Tips For Step Count

[bcalvanese]

Here are some tips that I have discovered to get more accurate step counts with the Blaze.

When walking at a fast pace it seems to only count about half the steps, but walking at a slow pace it seems to be accurate.

I noticed that when walking at a fast pace, if i keep my arms bent at about a 90 degree angle it counts correctly. Maybe it because when walking at a fast pace, it somehow thinks your jogging, so swinging your arms as though you are running it works better. I power walk at 4 to 4.5 mph and swinging my arms at a 90 degree angle yeilds an accurate step count.

To test your step count you can start a walk workout, scroll to get to the step count screen, and watch your steps count as you walk. Try swinging your arms different ways and counting 10 steps and swinging the watch up to see if it counted the 10 steps. Keep swinging your arms in different ways until you find the way that gets an accurate step count for your style of walking.

[Rich_Laue]

To test the step count, start an exercise then take a walk while counting the steps taken in your head. When you reach 100, 200 or wheaten, Stop. Now look at the steroids the Blaze counted. For me in the one test i did i found the Blaze to be the most inaccurate of the 6 Fitbits i have. It counted1008 steps over a 1000 step test. My One said 1002, which tells me that i miscounted. This is a 0.4% error and well within the 5%

[Colinm39]

@bcalvaneseThanks for the tip because I was testing my Fitbits last night and progressively counting steps and looking at the Blaze and found that when I had my arm up at 90 degrees it registered every step.

But here are my results, and similar to when I started testing my Surge. My HR Fitbits are all set to non-dominant. My walk was on level footpath.  It was a 13 minute duration. I always use my Fitbit One as my gold standard.

Model Steps

Ultra     1,383

Zip        1,387

One      1,375

Blaze    1,140

But over a full day the Blaze catches up because of my domestics and then loses again with shopping trolleys. and in the end comes within 5%..... More testing needed by me.

Yes, the Ultra is well into it's 4th birthday, a little battered, superglued but keeps the One honest.  With this test I was surprised the Zip was as close, normally within 5% on most days.

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@bcalvanese wrote:

Here are some tips that I have discovered to get more accurate step counts with the Blaze.

When walking at a fast pace it seems to only count about half the steps, but walking at a slow pace it seems to be accurate.

I noticed that when walking at a fast pace, if i keep my arms bent at about a 90 degree angle it counts correctly. Maybe it because when walking at a fast pace, it somehow thinks your jogging, so swinging your arms as though you are running it works better. I power walk at 4 to 4.5 mph and swinging my arms at a 90 degree angle yeilds an accurate step count.

To test your step count you can start a walk workout, scroll to get to the step count screen, and watch your steps count as you walk. Try swinging your arms different ways and counting 10 steps and swinging the watch up to see if it counted the 10 steps. Keep swinging your arms in different ways until you find the way that gets an accurate step count for your style of walking.

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[Colinm39]

@bcalvaneseLast night my testing definitely showed the difference, walking with arms at 90o had the step count within 1 over 100 steps test. As soon as I went arm swinging in a normal balanced walk there was a loss of 15 to 19 steps average.  There is also a slow ramp up in the first minute and a ramp down in the last minute where the Blaze doesn't detect the same step movement whereas the One, Ultra and Zip did.

I can accept that because of the different devices.

More testing over longer distance now, last night's was 12 minutes on level pavement.

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@bcalvanese wrote:

Here are some tips that I have discovered to get more accurate step counts with the Blaze.

When walking at a fast pace it seems to only count about half the steps, but walking at a slow pace it seems to be accurate.

I noticed that when walking at a fast pace, if i keep my arms bent at about a 90 degree angle it counts correctly. Maybe it because when walking at a fast pace, it somehow thinks your jogging, so swinging your arms as though you are running it works better. I power walk at 4 to 4.5 mph and swinging my arms at a 90 degree angle yeilds an accurate step count.

To test your step count you can start a walk workout, scroll to get to the step count screen, and watch your steps count as you walk. Try swinging your arms different ways and counting 10 steps and swinging the watch up to see if it counted the 10 steps. Keep swinging your arms in different ways until you find the way that gets an accurate step count for your style of walking.

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[racertempo]

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@Rich_Laue wrote:
To test the step count, start an exercise then take a walk while counting the steps taken in your head. When you reach 100, 200 or wheaten, Stop. Now look at the steroids the Blaze counted. For me in the one test i did i found the Blaze to be the most inaccurate of the 6 Fitbits i have. It counted1008 steps over a 1000 step test. My One said 1002, which tells me that i miscounted. This is a 0.4% error and well within the 5%

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I agree, I have done this several times this week and the Blaze is about as spot on over 100 steps intervals as I have ever seen.

