walk 15 - 20 steps, pause for a second to turn on walk mode, my 100 step count reads 100 steps.

[Instigater]

I'm finding the same thing. 

First off I'm 6 ft tall making my stride around 75.5 cm (Fitbit has my auto stride at 75.9 cm) so in one mile I should take approximately 2100 steps.

Yesterday 

From the app I started a gps walk. I registered 1.6 mi in 27 min 42 seconds and it told me I took 2100 steps.  That would make my stride just over 4 ft at 120 cm.  I probably took over 3300 steps to do that distance. 

 I emailed Fitbit with my frustration and was told just to use my watch for the steps.

Tonight I started a gps connected  walk from my watch. I registered a 1.35 mi  in 27 min and 29 seconds and it told me I took 2100 steps again. Making my stride 102 cm.

 Then getting even more frustrated I walked it again logging it on S Health. It showed the 1.6 mi and 3372 steps in 28 min and 17 seconds. Giving me a stride length of 75.8 cm. Very close to my auto stride length. Fitbit didn't auto register the walk as didn't set anything on the watch or app but it did register around 2500 steps.

 Don't know what to do but this is totally unacceptable to me.

[JennyHarwood]

I have to walk with my arms above my waist or my Blaze will inaccurately track my heart rate up in the peak zone...that's a whole other issue.