Charge 5 tracking 2000 steps when I play my guitar

[CJBee]

Hello,

I am new to the community and new to Fitbit. I have just purchased the charge 5. I have only been using out for the last few hours. I have been in my house and like I said in the title have sat playing my guitar. Why does it think that I have done a load of steps? Does it need to be calibrated or something? It paired up fine with my phone etc. I also have burned a lot of calories which would have been great if true but really I have been sat on my bum! Any information would be greatly received. I wonder if it is faulty. Many thanks.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

Being on your wrist, it can only infer steps from the normal swinging of your arms as when walking.  Although it tries to filter out other activities, some continuous rhythmic wrist movements can get interpreted as steps.  Playing guitar or drums and knitting often fall into that category.  To get more accurate step count, you might want to take your fitbit off at those times, maybe using that a charging timer.  But the extra steps will not mess of calorie burn of active zone minutes as those are based on heart rate.

As for calorie burn, Fitbit includes your BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories.  These are the calories you are always burning just to stay alive.  They usually account for more than half of daily calorie burn.  They are credited even when not wearing the tracker, and if just started wearing it today, all day's BMR calorie burn so far would be included in your daily calorie burn.  To see what Fitbit uses for your BMR, you can look back at history before started wearing and probably see the same calorie burn every day - that is your BMR.

From How does my Fitbit device calculate my daily activity? 

[CJBee]

Many thanks for this information Johnny, it is really useful. I thought that it would use GPS to calculate steps. I have a lot to learn with it. I will take your advice and take it off when playing guitar. Thanks again.

[JohnnyRow]

GPS can get distance, but is not used for step count.  When not using GPS, distance is calculated as step count times stride length.

[manyweare]

To me this is the classic case of the developer designing the product for a particular demographic. It counts hundreds of steps when I'm sitting down and having a conversation. I move my hands and arms a lot when talking as do most people with my cultural background. Had this product been designing to be inclusive of people like me, it would have a way to discount these movements or allow a specific setting for us hand talkers.

[CJBee]

It does seem like a shame that it is designed like that I agree. When I actually walk it is amazingly accurate as I have watched the steps increase perfectly with my every step. I just wonder how many arm waving steps I make each day. When I check against my IPhone there is usually 2/3 thousand extra steps on my charge 5. I wonder if it is something that will be improved over time? Hope so. 

[Knuty]

Yeah, I keep getting about 3-4k "steps" from just driving from home to work every morning, its weird. Have already 3 days after buying my charge 5 stopped using the device for counting steps since it's EXTREMELY useless at it since it keeps adding steps from nothing (sitting at my computer working, driving my car etc. The bracelet often vibrates while I'm lying in my sofa watching tv saying I have achieved my daily walking goal in the middle of movie. Kinda makes me giggle a bit and then go on with my day. But I guess it's hard to get it working in a good way when all it has to work with is an accelerometer

[tina888]

Same here! Mine is counting steps always, when I drive, when I sleep, when I dry my hair, when I do my makeup, and even when I am working on my laptop - It is unacceptable!!!! How is that even possible when the device's main aim is to track steps???

[Jessica-Rabbit]

This also sounds like the same issues as @tina888  ... Your Fitbit sounds faulty, as the incidents of steps being recorded by the both of you generally do not occur to the majority of owners.  

I use my Fitbit on my left/non-dominant wrist, which will also reduce it counting actions with my dominant hand. 

I'd ask for support from Fitbit if I had your device, Knuty. 

[JohnnyRow]

For those thinking about bad design causing extra steps, my thought is that is inherent for anything worn on wrist.  If you are more concerned about more precise step count, you need something worn on hip, not on wrist.  Fitbit's only such model now is the Inspire 2 with the clip option.  But to get better step count,  be aware of what you would be losing, especially all heart rate data, plus the ability to easily see the screen.

[IvanDilov]

It looks like you are wearing your Charge 5 on your dominant wrist - right hand if you are playing guitar with your right hand or vice versa. Have you set up your Wrist Placement in the settings of your Charge 5? That should filter some extra hand movement that are not steps. Anyhow the step count algorithm is not perfect especially for such a small tracker. Such step miscalculations occur even in the most advanced fitness trackers, like Garmin Fenix 5x, as per my personal experience, despite they are almost 10x more expensive than my Charge 4.   

[blueeagle]

The Amazfit Band 5 I briefly had (extremely feature rich tracker for only 25 quid which caused a burning sensation on my skin with wildly inaccurate sleep tracking) you could train to recognise repetitive movements that weren't steps, like cleaning your teeth or guitar playing. I Didn't have it long enough to use this feature, but it sounded just the ticket and I was disappointed the Charge 5 didn't have it (as well as 'find my phone' which is hopefully coming as many of their other trackers have it). It is a bit of a problem for those of us who wear it on our dominant wrist as a tracker and not our main watch.

Maybe we should suggest this for the Charge 5?