Questions about the blaze.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi,

I've recently upgraded from an old trusty Fitbit one to a blaze. Pretty interesting piece of hard Fitbit has built.

When it comes to the heart rate counter, how accurate has Fitbit made this counter and what's a margin of error that the blaze works within?

I use this with my Nexus 5x phone using project fi as the carrier and Google's latest os.

The watch seems easy to manipulate the step counter. I'm not doing it purposefully but instead happen to catch it on accident. Some times I might be sitting playing a game that involves lots of movements and the counter picks it up as steps. Can't Fitbit work the software so it's not too sensitive to movement? What's the margin of error with the step counter?

I know fitbits software and firmware isn't exactly perfect science and there is a small window for errors. That's not a problem but how big is this window?

And why do simple movements get tracked as steps. Sometimes it seems to aggressive and step happy. I take one step and the counter marks down 3.

Another thing is the stair count. I've tried just going down stairs. I took the biggest stairs close to me.. 12 flights and cruised to the bottom...not one flight counted. Is it only counting going up? The funny part is elevator rides count as stairs.

The sleep detection seems a bit off. It was pretty good on the start time but then it shut off sleep mode about 1 hour before I actually woke up. Thankfully it's a weekend so the tracker gave me a reason to sleep an extra hour just so it catches it.

Fitbit claims 5 day use on battery. I did a full charge in the morning exactly 12 hours later my battery is 50% on the blaze. And this is with screen on dim. Legacy Bluetooth off. And most features off.

Does all this seem acceptable by fitbit standars ?

[Rich_Laue]

Good day @SunsetRunner

Lets start with the battery,  fitbit does not show percentages but a reative symbol, and it will show a half filled battery from 30% to 80% so we will not worry about this at this time.

The heart rate is pretty accurate for most people, and usually within 1 or 2 beats. It is during HITT exercises where the heart rate fluctuates fast and for shorter periods that there is sometimes a problem.

now for the big one, step accuracy, did you ever notice that by tapping your foot the One would count this as steps?  That's because your body is moving up and down.

The Blaze is mounted on your arm, and therefore can only look at arm motions, not leg motions, your One also did not look at leg motions but looked at body motions

Both units are looking for motions ygat look as if your walking.

As a safety the devices dont start counting steps until 5 consecutive steps are detected, then it starts counting at 5. Even then there will be false steps counted with non stepping arm motions if they look as if you where walking. To help minamize this the Blaze can be set to dominant hand. I also have noticed at times the One will count steps while the Blaze will miss them.

Honestly i have found that they average out, and frequently switch possitions on the leaderboard. Some months the step counts are within 100 steps of each other.

So why the popularity of arm based trackers? Convenience, its basically not having to remember to remove a tracker like the One every night. Then it was discovered that more bells and whistles can be added to an arm based tracker.

While at times my arm based tracker will give extra or miss steps through out the day,  over all it stays relatively close to what the One detects, and during a walk/run it is spot on.

[AdamMSC]

The heart rate monitor on it has been on and off for me. I've tested it on three separate occasions. Each time I have had different results. The first time it was... meh... it was okay. The second time it was within 10 beats on avg. Today I went and tested it again and it wasn't even close. So... I don't really know what to make of it at this point. I'd say it is great for every day tracking, but it isn't reliable for high intensity workouts. I test it against my polar h7 chest strap.

It doesn't track stairs when you descend them. (not supposed to at least)

[SunsetRunner]

@AdamMSC I have an old polar with the chest strap. And I tested myself against it and in terms of heart at least for me it seemed within 5 to a max of 15 beats off from the polar. So accuracy seems decent enough at least for me. But I was wondering if Fitbit had an official document or something that stated what they considered acceptable. This way I know what to expect with the blaze watch and what to look for. It was really just a curiosity to understand more about the product then anything else down its technicalities and specifications it's designed to work within. I'm not at the high intensity workout level yet. So for me I found the blaze to be a perfect fit. Again, was just curious of its operating boundaries.

@Rich_Laue thanks for your response. Going in I knew that I wasnt buying devices that were 1000% on the money and kind of expected to have margins of error within thier operating capabilities. I just wasn't sure what the operating ranges where and if my blaze was where it is to be expected. Also I just wanted to know as well to better judge the information it's giving me. It's all about accuracy to make sure I understand what I'm seeing.

And I agree with body motion. Because with the Fitbit one if I made the motion of walking I manipulate it. The blaze seemed to be similat. Movement that are similar and close to movements during walking seem to trigger off steps. But my question is couldn't Fitbit push this just a tad bit further to maybe hone in on some key measurments to make sure the margin of error is less then it is correctly? No is an acceptable answer. But then I would just need to take the margin of error these devices have when jotting down statistics and reading the information it presents.

Personally I loved the blaze. Seem to fit well with my expectations of it. It was just that I was trying to learn more for better useage. The power of knowledge!! Haha 🙂

[Rich_Laue · Accepted solution]

As for Fitbits response, glide down to the bottom of any page on FITBIT,  Then click on Help.  This will take you to their Help pages, the 101 and manual for your tracker. Ypu will also find many FAQs amongst is the Heart Rate.

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/Heart-rate-FAQs/

[AdamMSC]

I haven't seen an official document on an expected/acceptable margin of error, and I doubt there is one for somewhat obvious reasons. If you find one, please post it! I'm interested as well.

[hikebikerun]

When at rest at the Doctor it was within 1 bpm of what the HRM said on two separate visits. 

When running on the treadmill and cycling at the gym it was within 5-6 BPM of the monitor on the machine everytime. I have noticed that if I don't remember to push it up above my wrist bone like recommended in the directions I get a much spikier graph during more strenuous exercises.  

[Jusername]

Golf question:  I noticed yesterday when I was golfing that my blaze counts swings as steps. This morning I have added Golf to my exercise list - will this correct the problem?

[Jusername]

Golf question:  I noticed yesterday when I was golfing that my blaze counts swings as steps. This morning I have added Golf to my exercise list - will this correct the problem?

[Rich_Laue]

Probably won't correct this. 

You tracker is mounted on your arm and is only able to monitor arm motions. IrIlooks for arm movements that it thinks will happen when the feet are moving. It sounds like the tracker is confused. 

The good news if it detects 4 or less steps then a pause. these steps will be ignored .

[Jusername]

Thanks for the reply. Do you know what the golf exercise feature does?