Here is how I fixed inaccurate step counting!!

[cenetti]

Hopefully it'll help others having the same problem. 

Mine was off by about 2 miles. First thing is that you need to enter your stride lenght under settings.

Here is the guide I used to measure mine, first one :

https://www.walkingwithattitude.com/articles/features/how-to-measure-stride-or-step-length-for-your-...

Secondly, if you're using it on your non dominant hand, switch it to dominant under settings. That'll lower the sensitivity. No more inaccurate steps when I scratch my .. head 

Now blaze is right on the dot. I walk 4 miles everyday, to work to gym to home. It counts as it should, perfectly. 

Hope it helps... 

[SunsetRunner]

Wonderful you've found a solution @cenetti

Thanks for sharing

Wishing a wonderful day

[DavS]

@cenetti I'm curious ... was your Blaze overcounting or undercounting steps? Mine tends to undercount. It seems as though making it less sensitive (wearing it on non-dominant had with it set to 'dominant') wouldn't help so much with undercounting. I'm guessing you had a problem with overcounting, based on your comment about scratching ... things. ☺ I had an overcounting issue on my Charge HR which was made better by using the method that you mentioned. But I have noticed that if I hold my Blaze up while walking to read the steps it counts perfectly. But the more I swing my arms while walking the less accurate it seems to get. Maybe I'll try changing the sensitivity and see what kind of difference it makes.

[kawaiiko]

Thanks for sharing 🙂 

[Jowily]

One other thing to remember - and sometimes people forget about this...their walk stride and run/job stride are different. If you show a shorter stride as you walk, then your run on a treadmill, you will show less steps (which equates to distance) than if you use the treadmill distance  (or if you are running outside along a route you know the distance of).  Depending on which you do most of, you may need to tweak the distance a bit proportionally too. I did it where I tweaked it for the treadmill, then suddenly my normal walking seemed to jump up - had to find a sweet spot in between to get a reasonable average.

[BobSarno]

I am having the same issue.  Normal arm swing causes it to severely undercount my steps.  So bad that to have the step-determined distance equal the GPS distance I walked, I had to set my stride length to nearly 5 ft...I am only 5' 9" with short legs.  I am really dissappointed with the accuracy.

[meme44]

Did This and Still Got 10 Steps for Scratching head...

Moderator edit: Caps.

[Rich_Laue]

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@meme44 wrote:

Did this and still got 10 steps for scratching my head...

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This would be expected, your Blaze is mounted on the arm and is only able to monitor arm motions. It is looking for arm motions that say your most likely walking. Scratching head fits those parameters, and steps are credited.

[Corvettekid]

Very useful.

I just measured my stride:  the 10 steps (measured twice) took about 22 feet....which means my stride is about 67 cm. I'm only 5' 6" so I guess I have a smaller gait.

What's weird is that initially I was walking about 3 MPH and each mile was about 2,400 - 2,500 steps, or about 120 steps per minute.  But recently the count 'shrunk' (and cost me my daily streak of 10,000 steps per day !!!  ) and it's now closer to 90 steps per minute, a 25% reduction in a few weeks.

Gonna find Settings and make the adjustment and report back.

[Corvettekid]

"This would be expected, your Blaze is mounted on the arm and is only able to monitor arm motions. It is looking for arm motions that say your most likely walking. Scratching head fits those parameters, and steps are credited"

Rich, shouldn't it double-check by distance travelled ?  If someone is out walking/running and looks at their Blaze to check time or steps, their arm 'freezes' and this reduces arm swings.  Also, if you run, wouldn't distance increase FASTER than arm swings increase ?

Suppose I walk a mile with my left arm stationary (what if I have my arm is in a sling ?) ?  I would think the Blaze should recognize that I walked 1 mile and that's closer to 2,500 steps and override any few motions it got from my bandaged arm, no ?

[Corvettekid]

OK, I'm reporting back....

Problem is WORSE....I did a 1-minute walk that was 75 steps (!) and then a 3-minute that was a bit closer to 100 steps per minute on average.

Based on my measurement above -- 2.2 feet per step -- 1 mile should be 2,400 steps, which is what I was getting when I first got the Blaze a few weeks ago with default settings.  I entered 2.2 feet into Settings and also switched to Dominant but it's still off at least 20%.

Suggestions ???

