Flex 2 not tracking exercise consistently

[MAHWalker]

I've been having a recurring problem with my flex 2 not tracking when I go walking for 40 minutes (speed walking non-stop) consistently, which will then mess up me meeting my goal of exercising each night. Sometimes it will track it as an exercise when I step outside of my office to walk around the block for 15 minutes (or less), but then it doesn't consistently track when I actually do a more rigorous walk/run for 40 minutes. I'm very frustrated and am starting to wonder what the return policy is, as I may prefer to have a different fit bit if this one won't work as advertised.
I realize that you can go in and add in an exercise manually, and I have done this, but the problem with that is that while the flex 2 didn't track that I exercised, it did track that I took steps and then when I go back and add in that I exercised manually, it also adds in the steps and that makes it so that my steps were double counted during that time.
I also realize that I can tell it that I am exercising (track exercise) myself, but isn't that why it's supposed to autotrack it without me having to do that? When I set it to track the specific exercise, i then have to carry my phone around with me in my hand while I am exercising because my phone is too big for a pocket.
I'm frustrated and feeling like this flex 2 isn't reliable to be consisent.

[AlvaroFitbit]

@MAHWalker Welcome to our Community! If you are wearing your tracker on your dominant hand try changing the settings of handedness to the other hand but keep wearing your tracker on the same hand. This will make your tracker more sensitive to your movements. Also when you go out walking do you use a more comfortable shoes (I guess you do and this could help absorb the impact but also will make detecting steps a little bit more complicated for your tracker). Change the time your tracker need to recognize a walk or run on it settings page to 10 minutes. Finally a restart couldn't harm at this point so try it by doing the following:

1.- Plug the charging cable into the USB port on your computer or a UL-certified USB wall charger.
2.- Remove the pebble from the wristband and press it into the compartment on the charging cable. The pins on the charging cable must align with the corresponding pins on the back of the pebble to lock securely in place.
You’ll know the connection is secure when the pebble vibrates and you see the indicator lights blinking.
3.- Find the button on the charging cable below the tracker compartment.
4.- Press it three times within five seconds. The tracker vibrates each time you press the button. A few seconds after the third press, all the lights will flash simultaneously. This means the pebble has restarted. If you miss the light flash but notice the pebble has resumed charging, that too is confirmation that the restart was successful.
5.- Remove the pebble from the charging cable and insert it back into the wristband.

Let me know how it goes!

[sussbucket]

I am having a similar problem. I had my fitbit flex for a month now and bought it because it tracks swimming as well as walking etc.My fitbit is also linked to My Fitness Pal. It worked fine until 2 days ago when it started missing either some of the walking or some of the swimming. I swim freestyle every morning for about 60 minutes in a 25 meter pool and only stop for 30 seconds at the most after 15 minutes of continuous swimming. It is a public pool and it is necessary to sometimes stop or slow down according to other swimmers.I have tried all the suggestions (reset pebble,bluetooth etc. and I keep an eye of the charging and I have changed wrist positions). It also logged washing up as swimming and walking up steep hills as using an eliptical trainer. I rely on the fitbit as I do not wish to have to log or time my exercises separately and as it is linked with My Fitness Pal I am also relying on the accuracy of Fitbit to count calories burned. I am really frustrated and upset as I spend a lot of money on a device which is effectively unreliable and useless and no better than my basic Jawbone Up Move which I had used previously used  and timed and logged my swims  on My Fitness Pal. 

Any other suggestions then those already mentioned would be welcome before I decide to abandon my fitbit ?

[CarrieAA]

I have had my Flex 2 for just over a year now and about a month ago it also started recording the exercise all wrong; including indicating that I had periods of over 60 minutes of Elliptical training (always now Elliptical training no matter what I do whether it is swimming, walking, etc.) after midnight when I was already in bed - asleep!!

Anyone know what the guarantee is for the Flex 2 - looking like my 1st year is up so now it crashes with no recourse!!

