Overestimating steps to much!

[Sebichop]

Hello, so i have a problem with a charge 5 since the beggining, everything works great but the watch is overcounting the steps too much. Everything is sync with my iphone, my iphone counted 3000 steps today while the charge 5 counted 8000 wich is impossible, i chose the settings on dominating hand and wear it on the left hand, also changed the stride lenght to manualy but its even worse, any tips please?

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @Sebichop , all wrist worn trackers will, to some extent, pick up hand movements and interpret these as steps.  This can be a lot more significant if your work or hobbies involve a lot of hand motions - I have seen posts from pianists reporting this issue, and also some jobs, like pharmaceutical workers whose jobs involve counting pills, etc.  Some people just naturally move their hands a lot, especially when they talk (I am one of those).

You can minimise this by wearing your Fitbit on your non dominant hand, but in the settings on the app, set it to dominant.  Setting it to dominant will cause the program to be a little LESS sensitive to hand movements.

Also if you are about to do something that you know involves a lot of hand movements (for example practising the piano, or even folding laundry) it may be helpful temporarily to slip the Fitbit in your pocket.

Because I use my hands a lot (as I mentioned I do “talk” with my hands - and sometimes knitting gives me fake “steps”) I used to worry about this a lot.  I thought I was getting too many extra steps.  So I did an experiment and tried wearing one Fitbit on my wrist and another one designed to be on a clip on my core.  I set them up on separate accounts and monitored them both for a month.  To my surprise, even though some days they were different, over a month the total difference was very small.  So I quit worrying about it.

I hope this helps.  Welcome to the forums!

[robworkingout]

I would recommend focusing on calorie burn and zone minute score. Steps will pick up all movement then translate that into calorie burn. If you really want accurate daily steps then look into placing on you ankle. 

[Julia_G]

@robworkingout , that is not actually true.  I asked my son this (he’s a programmer) and he said that the algorithms for step counting are specifically designed for wearing it on the wrist and that your steps will not necessarily (or at all) be more accurate on your ankle.

For that reason Fitbit does not advise wearing it on your ankle, and they produce no straps suitable for ankle wearing .  In situations where you are unable to wear on your wrist, or if over counting or under counting in a particular activity is an issue, Fitbit recommends tucking it into your pocket or wearing it somewhere on your core.

[robworkingout]

Which brings me back to my first recommendation focus on calorie burn and zone minutes. By placing on your ankle it would not detect the same amount of movement as the arms would That my point. People focus way to much on steps which isn’t really the most important aspect to getting healthier. Zoom minutes and calorie burn is what I focus on myself. 

[Heather12537467]

That's not helpful. We should be able to count on the functionality of all device features. Suggesting we ignore a feature isn't a solution 

[LorrieMitt]

Totally agree! I think I am going to return mine -

I shouldn’t have to log driving to block steps or ignore the feature  - it should do what I bought it to do! The calories burned would also not be accurate as I’m sure calories are tied to steps 

ug 

[Tony_OM]

And what do you think your calorie burning is tied to? Steps. Overcounting steps gives you overcounted calories. My resting calorie burned while sleeping has always been around 300 and 400. Fitbit says I burned 800 cal, walked 600 steps and 0.25 miles. If this is not an inaccuracy problem… And yes, calories are linked to that info.

[Tony_OM]

There’s no perfect tracker yet. They definitely shouldn’t market features they don’t properly manage yet. Still, there’s a big difference on the accuracy when active compared to the accuracy when resting. I trust my fitbit a bit better when I’m actively working out than I trust the readings during the rest of the day, when I never wear it again.

[Julia_G]

@Tony_OM , that is not correct.  The major contributor to calorie calculations for the Fitbit is your BMR (basal metabolic rate) calories which is calculated based on your sex, height, weight and age.  Beyond that, now that the majority of Fitbits detect heart rate calculations beyond BMR are based on detected heart rate to determine level of effort, rather than just steps.

In any case, calorie burn is based on averages and is a very inexact calculation and should always be used as a guideline rather than gospel truth.

[cleethorpes101]

My step count goes up by 5000 when I swim for an hour, never had this problem with Fitbits 3 & 4