Run or bike without GPS and others questions

[Gshock]

Hey all,

I'm currently using an Apple Watch but I've found that while the AW is great for a good many things, the most important features to me are fitness tracking, sleep monitoring and guided workouts. And while the AW has those features through third party apps, I find the whole experience to be fragmented at best. So I'm looking at the Blaze for a replacement and I wanted to know the following:

1) Can the Blaze accurately (or with in reason) track distance on a bike ride or run without using connected GPS? The AW does not have built-in GPS but it's does a good job tracking distance when I don't have my phone on me.

2) Is the FitStar a paid subscription or are the services included w the Blaze?

3) Does anyone know if notifications from BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) and iMessages come through for text notifications?

4) Are there any advantages of buying direct from Fitbit over places like REI?


Thanks all.

[SunsetRunner]

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@Gshock wrote:

1) Can the Blaze accurately (or with in reason) track distance on a bike ride or run without using connected GPS? The AW does not have built-in GPS but it's does a good job tracking distance when I don't have my phone on me.

The tracker when not using GPS, when walking/running.. it uses your stride length to determine the distance walked.. though when not having a connection with GPS, unlikely the tracker can track the distance when using a bike.

2) Is the FitStar a paid subscription or are the services included w the Blaze?

The tracker comes with several workouts for free, when wanting more exercises from Fitstar, a subscription is required: https://www.fitbit.com/uk/shop/services/fitstar-personal-trainer

3) Does anyone know if notifications from BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) and iMessages come through for text notifications?

No clue..

4) Are there any advantages of buying direct from Fitbit over places like REI?

When purchasing from Fitbit directly, there's a 45 days return policy, other stores can apply different return policies.

Thanks all.

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[EmersonFitbit · Accepted solution]

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@Gshock wrote:
Hey all,

I'm currently using an Apple Watch but I've found that while the AW is great for a good many things, the most important features to me are fitness tracking, sleep monitoring and guided workouts. And while the AW has those features through third party apps, I find the whole experience to be fragmented at best. So I'm looking at the Blaze for a replacement and I wanted to know the following:

1) Can the Blaze accurately (or with in reason) track distance on a bike ride or run without using connected GPS? The AW does not have built-in GPS but it's does a good job tracking distance when I don't have my phone on me.

2) Is the FitStar a paid subscription or are the services included w the Blaze?

3) Does anyone know if notifications from BBM (BlackBerry Messenger) and iMessages come through for text notifications?

4) Are there any advantages of buying direct from Fitbit over places like REI?


Thanks all.

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Hoping I can help here!

• Yep- entering a specific exercise mode (walk or run, for example) should populate your distance after the fact in the post-activity summary (this shows up on-device) and on your Dashboard after. It's pretty neat, but GPS is always there if you need it and have your phone. Matter of preference, really. 
• By default, there are three activities on the Blaze itself when you purchase the device. I'm hoping we add to the list in the future!
• Any SMS should work, but I personally use regular text messages as well as iMessages. I coun't vouch for BBM, and I know many users get their WhatsApp message on their Surge devices now, so I imagine that may be a possibility in the future (Note: Only one message application will work at a given time).  
• Another matter of preference- warranty/return policies as well as confidence in retailers depend on each buyer's own tendencies, though I particularly like what I hear about REI (one of our Authorized retailers). 

Hope I helped a bit!

[Gshock]

Thanks for the replies! One more question here. I measured my wrist at 6.75. I'm really a tweener of a large and small. Do the bands over lap at all in size? My concern about getting large is that I won't be able to cinch the band down tight enough during exercise and if I go small, it will be too tight during non exercise activities. What is your suggestion for size? Hopefully Fitbit built in a little overlap between the sizes.

[EmersonFitbit]

You'd likely be fine with either size, since I've found there is a bit of overlap, historically, in our devices. My wrist clocks in at about 6"8, and I wear a large Blaze. It works out nicely for me! @Gshock

[bbarrera]

@EmersonFitbit how does Blaze accurately track biking distance without GPS? For walks and runs it will use stride you've entered to calculate distance, but I doubt that (or something similar) works well for bike rides as distance is dependent on gearing and cadence.

[EmersonFitbit]

@bbarrera A good question. I'd actually check in with @ErickFitbit, since he might have a bit of experience riding bikes with his Blaze device (I think I may be the world's first reported case of someone actually forgetting how to ride a bike). 

I believe that the bike application on the Blaze would use its algorithms to best estimate your distance for the given activity, much like it would on a walk/run without GPS. The distance shown by both methods should be pretty similar, but I'm partial to GPS connected because I like maps. 

[bbarrera]

As an engineer that rides a lot, really having trouble believing Fitbit algorithms can estimate a bike ride distance without GPS. Not going to bore you with details, suffice it to say that a 10mph difference in headwind, or uphill vs downhill, makes a huge impact on speed and therefore distance. Just trying a little thought experiment, hard to understand how accelerometer can detect much difference between spinning legs at 90rpm at 5mph vs 10mph. I'm sure the accelerometer can "see" a lot more 'jiggles' at 20mph versus 5mph, but how does it get calibrated if you never ride bike with Connected GPS.

I'll give huge props if Fitbit Blaze nails bike distance estimation without GPS, as nobody else has done it to my knowledge.

[eltoo]

I went for a run today without my phone.  But I ran the same route I've previously run on several occasions where I did use my phone GPS to track the results.  To my surprise, when I finished, my Charge 2 displayed a total mileage that exactly matched the previously measured distance, and gave me a pace (miles per minute) presumably based on that and time elapsed.  I assume the Charge 2 calculated all that based on stored data about my stride length from prior runs?