Smart track on Blaze not identifying exercise

[JoAus]

My blaze is not identifying exercise automatically. I've tried resetting the tracker and logging out of the app and still nothing. It's recorded active minutes but not provided the detailed information on the track exercise log. I don't want to manually log exercise as this adjusts steps and calories. What other options do I have other than to give up on Fitbit and buy a different makers tracker?

[Rich_Laue]

Since the tracker is only able to look at arm motions, is there anything different going on with the arms?

Also the walk off run needs to be long enough, an I'm not sure what happens with frequent switching between to to mode will do.

While on the treadmill, the tracker should not be classified the activity as anything, through the heart rate you should be receiving credit for active minutes. It sounds as if your Blaze is working correctly now, and that for some reason before it was doing something wrong and why I was so interested in the before and not now.

[StephenAndert]

Why would treadmill not automatically record as a walk or run?  It is detecting arm movement.  

I think this used to work and now is broken. It seems to not be fully syncing (steps/active min/hr, but not sleep, or exercise) since last Wed.

[Rich_Laue]

The biggest problem is that while the arm does swing, the body and the arm are stationary. The user is walking in place, not walking down the road.

Apparently the Fitbit development team have not been able to isolate specific arm movements that are unique to stationary waiking while on a moving surface.

Many users also have the dangerous habit of holding onto the super rails, then there ATMs are not moving enough to even detect steps.

[Rich_Laue]

The biggest problem is that while the arm does swing, the body and the arm are stationary. The user is walking in place, not walking down the road.

Apparently the Fitbit development team have not been able to isolate specific arm movements that are unique to stationary waiking while on a moving surface.

Many users also have the dangerous habit of holding onto the super rails, then there ATMs are not moving enough to even detect steps.

As for arm moments while walking while the arm does move back and forth in relationship to the body, in relationship to the ground it does not.

As a person walks, while the arm settings forward, it moves across the ground twice as fast as the arm moves past the person's body. Now while the arm swings backwards in relationship to the person, if you stand back and watch, the wrist does not move backwards across the ground, but is relative to the Earth stationary as the body moves past the arm. 

We are have an updown and a slight rotation movement of the arm.

To sum up as a person walks in relation to the surroundings the wrist moves forward, very fast with a little down and up movement and some rotation.  On the back movements, there isn't any back movements. The wrist moves up down with a slight rotation as the body passes by the wrist.

This movement is totally different while on a treadmill where the arm in relation to the Earth moves forward and backwards. Yes in relationship to the user the movements are the same but in relation to the surroundings the movements are totally different, and this is what Fitbit looks at.

[StephenAndert]

If that is the case, then I do not understand why treadmill walking or running count my steps.

[Rich_Laue]

Counting steps is unrelated to identifying a type of activity being done. 

Fitbit'S algorithm is designed to count steps while walking in place.

As for detecting a type of exercise this magic is not determined on the wrist, but in the cloud on the Fitbit server.

[StephenAndert]

That makes sense. A bit frustrating since this used to autodetect and now
doesn't. It also used to detect ping pong as "sports" and now does not.
Seems broken to me but maybe I am misunderstanding something. 🙂

[Rich_Laue]

@StephenAndert  you say treadmill use to detect, but no mention of what type of exercise that it was detected as. Fitbit never has had an option to auto detect a treadmill walk/run, but suggests the user to use the multisport mode called treadmill.

[StephenAndert]

Treadmill used to detect as run or walk depending on my pace. If I played
a couple of ping-pong games, it would detect it as sports.


Hope this helps clear up why I feel it is broken now.

[Rich_Laue]

Detecting of a walk or run by your tracker while on a treadmill is not a feature that is suppose to happen. Asking why it doesn't do this anymore is not something that can be answered without having more info.

At what point did it stop?

Could something have changed in the movement of the arms?

Was there a firmware update?

An app update?

A Fitbit server update? Your auto tracking is calculated on the Fitbit server, not by the Blaze itself.

Most people have never seen a treadmill exercise recorded any many complain about holding on will prevent steps from being recorded

[Treydog15]

Why did my Fitbit Blaze stop automatically tracking my bike ride two weeks ago and now my walks?

[Rich_Laue]

Have you checked your auto track settings? Do you take any long breaks?