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... 

[Corvettekid]

I just did a quick walk to the strip mall near my home.....the Garmin said I walked 0.42 miles.....the S4 said I walked .48.....the Blaze said I walked .21.

The S4 said I walked 889 steps and the Blaze said 531.

Clearly, the Blaze is getting distance totally wrong and this is giving an innaccurate step count.  It might be a bit more accurate on a longer trip.  I'll do one tonight after dinner.

[fudge22]

Did you connect the blaze to your phone via gps (navigate to exercise, select walk, connect to phone) or just walk with the blaze step tracker? There is a known issue where the blaze step counter isn't very accurate, especially if your hands were in your pocket or you were holding your phone while walking etc, but for the distance, if the GPS is connected it should track the distance via GPS.

[Corvettekid]

Fudge, USE PHONE GPS was ON but it was under RUN as there is no WALK function under EXCERCISE.

ALL DAY SYNCH and ALWAYS CONNECTED are both OFF, as I was trying to save battery life on the Blaze and my S4.  Plus, sometimes they won't synch unless I re-start the S4 1 or 2 times.  I hit Synch and the button spins for 2 seconds and then turns red again. 

[fudge22]

Oh, you'd have to go in to the app and add the walk exercise, but run should work just the same. In all honesty I would contact support so they are aware of the issue, as the blaze should use the phone's GPS data which would give data consistent with the other devices you used. 

[Corvettekid]

GPS vs. FitBit Update:   OK, I just did exactly 1 mile measured by my Garmin eTrex, accurate to <20 feet.  I did 1.03 miles door-to-door in 21 min 21 seconds at 2.9 MPH.

The Blaze measured it as 0.86 miles and 2,106 steps.  If we pro-rate that, it means if the Blaze had calculated 1 mile as per the Garmin GPS, then it would be 2,448 steps, in my 2,400 - 2,500 normal range (my Stride Length is 2.2 feet which equates to 1 Mile = 2,400 steps).

The Galaxy S4 measured the distance as 1.25 miles and counted 2,548 steps.  I did a bit of back-and-forth, perhaps the S4 got confused.  Not sure.

What is confusing is this:  I have inputed 2 feet 2 inches into my Stride Distance so I don't know why the 2,400 or so steps are being reduced in a 1 mile run-off.  A few arm-swings could be missed and I do grab a device now-and-then....but I shouldn't be off by 300 or more steps.

[scrubsz]

Nope.....same results. Didnt work. Off to the store I go to return this **ahem**.

[Rich_Laue]

@Corvettekid if someone stops swinging their arm to look at the data on the watch, the arm is still bobbing up and down with each step and still counted.

As for looking at distance, the Blaze calculates this if not connectef to the GPS. 

[Corvettekid]

Rich, I was on a high school track the other day.....my Garmin measured it as 0.26 mile (I assume it was 0.25 miles but maybe the START and FINISH for 1/4 mile or 400 meters was different than what I used), the Blaze measured it as 0.18.

This calculation was done TWICE.

We really need to hear from a FitBit moderator as to how the Blaze calculates distance and/or steps. Clearly, inputing my Stride Length didn't change anything.  If GPS is NOT connected, what determines steps and/or distance ?  If up-and-down arm motion activates steps/distance counting, then how could it be that far off since I made sure my left arm moved 12-15" each time ?  How come so many people are saying their Blaze is off 20-30% on distance and steps ?

Low-single digits off is acceptable.  25% or more is NOT.

FitBit Tech Support said a solution is forthcoming.  Considering their earlier products (the Blaze is my 1st purchase) had great reviews/accuracy, what went wrong with the Blaze ?  

It should be easy to diagnose the **ahem** problem.  Just put on a Blaze and walk.  We're not talking small differences in accuracy, 25% or more is WAY OFF !

[RubyMyles]

I'm having major issues with step accuracy. What is everyone doing about it? I love the idea of the Blaze but need to be sure I'm receive close to accurate step count.

[meresydotes]

Blaze has a really severe step undercounting issue when one walks or runs while vigorously swinging his or her arms. I believe that setting the arm placement to Dominant actually mostly fixes this, as it causes movement detection to be less sensitive and, I think, somehow gives the Blaze robotic confidence that what it thinks is a step is really a step.

The thing I didn't like about the Dominant setting is that it also fixed the Blaze's minor overcounting issue, like when you get a few steps for scratching your head or washing your hands. Not that I want to cheat or anything, but nothing will fix its minor undercounting issue, where you don't get any steps if you only take a few at a time and then stop. The latter is not really a problem, as it has to look for a pattern to establish that you're actually walking. If you don't walk for enough steps, it can't establish that pattern, so it doesn't count any steps.

I just like that the minor overcounting balances out the minor undercounting.

As for GPS issues, I've got a new theory that it's actually caused by the major undercounting I mentioned in my first graph. If the Blaze is really only counting steps and it only counted 1000 steps and yet the GPS says you went 3 miles, it spins its imaginary gears and gets caught up trying to solve the problem and just decides that the GPS must be wrong, so changes that information to compensate. But I've never used the GPS feature, so I wouldn't know for sure.

[Rich_Laue]

The other night i took a short 1.33 Mike walk. 

Blaze 2848 steps

Surge 2898 steps

Charge HR 2905 steps

Charge 2 2935

The average is at 2896, but previous test show the Charge HR the most accurate. If i go by the charge then the blaze is 57 steps short or within 2%. Hardly what i would call a step deficit. 

[Newtotracker]

I bought Fitbit charge 2 for £113. It's over counting my steps. Pl advise

[bleebear]

Tried reinstalling.... didn't work either. 😢

[YT300800]

Having the same problem with mine!! Have been sent two replacements so far and after a couple of days they severely under count steps by as much as 40%.  I'm on the phone with support as we speak right now.

[meresydotes]

Support won't be able to help you. It's a bug. Fitbit doesn't fix bugs. They just release new models and hope those don't have the same bugs and people will continue to buy them

[YT300800]

Having the same problem with mine!!!! Not happy 

[meresydotes]

Well, I've had the same problem with a Charge HR and then a Blaze. I got around it by not swinging my arms so much, because I'm that stupid. (It does also help to turn off the exercise auto-detection if you're walking and your Blaze says you're on an Elliptical.) Even worse, I seem to have a recurring problem where something changes in my stride AFTER I recover from a hip bursitis flare and my Blaze undercounts by about 5%. Which doesn't seem like much, except when you consider that my usual minimum per day is 15,000 steps. So, Fitbit actually refunded me the cost of the Blaze a while back because they continually failed to fix a different bug. And, idiot that I am, I decided to buy a Charge 2 a couple weeks ago. I don't know if it has the same 30% undercounting problem, because I forgot how to swing my arms while walking/ running a long time ago. but it definitely has the same post-bursitis 5% undercounting problem. Fitbit is the WORST and I've bought a majority of their tracker models over the years and I guess I only have myself to blame. End rant...

[Chancecube42]

The best way to fix fitbit's inaccurate steps....buy a Garmin

[YT300800]

Lol

Sent from my iPad

[YT300800]

Sending mine back, going to buy a different product

Sent from my iPad