Differentiate between walking and bending over

[RobiWynia]

Hi I'm interested in buying a Fitbit but I have a question its accuracy. I do a lot of walking and bending over at work and and wondering if it will differentiate between the two. Thank you for your reply

[slysam]

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@RobiWynia wrote:
Hi I'm interested in buying a Fitbit but I have a question its accuracy. I do a lot of walking and bending over at work and and wondering if it will differentiate between the two. Thank you for your reply

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Not sure. A tri-axis accelerometer tracks movement up and down, side to side and forward and back. So in theory it could. I think I read that Fitbit is now programmed to recognize a few common activities. But I am not sure if that will affect the step count. I wouldn't worry about it. To me, "steps" isn't just literal walking steps (though steps are my most common activity). The 10,000 step programs are more about encouraging movement and activity. Often they have charts to convert time spent doing non-stop activity into "steps". I would be more concerned if you find small movements counted, but bending over uses a lot of muscles and may be equivalent to a step. I did once test this, but I think fitbit's program changed since then. Once I spent an afternoon cleaning a closet. This involved going up and down a ladder and bending over and reaching up. I had very few steps counted but my Fitbit did credit me for light activity. So it sensed activity but only credited some steps. However, I think the programming is different now and I haven't recently tested this.