Inaccurate walking steps ??

[OillyRag]

Hi,

I've just bought my FitBit Charge and in most ways I'm very pleased with it. it has motivated me to exercise and log my calorie intake so yes all's well ....

Apart from one thing .. Oh my God the step counter is wildly inaccurate !!

for example i went for a drive today, about 20 mins in the car .. 500 steps ? ... no i wasn't running alongside, i was driving.

later on in the day i went outside to chop some kindling for the fire ... 433 steps?

Ok i can see where its come from .. bumps in the road, the chopping action.

My problem lies in the fact that FitBit uses the step data to calculate the amount of calories one burns in the day, therefore over estimates the amount i can eat. not cool!!

[Dominique]

@OillyRag: it’s not as simple as that. In other words, there isn’t a single multiplier that converts steps into calories, the algorithm for calories is much more complex than that. So it’s possible you’re getting "fake" steps (because of the bumpy road, or the wood chopping), but your total calories will still be in the right order of magnitude. Besides, you’re wearing (or at least supposed to wear) your Fitbit 24/7. When you look at an entire week, the time spent driving on bumpy roads and chopping wood (and the "fake" steps that result from it) won’t play that big a role in the weekly total.

That’s not to say that total calories will be spot on (there’s definitely a margin of error), but you’ll need to track things (calories expended + intake) for sometime and "calibrate" them based on what the scale shows.

[USAF-Larry]

Look at the bright side, @OillyRag, you did burn calories while chopping firewood.... 

[A_Lurker]

In the car I found that tapping along to the music can give you steps, so avoid doing that.  🙂

Anyway, for the driving, you can log your time driving which will delete the steps.  I wouldn't worry too much about the wood chopping as I'm pretty sure you're burning more calories doing that.

[emili]

I am pretty sure your calories burned for chopping wood, way exceeded those of 400 steps. And the calorie burn for 500 steps is so minute, if you skip a gram of anything you will make it up. I know it is frustrating in some respects, but in the big picture of your day, its nothing. Clapping and salt shaking adds to my step count - I think about the steps it doesn't count when I am on the treadmill and all is right in my world.

[OillyRag]

Thanks for all your replies guys,very much apreciated.

I take on board all your comments that i should kinda look at the bigger picture so to speak and i will.

as an aside though i will give one more example. when i woke up this morning i checked my FitBit and i had done 20 steps, by the time i had put my clothes on, which were within reach on my floor (my wife moans at this) i had done another 15 steps according to FitBit.

In future iterations of the trackers i believe the designers should relegate steps to the novelty statistic it actually is.

Edit: is there a way to turn down the sensitivity of the steps monitor in the charge 2 ?

[McLoki · Accepted solution]

What I do is put the fitbit on my left arm (non-dominant) and tell the app that I have it on my dominant arm.  (that reduces the sensitivity).  Beyond that, not much you can do.

Michael