[fudge22]

Ok let's double check your settings. Correct me if I am wrong. You have your wrist on your dominant hand, and set as dominant under the app settings. When you go for a your arms are not attached to anything or in your pocket or anything like that, but freely moving back and forth as you walk. 

Are your steps being recorded correclty after the one mile walk, or is the distance registered only at .8 miles?

[Corvettekid]

Fudge, that's the thing:  I walked 2 miles so far today and it's at just over 5,000 steps....2,500 per mile, what I would expect.

Here's the thing:  elsewhere on this board, I read that changing the stride in Settings doesn't affect Step Count (why ????) but DISTANCE !!  

I thought that Distance -- measured to 1/100th of a mile on the Blaze -- was GPS-calculated.  If that is "fixed" and accurate, then changing Stride should change steps.  Reduce stride length -- which I did (I am short so my gait is less) and that means more steps per mile.

But if stride is figuring out Distance, then I am over-walking to get the same steps.  So I may have 5,000 steps today but in reality I walked closer to 2.5 miles or whatever.

Not sure where I go here.  I guess I could INCREASE the Stride Setting to "shorten" distance if Distance isn't being accurately calculated by GPS.

[Corvettekid]

IMPORTANT UPDATE:  Just got off chat with FitBit Support....they are aware of the technical glitch involving distance and steps and their tech people are working on it.

Distance is apparently calculated based on default or inputed Stride Settings....Distance is NOT GPS-calculated on the Blaze.....thus, based on my stride length I figured that a mile should be 2,400 steps (2.2 feet = stride length) and indeed it is showing up like that.....BUT....I have to OVERWALK to measure 1 mile which means if you actually walk 1 mile the Blaze reads it as about 0.75 miles which means 2,000 steps instead of 2,400.

I noticed because I was walking the same distance/time and getting fewer steps.

[fudge22]

Yes, this makes sense. For me, the GPS only measures the distance if I am conencted to my phone's GPS. It accurately measures the distance for me if I start a run and connect to my phone. Usually it undercounts distance when i go for a run though, which is why I adjusted my stride length to be more accurate as my stride length is not always consistent.

[DavS]

@Corvettekid My distance measurement when using connected GPS does not correlate to my inputted stride length. I have my stride length setup as 2.5 feet, but often when I calculate the stride for a particular walk using the recorded distance and the number of steps it usually ends up being around 3 feet.  I figure that is due to the problem with undercounting steps, but if the distance was truly calculated by steps and not by GPS then it should always calculate out to 2.5 feet.  I very rarely get anywhere close to that value.

So I am having two problems: the Blaze undercounts my steps by anywhere between 15 and 40%, and the Blaze gives inaccurate distance at times when using connected GPS. Sometimes the distance will be correct (known from previous experience on a particular walk), but I'll be shorted steps such that my stride length calculates to over 3 feet. Other times I will get the wrong distance but the steps are more accurate and the stride calculates to a reasonable number.  Most of the time, both the distance and steps are off.  The step count seemed to be better before the latest update, but I have always had this problem to various degrees since I got my Blaze on launch day.

One thing I noticed today is that the distance displayed on the screen during the walk is inconsistent. For a stride length of 2.5 feet, I should get roughly 0.01 miles for each 20 steps taken. While watching the screen and manually counting steps, sometimes the 0.01 would occur after 13 steps and sometimes after 20, and anywhere in between. This may point to a problem in the communication between the phone and the Blaze. Hopefully they can get this sorted out at some point. I'm glad you received confirmation that they are aware of a problem at least, but I've been waiting for a long time for this to be fixed.

[fudge22]

It all depends on the phone's GPS accuracy and the compatility with the blaze. Since the blaze relies on the GPS of the phone, if the GPS is inaccurately recording distance, it is likely an issue with the phone.

[DavS]

@fudge22 I thought that too, but I can have another distance tracking app running on my phone at the same time and it will give me an accurate distance, while the Blaze using connected GPS (should be the same signal) is off by around 20%. Even using the mobile run feature in the FitBit app instead of connected GPS always yields the correct distance. I think something happens between the phone and the Blaze that causes it to report the wrong distance.

[fudge22]

What phone do you have?

[Corvettekid]

Dave, I figure the Blaze is off by 20-25%, too.

I have a Garmin eTrex which is GPS-accurate to <20 feet so I am going to check data using it and the step-counter on my Galaxy S4, too.  Will report back........