Mileage difference compared to Surge

[MarkH68]

I have had my Ionic for about 3 weeks now and I am noticing a difference between the Ionic and the Surge on distance. I have them both on the same account so stride length is the same but the Surge seems to record a higher distance for similar steps taken, this isn't during exercise as I haven't had chance to compare both side by side yet. I will attach a couple of screen shots to try to explain what I mean. The steps taken on 16th November using the Surge record 0.8 miles more than the Ionic for a small amount less steps taken. Both were normal work days so no great difference in patterns of walking for the day. Does anyone have any ideas why ?.

SurgeIonic

[Baltoscott · Accepted solution]

@MarkH68 —

Make sure they are both set up with the same dominant hand settings.  

The surge day has higher active minutes and a higher calorie burn as well. It appears to have interpreted a larger portion of your steps as running steps and used the run stride length (resulting in more distance) more often than the Ionic did on the day you wore that.  If you look at the detail for each day on your desktop you should be able to see the higher activity periods which may help you understand why the distances are a little different.

Different trackers never seem to come out exactly the same, but if you wind up obsessing about this — and you would not be the first — you can compare them head to head by creating a second Fitbit account and linking your surge to that.  Then you can nerd out, wear them both on different arms over the course of a week (switching arms each day to account for dominant hand issues) and see how they really compare.

[MarkH68]

@Baltoscott Thanks for that, I work as a courier so pretty much every day is similar but some days I might have more energetic moments so I guess as you have explained that could account for differences. I have them both set to the same wrist. Next thing I want to try is to have a bike ride wearing both trackers and compare the results