[NellyG]

@CarrieAA Have you tried restarting your tracker several times?

Restart your tracker

[CarrieAA]

Hi @NellyG  I have just restarted it again this morning so shall see how it behaves over the next day or so, fingers crossed it will start working again properly.  At least it is still recording all my steps and active minutes for periods in excess of 10 minutes even it doesn't think any of it is actually exercise!! It only seems to record exercise when I'm not doing anything.

It is very interesting that for some of the recordings of "elliptical" exercise late at night there are no matching steps for example it said that at 23:05 on Tuesday I did 51 minutes of elliptical exercise (I didn't) but only 192 steps!!

[dbohnen1980]

When I try to log my weight workouts the data is way off.  The time, steps, distance walked and calories burnt are way off.  How do I fix this?

[NellyG]

@dbohnen1980 are you trying to get it to auto recognise weights or are you manually entering it. Smart track is not able to track weights, so that would explain your lack of results if you are trying to get it to recognise it.

To manually log, on your phone go to the fitbit app and tap the exercise tile (the running man). On the screen that comes up tap the stopwatch icon in the top right corner. On the next page start to type in the activity(weights). A drop down list should come up. Select the Activity off the list, fill in the details and hit Log it and you are done!

Let us know if that answers your question

[dbohnen1980]

Do I then have to manually enter the start time, duration and calories? Or does it log it for me?

I want to know how many calories I burnt while doing the weight part of the workout

Thanks for your help

[NellyG]

Flex 2 uses Smart Track to detect exercise. Weights is not one of the exercises it can detect.

WHICH EXERCISES ARE TRACKED AUTOMATICALLY?

SmartTrack recognizes continuous, high-movement activities such as:

• Walking
• Running
• Outdoor biking
• Elliptical
• Swimming (Fitbit Flex 2, Fitbit Ionic, and Fitbit Versa)

It also recognizes two general categories:

• Sport—Includes high-movement sports like tennis, basketball, soccer, and others. Sports that might not be recognized include those without continuous movement or that vary in intensity level, like golf.
• Aerobic workout—Includes aerobic activities with continuous movement, such as Zumba®, cardio-kickboxing, and other dance classes.

Flex 2 does not have a heart Rate monitor so it will never tell you exactly what calories your burnt for any activity. The numbers you will get are estimates based on an average person of your age and weight doing the activity you are doing for that amount of time If you manually enter exercise you will need to put in the duration and the app will use population averages to estimate the calories you have burnt.  For example, if I enter weight training manually, 1 hours gives me 154 calories burnt (I am a small woman. Not young). But this is not whay I burnt it is what an average person of my size burns. If I google calorie burn i can get various calorie calculators which seem to tell me I would burn around 155 calories. So pretty close to whay the Fitbit app says. But that is not taking in to account how hard I worked. Unless you have aHeart Rate monitor on your tracker basically it is educated guesses.

Not sure if that answers your question or not! Come back and ask if there is more information you want

[CarrieAA]

For the record, my Flex 2 is again being sporadic with how it records any periods of exercise, going back to thinking that I do lots of elliptical work between the hours of 10:00pm and 3:00am!!  Interestingly for most of these periods, it still things that I am asleep and not doing any steps - perhaps the cat is borrowing my FitBit!!  And occasionally for some periods of exercise (in excess of 10 minutes) it records the steps, notes the minutes of activity but doesn't measure/count it as part of the "Weekly Exercise".  And yes, I have restarted the FitBit on numerous occasions.

Since my main aim is keep track of the number of steps, which for now still seems to be working, I suppose that I shouldn't complain but it is very frustrating - so if anyone does now have a solution (other than spend more money buying a new one!!) ....

[Madlax12]

My flex 2 is not recording outdoor biking. I biked for nearly 2 hours yesterday and it recorded 35 minutes.  I bought it for my Dad but he gave it back to me because he was frustrated with this same issue. .  Any recommendations for how to improve the accuracy or should i just throw in the circular file?