Inaccurate Step Count

[DavidSma]

I have had a Blaze for a while. Always thought it over-counted steps and stairs. Yesterday, stair count reached 34 flights! No way. This morning, I logged at least 200 steps making the bed. Outdoors it is usually pretty accurate as far as I can tell. Indoors is way over-counting.

Sometimes I walk with Heavy Hands. Here I have the opposite problem. When I am using them, Blaze under-counts by 25% give or take.

Can anyone offer any advice. I'm not trusting it. I have set my goal at 15,000 steps instead of 10,000 because of the indoors over-counting.

[Rich_Laue]

@DavidSma welcome to Fitbit. I see you have an arm based tracker, and since it is mounted on the arm it is monitoring arm motions. What it is doing is looking for arm motions that happen when the feet are walking or running, so when on walks it will usually be very accurate. Around the house when the movements are not as predictable. There will be times that the tracker thinks your walking, but your not, then other times you'll be walking and the tracker doesn't realize it.  When I compared my arm unit to the Fitbit One I found individual days might vary, but over the weekly leaderboard the positions stayed close, frequently changing leader.

Now when it comes to walks outside or in a store, if your pushing a stroller or cart since tyre arms are not naturally moving, some steps may be missed.

So why are arm based units so popular? Convenience and the extra bells and whistles.

[DavidSma]

IK thanks. 2 things, though. The Blaze still counts my steps on walks when my hands are in my pickets and it seems to be more or less accurate at those times.

Also, I have tried removing the tracker from it's case/band and carrying it in my pocket when I wanted to wear a regular watch. Although I don't know fir sure, it seemed to way over-count in my pocket.

Moderator edit: Removed personal information.

[Rich_Laue]

If it is bouncing around in the pocket, I'm not sure how well it will count. When your arm with the tracker is in its pocket, then it simply is looking at the up/down motion and should be pretty accurate.

[DavidSma]

OK, I have decided to shut down my blaze when I am inside and just let t count my outdoors steps. I would rather under- than over count. In fact, Inhave set my daily goal to 15000 so that I am sure I did 10,000. But still, I am curious about the over-counting of stairs. Why would the Blaze double or triple the number of flights I climb. Not the end of th world but it is a gross inaccuracy that I would rather not have.

[JeffHubbard]

My blaze is about 20% low on my miles when I am on the treadmill but if I swith to the ellipical to vary my cardo routine it is 50% low on my miles.   This is consistent no matter which ellipical i use (I used different ones at the gym in case the ellipical's calibration is off) so what's the problem?  Is this common?

[DavidSma]

OK, I have decided to shut down my blaze when I am inside and just let t count my outdoors steps. I would rather under- than over count. In fact, Inhave set my daily goal to 15000 so that I am sure I did 10,000. But still, I am curious about the over-counting of stairs. Why would the Blaze double or triple the number of flights I climb. Not the end of th world but it is a gross inaccuracy that I would rather not have.