My Blaze doesn't count my steps (and other things) accurately!

[SherlockHolmes]

HI! I recieved a fitbit blaze yesterday as a gift (which was very exciting!!) and i have been handling it very well, but i already have issues with it. After a few hours of wearing it, it said that i already burnt over 1,000 calories. I knew for a fact that it is inaccurate because I was not feeling well at the time and I was in bed all day. Also, it added a flight of stairs which I hadn't done.

Today I sat in one place and shook my wrist from side to side. I was very disappointed to see the numbers of my steps climb higher swiftly. (I was watching on my phone and on the watch.) Also, it said that my heart rate was 114, which i know it wasn't. Then I tried walking around and kept my arm still, and it recorded none of my steps.

This is extremely disappointing, as I was very excited at all the things the Blaze is supposed to do. Also, it's not cheap, which makes it more unfair to recieve a malfunctioning product. I really hope this problem has a solution.

Thank you!

[Rich_Laue]

I have a couple of thoughts.

I dont know enough about the logic, but if you have been in bed all day, your body has been working hard to fight your cold, your heart rate will be up and yes you eill butn more calories.

Since you just recently got the Blaze it might not have s good baseline of your resting state yet, thus could throw the calories off.

As for the step count issue, your tracker is mounted on the arm, and therefore only able to look at arm motions. Fitbit has a pretty good algorithm to help weed out arm motions when the feet are not moving, but when intentionally moving the arm to fool the tracker, yes steps may be counted.

They use an XYZ axis accelerator to determine the movememt of the arm.

As for walking while leaving the arm still, the tracker is looking for the natural movement of the arm that happens when yhe feet are moving.Of course while keeping the arm still, no arm motions will be detected, and therefore no steps added.

[Julia_G]

Hi, @SherlockHolmes, the calorie issue is easily explained.  The Fitbit program calculates your calorie burn based on the information you enter when you set up your account: gender, age, height, weight.  From this information it calculates the minimum calories your body burns just by being alive (called BMR calories).  You will burn these calories even if you are in bed all day, and they will be counted by the Fitbit program even if you never wear your Blaze.  The number resets to zero every night at midnight, so depending on the time of day, and your personal stats, 1000 calories could very well be accurate.

You are quite correct that if you wave your wrist about you will get some false hand "steps".  The Fitbit will also miss some steps when you are walking, particularly indoors if you are light on your feet or walking on soft carpet.  Most people find that these differences "come out in the wash".  Over a few weeks of recommended activity (10,000 steps or so) on average the Fitbit comes out about 95 % accurate -- some days, obviously it will vary, depending on your lifestyle.  I have testd this myself.  

Having said this, you are likely to be disappointed if you expect absolute accuracy and (any) wrist worn tracker is not likely to be right for you.  The best advice is to look at trends...

The Fitbit counts a "floor" each time it detects a rise in elevation of 10 feet.  Under perfect conditions this works amazingly well (I find it extremely impressive that something on my wrist can detect something so small...). However, I would say that this is the aspect of the tracking that works least well and I don't pay much attention to it.  Unfortunately, because of the way it works you can get tens, even hundreds of floors id there is a major storm coming through, and even the changes in pressure from a slamming door could have given you that one extra floor.

Fitbit does not use the floor feature to count your calories, presumably because it can be inaccurate depending on conditions.

I hope this helps and you find that you enjoy your Blaze. 

[SherlockHolmes]

Thank you for your response! @Rich_Laue

I hear what you're saying about the calorie burning levels. It's possible that I burnt more calories as my body was fighting whatever it was that was making me sick.. also, It's interesting how fitbit works in regard to calorie count.

Regarding hand movements, my only concern now is that if I may be carrying bags or holding my hand in my pockets and not doing usual walking motions with my hands, it may not pick up on my steps... 

[SherlockHolmes]

Thank you very much for your response @Julia_G! 

I guess I do need to wait a bit and let it get used to my movements and usual measurements. I did enter age, gender, height, etc correctly, so that shouldnt be the problem. It's very cool that the fitbit counts the BMR calories. 

I understand that I cannot expect absolute accuracy with steps, but hopefully it will get more accurate with time, as it gets more used to my movement. 

Thank you very much for your help! 

[AlejandraFitbit]

It's great to welcome you @SherlockHolmes, @Rich_Laue and @Julia_G thanks for stopping by.

I don't have anything else to add to our friends explanations here, I was able to see that their  responses were really good and helpful. If you have any other inquiry, I recommend taking a look at our How accurate are Fitbit trackers? article.

Happy stepping.