I am now on my 3rd blaze and I even got the Surge to compare it, and I am not sure what people are talking about, but the Surge had the same issues as I am having with the Blaze. After days and days of testing both separately, and calling Fitbit very often for answers, here is what I conclude.
1. Neither watches will count your steps, or at least very accurately if you are holding a shopping cart or fixed bar on an exercise machine. Even Fitbit recommends placing the watch in your pocket or on your belt for these types of activities. With the Blaze, it is easier because it pops out and can go in pocket (this is what I do now. Kind of a pain, and makes you wonder why you should have to do this with a $200-$250 tracker, but it is what it is... Right?)
2. Both watches rely on at least subtle movement of your arm to count as a step. Depending on your sensitivity setting, if your watch senses you scratching your head with the same repetitive back and forth motion, it will start counting these as steps. Hence being over on steps. My recommendations would be to set your sensitivity level lower if you fidget frequently or move around a lot without actually walking.
3. Both watches base your distance traveled upon your steps. UNLESS the Blaze is connected to phones GPS, or the Surge is engaged in an activity where its built in GPS is active, in which case the distance will be pretty much spot on. Otherwise, it is a simple math problem... steps + stride = distance. So with this said, if your stride is not set and is not 100% to the T accurate, your Blaze and / or Surge will show the wrong distance, unless of course GPS is active. Something to think about.. Let’s pretend you are running and your running stride is 4 feet 6 inches or 54 inches. You run 1 mile and have taken 1,000 steps.
1,000 x 54 = 54,000 inches. 54,000 inches is .85 miles. If EVERY SINGLE STEP you took in that 1,000 steps was exactly the same and your running stride was set to 4 foot 6, your Fitbit would read .85 miles. But, every single stride any of us ever take are not exactly the same every time. So Fitbit logs every step the same, giving the wrong distance. While connected to GPS, this is not an issue. But while on am elliptical or treadmill or any other stationary gym machine that tracks your distance while not actually moving and being able to use GPS, your distance will almost always be wrong.
Solution? Use GPS when you want accurate distance and unless you’re a robot who never changes stride, speed or direction, expect inaccurate distance while not using GPS.
4. Heart rate inaccuracy. While testing 3 Blaze watches and 1 Surge watch, alongside with my Polar heart rate chest strap and the heart rate monitor on my Galaxy S6 and the built in heart rate monitors on gym machines, I feel 100% confident that both Blaze and Surge track my heart rate correctly. Keep in mind that they will not track your heart rate good if the watch is loose and not in the correct spot! In the Fitbit directions it says to place the watch 3 finger lengths above the wrist bone! Wear it tight, but not so tight that it cuts off blood flow. While not exercising, I wear mine as I would a normal watch. But while exercising, I loosen it and move it up. While I have not been hooked up to a medical machine to monitor my heart rate at the same time with a Fitbit, I have tested both Fitbit watches with 3 other device, one of which I did run while hooked up to a medical machine and had 100% accuracy, and pull the same numbers every time with Fitbit.
These are the most common issues I have heard with the Blaze and that I found with the Blaze. I see many people say that their Surge or other Fitbit trackers did not have these issues.. Well I do not know about the others, but as for the surge.. It does.
I have not tested this 100%, but I am thinking as for stair climbed, Fitbit has this set to every 10 feet in elevation gained = 1 set of stairs. So if you go up a 15 foot stair case twice, you’ll have 3 floors.
I know this is not a review forum, but figured I would put it here for the people who are unsure. My take between the Surge and Blaze is that the Blaze is better than the Surge. While the Surge was and still is marketed as the "Fitness Super Watch", I feel it is old and out of date. The Blaze looks much nicer, is not as bulky and fits on your wrist better if you have bigger arms. The color screen I feel is a big plus. It makes it not feel as cheap. The surge reminds me of a child’s toy trying to be high tech. I noticed that my battery in my Surge did not last nearly as long and the Surge has far less touch screen options. The blaze can be completely controlled with the screen, minus pressing the left button to back (unless restarting it). While with the Surge, this is not the case at all. Both watches offer notifications, but the Blaze is much easier to read and notice.
Platinum Fitbit Product Experts share support knowledge on the forums and advocate for the betterment of Fitbit products and services. Learn more
Best Answer
