Advantage of connecting a phone to FitBit app? [Fitbit is already connected to app via Bluetooth]

[Srhfsh]

I just got a Charge 6. It was grossly overestimating my steps. After internet research, I see that this problem is extremely common with the Charge 6. Based on my reading, I re-set the FitBit, and manually calibrated stride length. 

Now, as I continue on my Sisyphean journey to get an accurate step count, I saw something.

Obviously I already had the Fitbit app installed on my Pixel 7 and linked to my Charge 6 with Bluetooth.

I realized I could also "connect my device", which would ostensibly use the Pixel 7 sensors to track steps, distance, and calories in the Fitbit app.  I did so (screenshots attached).

MY QUESTION(S):

1) why does this help with anything? How could a smartphone possibly generate more accurate data than a wearable? 

2) what happens if the metrics disagree? Does it go by the phones data, or the wearable's data?

3) is there a disadvantage to "connecting the device?" 

  

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

Connecting your phone as a device is supposed to only use phone's step's count when you are not wearing your fitbit tracker.  When you are wearing your fitbit, it should have no effect.  However there have been a few cases where people have noticed a huge sudden jump in step count (many tens of thousands of steps or more, added all at once), and the common thread seemed to be that they had their phone connected as a device, leading to an unverified suspicion that it was caused by a bug in that feature.

Actually, if a phone were always kept in your hip pocket, it might get better total step count than a wearable on wrist, but fitbit on wrist is getting so much more info, including heart rate.
No tracker worn on wrist can measure steps precisely because it doesn't really know what your legs are doing.  It can only tell what your wrist and arm are doing and infer steps from swinging of the arms that look like movements that go with walking.  If you play the drums or do a lot of knitting or such, you will probably get a lot of extra false steps and be better taking it off during those activities.  But otherwise, most people get a few extra steps sometimes and get a few steps missed, but over the course of a day, they pretty much even out.  And remember that heart rate is really a more important factor than steps for most measurements, including calories burned.

[Srhfsh]

🙂 It sounds there is no downside to connecting the phone as a device, except a random glitch that may or may not happen. Which will be super obvious if it does. 

Thank you for your response!

[cu11en]

The downside is that if you read the disclaimer when adding your device, all you are doing is giving Google permission to track and save a bunch of your data that otherwise would only be in the Fitbit app itself. It doesn’t give you any additional functionality or accuracy. I would highly recommend against it if you value privacy. Otherwise, do whatever you want lol