Fitbit Blaze and Ionic Step Counter Going Backwards!

[J.R.R.]

I own both the fitbit blaze and ionic smart watches.  Over the past couple of years, I have reported numerous instances in which my fitbit Blaze and/or Ionic step counter actually lost steps!  Until today, I have been unable to get fitbit to acknowledge that this has been happening, even though I can say with certaintly that I lost probably 20,000-30,000 steps last year.  Today, however, fitbit confirmed that while my step counter reversed from 6,800 steps to 6,500 steps while I was walking for a long distance, the fitbit home office showed my steps at more than 10,000 for the day.  Fitbit told me that, even though it can see that I actually covered more than 10,000 steps, it cannot record them for me, and suggested that I drop either my Blaze or Ionic.  What a crock!  Has anyone else experienced this?

[PureEvil]

Hello @J.R.R.,

I've had multiple Fitbits paired to my account for some time.  While I have seen a couple of instances of losing steps, I think it works just fine the vast majority of the time.

In order to understand this, it'd help to understand how Fitbit integrates the activity from two trackers into one dashboard.  This is their description:

"However, the more overlapping data that exists on your account, the more likely it is that your dashboard's accuracy will suffer. For best results, don't wear more than one device at a time and sync each device before taking it off and putting on another."

If it detects activity on both devices, it generally picks the one which was most active at that time (I think it tracks information on a per minute basis), but there are instances of it picking the less active device.

So let's say that you are travelling and are wearing the Ionic and pack the Blaze in your carry-on luggage and walk down the concourse to your gate.  They're both moving (the accelerometers would detect that)...  however your Ionic will likely register more steps since the carry-on is rolling on wheels and won't see as much bouncing.  So you sync your trackers.  The Ionic syncs and you're at 6800 steps.  The Blaze syncs and Fitbit chooses to take its activity instead, then your step count drops to 6500.

To minimize this, do as they suggest, sync both trackers before swapping them.  And while you're wearing one tracker make absolutely sure there's no activity on the other one.  There have been reports of activity registering when people leave their trackers on a table or nightstand with an oscillating fan or near an air conditioning vent.

Hope this helps minimize your step loss.