Unpredictable results

[Mo-n-Dot]

At the weekend I took a 13.3 mile walk (estimated on an Ordinance Survey map and recorded in real-time using my Garmin Oregon 300 gps)  along fairly smooth paths with gentle hills. My newly acquired (3 weeks ago) Blaze recorded something like 10.6 miles. OK - this can be put down to the stride length estimated by Fitbit being different to my actual stride length. I know there is the means to make an adjustment for this.

However, my main concern is that I left my Blaze to charge on a bedside cabinet this morning. At lunchtime it had recorded that I had done something like 760 steps and climbed 1 flight of stairs.

One other irritation - the literature suggests a typical battery cycle, between charges, as 5 days (± a little for use conditions). However, I'm only getting about 3 days from my unit. Should I be worried about this?

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Mo-n-Dot, to address your main concern: Fitbit states that the Blaze battery should last "up to" 5 days, so that is not an average -- it is the optimum, and that will likely be for people who do not often put it in exercise mode, or get frequent phone / text / calendar notifications.

If you are getting 3 days, I would say that is probably about average and nothing to worry about.  

For best charging practices, and for the longest life overall of your Blaze, you might not want to wait until your Blaze's battery is low.  Many people find that putting it on to charge for a few minutes each day -- for example when you take it off to give your wrist a rest and shower in the morning -- keeps the battery sufficiently charged so that it never gets too low.  Charging frequently and often will not do it any harm -- in fact it is ideal always to keep your device between about 30 - 80 per cent charged.

As for your other concerns, you can improve distance calculation by using the "connected GPS" features of the Blaze, and steps detection can be affected by vibrations (such as from a fan, humidifier, or even a computer CPU) and weather fronts, or even the pressure changes from a suddenly slamming door can affect the "floor" counting.