Inaccurate step count

[RICHARDeahern]

some days show five thousand steps not even close to reality. I get up go to kitchen go to car and uber for the day. go home walk twenty steps to house perhaps 150 steps then go to bed

today: walked 12 steps to bathroom, 25 steps to kitchen, 25 steps to basement. watch shows 1040 steps.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[Dominique]

Based on the description of your daily routine, I would focus on getting more active rather than on the accuracy of my Fitbit.

[RICHARDeahern]

focusing on improving my exercise does not address the question of inaccuracy. Why would I rely on a system that feeds me false information. how would i measure my improvement based on inaccurate statistics

[Baltoscott]

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@RICHARDeahern wrote:
focusing on improving my exercise does not address the question of inaccuracy. Why would I rely on a system that feeds me false information. how would i measure my improvement based on inaccurate statistics

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There is definitely some baseline noise in the algorithm Fitbit uses and plenty of people notice a thousand or more 'steps' even sitting on the couch all day; but even there you are probably moving more than you think over the course of several hours. And the sensitivity is probably helpful to people of with mobility issues in helping measure progress. 

But regardless, it will pick up a LOT more steps if you go out and walk around the block.  And even more if you do that twice the next day.  And more again if you do three times the third day.  Join some challenges and you might even move that 5K a day to 10K a day. 

And that is how you'll measure your improvement.  

[Dominique]

The most accurate pedometers (= devices designed to count steps) are those you clip on your waist, because it takes hand moves out of the equation. So if you’re interest in the absolute best accuracy with step counting, you should get one of those. The good news is they’re dirt cheap. The bad news is it’s easy to lose them, and also to forget clipping them to your clothes when you change clothes.

Almost all modern Fitbits are worn on your wrist. There are several advantages: they can monitor your heart rate and your sleep, you can swim with them (if they are waterproof), it’s harder to lose them and you won’t forget them at home because they remained clipped on the wrong piece of cloth. Among drawbacks: hand movements can interfer with step counting. For instance, I’ve read reports of a hairdresser who said she got thousands of steps during a typical workday, although she was stationary most of the time.

However, just because your Fitbit isn’t 100% accurate with step counting doesn’t mean it can’t be useful as a tool to motivate you into becoming more active (which I assume was the primary reason why you got a Fitbit in the first place). On a day when you are very active, you will always get credited with more steps (as @Baltoscott observed) than on a day when you were mostly inactive. If your goal is to hit the "gold standard" of 10,000 steps per day and you feel the step count reported by your Fitbit is too optimistic, just set your goal to 12k, or whatever would take into account the alleged over-reporting of steps.

[AlvaroFitbit]

@RICHARDeahern Welcome to the Fitbit Community! It's great to have you here!

Let me help you with your step count. Which Fitbit device do you have? In general your device will detect the movement on your arm and translate that movement into steps. There are situations in which your arm may move but you won't be actually walking. For example, this may happen when you are playing the drums, burping a baby or clapping. It can also happen while driving. You can negate these steps by logging a driving activity. You can try wearing your device on your non dominant hand but select that hand as dominant on the device’s settings to make it less sensitive to movement.

As mentioned by @Dominique belt clip based tracker are more accurate as they aren't affected by arm movements. If you wish you can check out the Fitbit Inspire (not the HR version) as it has a clip mode that you can use to wear it on your hip (or inside your pants pocket). This should help you have a more accurate step count for your daily activities.

@Baltoscott @Dominique thank you both for your help here.

Let me know how it goes.

[rudyten]

It is what it is....Marketing
I do 10,000 steps a day 4-5 days a week...been doing it for years.

Fitbit is great assuming i only wear it when i go for walks. quite accurate
else this piece of crap tells me I am walking 20,000 steps aday.. i think it counts me typing character on keyboard. so not so accurate. lol

They need to spend less time in marketing, and pumping out new crap and get the software fixed.
There are many ways to identify false steps, but they are not using it..

Why sitting here typing this... i just got +50 steps more. hahahahahaha

[rudyten · Accepted solution]

great way to ignore bugs in the system...focus on.......LOL

[Rich_Laue]

The bug @rudyten is in the human body. Users want an arm based tracker. However not all arm movements mean that your feet are moving. However since the tracker is mounted on the arm, it has absolutely no way of knowing what the feet are doing. At best, it will assume the feet are moving when the arm movements seem to match the movement the arms make while the feet are moving. 

The simple work around is to keep the arms in the pocket. 

[elecbeaver]

I'm having a similar issue with my Ionic. I have it on my non dominant hand and set as my dominant hand. I don't drive much everyday but my step totals re usually 15 to 20% higher then the actual steps taken. I wouldn't mind if it was out a little which I would expect but these totals are not even close. Looking for suggestions to fix this because I do like the rest of the functions on the Ionic. 

[RICHARDeahern]

I gave up, my suggestion is to simply compare the inaccurate numbers



Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone