Walking with just Charge 2 or Charge 2 and smart phone

[MrsPlumb]

I just purchased the Charge 2 and am new to Fitbit.  I walked the first night with the charge 2 on my wrist and my smart phone on my arm.  The two were synched and it showed that I walked 3.25 miles - shows calories burned, etc.

Tonight I walked wthout the phone.  Just went to the actvity area - tapped the walk app and started walking.  When I returned  synched.  I walked the same route.  However, with just the charge 2 it showed 3/4 mile less but over 150 calories more burned, but for obvious reasons was not able to give me distance.

Am I doing something wrong - or do I need to start takng my phone each time?  If so, maybe I should have purchased a different fitbit.  Thoughts/input?

[USAF-Larry]

@MrsPlumb, it would be my guess that the first walk, with the phone, used the Connected GPS to measure the distance, and it was farily accurate. The second walk, without the phone, had to use the counted steps times the stride length to calculate the distance - this is totally dependent upon the accuracy of the stride length defined in your profile. 

Compare the counted steps on both the walk with the Connected GPS and the one without the phone to see if they are reasonably close. If they are, use the 3.25 miles divided by the number of steps to determine the stride length, and set that in your profile.

[MrsPlumb]

Thank you so much.  As I said, I am new to this and I am not even sure I have setup a stride in the Charge 2.  I appreciate your help.

[Dominique]

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@MrsPlumb wrote:

I am not even sure I have setup a stride in the Charge 2..

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@MrsPlumb: the stride length (actually, lengths, since there’s one for walking and one for running) is in your Fitbit settings (they’re not specific to the Charge 2, as you could have several trackers linked to the same account). If you haven’t set them, Fitbit will estimate them for you based on your height.

[MrsPlumb]

THERE was a very big difference in # of steps between the two different walks.  Again, both took place on the exact same location - same path.  I am not sure what is going on.  So I guess I need to find out if it is more accurate to take my phone with me to have my GPS and if so, should I have just purchased a different fitbit?

[emili]

I am not sure if we can answer the question about whether or not you should have chosen a different fitbit. It will depend on what you are looking for. Wrist trackers are not as accurate in steps as the ones that clip to you. But they give you so much other data that the difference in steps isn't an issue for those who want the other features. If you are mostly interested in steps, then maybe something like the zip would be better..