Fitbit Pros and Cons

[Mysticboyzone]

It's been a week since I got my Blaze. Earlier I had a Force and that died just after a Year of use. I found almost the same issues in Blaze. That means Fitbit didn't improvise on the new designs except the form factor. Here are my findings.
Pros
1. Blaze is well designed
2. Allows to track other activities and you can customize like adding new. It allows upto 7 activites.
3. Has alarms, and Notifications

Cons
1. Issues are persistent as in Force.
2. Inconsistent Sync issue. Found that if the tracker battery is Medium it doesn't sync.
3. Inconsistent steps and calories. Even while sleeping and driving it calculates steps. Goqii is better accurate than Fitbit.
4. Notification setup is not very user-friendly. And most of the times it's inconsistent. You need a constant reboot if not working. I am tired of handling it and stopped using notification.
5. Found that notification drains battery and need charging every 3rd day.

If you are looking for a better accurate devices, this is not for you, but if you think all these are part and parcel of life, Blaze is a good looking tracker.

[Rich_Laue]

Sorry to hear about your problems @Mysticboyzone

For me sync is consistent. But slow, this might be because i have 3 travelers connected to my account.. As for reboot needed yes i had to reboot the Charge HR two weeks ago, this is the first time in several months I've had to reboot a tracker. Now the phone is a different story, it needs a restart sometimes after an update, probably for the BT drivers. Being a beta tester i get at least one if not two updates in a week.

Notifacatuons,  I'm not sure why but once in a while they get turned off in the app. 

As for steps while driving, this happens when the car is bouncing around and is a problem with every tracker from any company. Do a search. 

A person that moves around enough during sleep well yes steps might be cointed, are they really enough to worry about?? One person was complaint that they got 1 step every 5 miles while driving, this isn't enough to affect the calories repprted. 

As for battery drain, yes anything that uses battery will help drain it. Notifacations use bluetooth, then usually you turn on the display, both of these are the biggest drain. 

As for accuracy, while swinging my arm normally as i walk, or holding it up to my side, I'm within 15-20 steps with a 1000 step walk. Not bad I'd say, the Charge HR is within 10, and the Fitbit One is within 2, usually spot on. 

I saw the title and that the post was in the android area, was surprised it was a review on a hardware device and not the android app.. I've moved it to the Blaze section. 

[sf49erfan1965]

I jog everyday count my steps manually, this tracker is at the very least 3000 steps of in a 1 hour jog. Don't know what the problem is. It is only 5 days old. My charge did the same thing. I thought this would be an improvement since it cost so much more. Didn't get it for the looks. I want it to track my steps.Very disappointed.

[Mysticboyzone]

By default Fitbit sets a stride length based on your physical parameters(height, weight and age). Did you try changing the stride length in the App?

[Mysticboyzone]

Inaccuracy was there for Force as well. The other day morning I woke up and the device showed 66 steps. It might be that I was restless in sleep. But on the side to test it, I didn't wear one day and morning it showed 25 steps.
The driving count was not just 1 step per mile. What I observed is close to 150 steps per mile. This kind of miscalculation, I didn't find in Goqii. Regular walks showed both Fitbit and Goqii were pretty much the same accuracy.

[bbarrera]

Never heard of Goqii before, funny name, interesting website. I primarily use my iPhone 5s as my Fitbit step tracker (MobileTrack), and like the Fitbit One I've found that MobileTrack is much more accuate than Blaze with no false steps from driving or even riding my bike 9 miles down a mountain road at average speed of 35mph (with only a couple hundred pedal strokes) - if ever there was a chance for "road vibrations" to give false steps that would have been it. 

If Fitbit can auto-detect walking, running, biking, etc, then it seems reasonable to believe Fitbit could detect driving and prevent false steps from registering (like they implemented in biking mode last year).

[MikeS1971]

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@Mysticboyzone wrote:
By default Fitbit sets a stride length based on your physical parameters(height, weight and age). Did you try changing the stride length in the App?

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Length of stride doesnt affect step counting. FitBits use the number steps times stride to figure out distance. Since April, the Blaze has had issues being able to count steps.