Inaccurate swim data

[Everuby]

Had the Flex 2 almost two weeks, and it hasn't recorded a swim accurately. It's way short - usually half of what I've done. I swim 40 lengths of a 25m pool each weekday morning, all the settings are set to what I do. It also counts my swim towards my steps which doesn't actually worry me as I thought that's what it does anyway but since found it isn't supposed to. I'm just manually inputting my swims at the moment. I guess I am one of the luckier ones that it does actually recognise swimming. I'm on to fitbit on a daily basis as I can see from other posts this issue has been going on for 2 years now and seen also that there are similar issues with the Charge 3. I want them to give me a straight answer but all I'm getting is the usual 'we are working on this round the clock' rubbish. But i'm not letting it rest. Sure it doesn't affect everyone but by the amount of similar posts we can't all be wrong can we??

[AlvaroFitbit]

@Everuby A warm welcome to our Community! Sorry to hear that your Flex 2 isn't recording all your swim time. I suggest you wear your tracker on your dominant hand, you will need to keep swimming so the time is properly recorded. If you stop then the time recorded for the activity might be off as it is needed a minimum of 10 minutes of constant movement to automatically record it. Finally several users shared great suggestions on swim detection in this thread. You can also check our Help Article here.

Let me know how it goes!

[Everuby]

Well as i expected after another email trying to fob me off to say they are still trying to sort the swim data they and their self appointed spokespeople trying to do the same I'm still not giving up. Anyone from fitbit care to respond as to why they cant get swim data sorted and why they think its acceptable to carry on selling devices with a fault? (Your words, not mine!).


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[TexasPV]

My charge 3 is even weirder. I start and stop the swim manually and it records the right time, and tells me in the swim activity that I had no steps. Yet in a 30 min swim it consistently records 2200 steps and 1 mile walked. So it is double counting calories and overcounting steps by about 25% in my case. 

Is there a way to delete steps during a swim? I can see how to adjust activities, but not steps. 

Thanks

[Everuby]

The fitbits designed for swimming are not supposed to count towards daily steps - according to their helpdesk. My flex 2 does and so does everyone elses that has one designed for swimming. Nor do they count swim laps accurately or calories burnt properly. Yet fitbits solution is to ask us for ideas how to improve this and fob us off with silly excuses. If that isn't a case for trading standards then I don't know what is.

I bet not a single moderator can confirn when these issues will be resolved because basically they couldn't care less.

[HogWldFLTR]

FWIW, I've been using the Flex and Flex 2 since they were introduced because they were the only fitbits which were water resistant and useful for swimming. The Flex was replaced with the Flex 2 when they were first available. Because the Flex 2 doesn't show laps completed I've been using multiple Garmin watches over the past years to track my swimming. Let me just say that the Flex 2 does a terrible job. It is always inaccurate. Never once has it matched my Garmin. The Garmin is occasionally inaccurate for example if I need to stop mid length. That is the only time it doesn't match what I'm doing. How far is the Flex 2 off? It pretty much varies from swim to swim. Anywhere form 20 to 50%.

Really, why does this matter? Well for me I'm also a watch collector and a Garmin fenix 3 is just too large to wear with a good mechanical watch. Given the choice of wearing a Fenix 3 or a good swiss mechanical, the Garmin would be left at home. The Flex 2 is a nice tidy strap which is totally understated and perfect on the dominant wrist. Also I follow Weight Watchers and the data is automatically carried into their App.

So what is the resolution? At this point in time I'm manually entering the Garmin data into WW. I've switched to Apple Health for monitoring step count which is a pain as I don't really like carrying my phone all the time but I like accuracy in recording my activity. I'm looking at the possibility of buying an Apple watch to replace the Flex 2. This is a major disappointment for me.

This really came to a head this week when my Flex 2 ran out of batteries and I couldn't get it to charge easily. It was then that I synced my Garmin to the WW's app and found out how significant the discrepancy is.