[Colinm39]

@bcalvanese Tonight I walked for 21 minutes using Nordic Walking Poles. (recommendation from my Physio to help strengthen the core because of my lower back stenosis).

Result  2,482 steps for the Blaze and 2,461 for the One.. So the Blaze was only 0.8% higher. Excellent

For the majority of the day when I had the One and Blaze on my body, the results were acceptable even with some shopping trolley with the Blaze. Steps were 9,429 steps - Blaze and the One 9,625, so the Blaze was only 2% lower, and I was surprised because yesterdays test all day was 11-16% lower.

To keep the One and Blaze "honest" here are the results for the Zip and Ultra.

9,551 and 9,679 respectively and 2,550 and 2,528 respectively.

So overall I'm happy with the results thanks to the Nordic Walking Poles which force my arms to push back at right angles.

[Rbrockport]

Following. I see about 1000 step difference from my Blaze and My One after a full day. Right now its pretty consistent as this is my second day wearing my blaze. 

[Rich_Laue]

Stone your One is looking at body core motions and the Blaze is looking at arm motions, for the overall daily steps i would not expect them to be the same.  Somedays the blaze will be higher and other days lower. If you have friended your two fitbit accounts tou will be able to moni5or the leaderboard. If yours goes as mine did, spoke days id watch them switch places with every sync.

For accuracy testing this really needs to be done during a walk / run, and performing the step count test mentioned above. 

You could also use the tracking mode of both trackers to compare during your walk

[Rbrockport]

Hello well that makes sense. I did adjust my stride after I measured it and so far it's helping. I took my one off my account as they said that you shouldnt sync them both at the same time. I eventually will take off my one as that was the point of getting the blaze but was just really curious as they were both so different...

Rbrockport
Sent from my iPhone

[Rich_Laue]

The app will only sync one fitbit st a time. Your not suppose to wear more than one tracker at a time. It wont hurt thimgs, but might give weird step readings. 

[Rbrockport]

Right I just know that my Fitbit one has different numbers so I just unlink it from my account when i am not going to use it.

[Rich_Laue]

I have 4 Fitbits connected to my account.

When forcing a sync, all 4 trackers sync one at a time. Fitbit then looks at the data, calclates the step count based on which every tracker has steps.  Now it will go through yhe list and sync all for trackers, when done the app, online daahboard and all 4 trackers agree in their step count. 

[Rbrockport]

@Rich_Laue

Wow thats interesting.. I took my one off because the step count was so different and didnt want to throw my results off.. Not sure I want to add it back until I am planning on using it for the day. Not sure how I would switch back to the one.. But I think I am going to need to get some other dressier bands for this reason. 

[Rich_Laue]

You just go into the device settings screen,  hit the plus sign then press add device. Now pick up the tracker that you want to use, put down the other one.

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/Can-I-use-more-than-one-Fitbit-tracker-with-the-s...

[Colinm39]

I have to do a fair bit of pushing my daughter around the shopping malls in her wheelchair. As we all know the HR Fitbits are not designed for issues where you are holding devices like wheelchair and shopping trolleys.

Today I put the Blaze in my Jeans pocket, the result while pushing the wheelchair for 1.5 hours..

Blaze = 4,086

Ultra   = 3,960 Still going strong 4.3 yrs later.

One   = 3,893

Zip     =  3,824

So any prolonged shopping I do I will turn off the HR monitor and place the Blaze in my jeans pocket. The calories on the Blaze were 70% higher than the clipon Fitbits....

[Rbrockport]

I had the ultra also my first Fitbit and my husband wore it after I had if and it snapped In half.. It lasted a couple of years

[BobSarno]

Prior to the Blaze, I had the Fitbit Force for over 2 years and it had the same undercounting issue when I walk with normal arm swing.  I was really hoping the Blaze would be better.  It is not.  If I walk naturally, it severely undercounts my steps.  If I put my hand in my pocket (or hold my stomach or arms at 90 deg) it counts perfectly.  I do not understand why Fitbit does not fix this issue.  WE WANT TO WALK NORMALLY!!!

[Rich_Laue]

I walk notmally and on a 1000 step walk my Blaze, Surge, Charge HR, are within 5 steps of the One. The One is usually within 2 steps of my count.

This is just my experiance. 

Im wondering if the step count is off because of some hardware issue with a shipm3nt of parts.

[Vlad1]

Hi,

How does the blaze perform for running? I went for 8 miles run/ walk last Sunday. The blaze gave me  59 min of running while the google fit on my lg g4 phone, which I kept in my waist pack, gave me 29 min. The actual time I run was 30 min.

Thank you.