Has anyone else had fitbit lose steps?

[bmunchausen]

This happened to me yesterday - I had 5876 steps after an hour long walk, and then later that night my fitbit (and online dashboard) said I only had 2295! Just now I synced and my fitbit reads 6268, but after syncing, my dashboard tally is 4900. What is going on??

[Julia_G · Accepted solution]

Hi, @bmunchausen , the most common explanation for this is if you manually logged some of your activites, or synced some activities through a third party app.

Manually logged activities overwrite what your Fitbit detects during the same time period.  Activities synced through a third party are treated as manual logs.

Another possible cause of this is if you have more than one tracker -- reconciling this data is a little more complex and can cause syncing errors especially if you sometimes wear multiple trackers at the same time (and sometimes don't!)

Could any of these situations apply in your case?

[bmunchausen]

Wow, so there's no point in logging my gym classes bc they mess up my steps? 😞

Thanks for the reply.

[h2obetty]

Having the same issue.

[h2obetty]

I just found another tread that says we should only manually enter our workouts when we forget to wear our fitbits.  Try this link: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/One/One-woefully-under-counting-my-steps/m-p/965929

[Julia_G]

@bmunchausen , I agree with @h2obetty about not necessarily doing manual logs, but that information applies IF YOU HAVE A TRACKER THAT RECORDS HEARTRATE and it also really depends on what information you want to capture and what is most important to you.  

The Fitbit One will let you record an activity by using the button (just as you would record your sleep) and it will sync to your dashboard as an "activity".  This will give you a record of your workout and you can edit it to give it a more meaningful name.  The steps counted by your One will show on your record, and you will not "lose" any steps.  

If your activity is non step based (like rowing machine, or stationary bike) you may still find you get best information by logging manually, and, since your activity is non step based, you won't "lose" that many steps.

Basically there is a lot of flexibility and you can find what works best for you...

I hope this helps!

[TandemWalker]

Hi @bmunchausen. To the best of my knowledge, logging manual activities, unless you're logging a walk or jog workout, does not obliterate steps recorded by your Fitbit One. So if you wear your Fitbit One for your gym classes and subsequently log this activity manually, your steps will remain; and the total caloric burn reported will reflect of the sum of what you burned from steps and the manual log for your gym workout.

Hope this helps.

             TW             

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(If this tip solved the problem for you, please mark this post solved, as this will be helpful to other users experiencing similar issues.) 

[Julia_G]

@TandemWalker , I don't see why the One would differ from other Fitbits, especially as this takes place in the app and not the tracker, but I have to admit I haven't tried it myself. Time for some experiments, I think!

[SteveH]

My understanding is that if the manually logged activity generates steps (as it would for walking and running) then it will overwrite both the calories and steps. For other activities it will only overwrite the calories leaving any tracked steps as they were. However, as the calories are overwritten, these steps have no calories associated with them.

It would be nice if your experiments could prove (or disprove!) this.

[TandemWalker]

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@SteveH wrote:

My understanding is that if the manually logged activity generates steps (as it would for walking and running) then it will overwrite both the calories and steps. For other activities it will only overwrite the calories leaving any tracked steps as they were. However, as the calories are overwritten, these steps have no calories associated with them.

It would be nice if your experiments could prove (or disprove!) this.

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Yep, that's how it works for me. Except for driving - logging driving as a manual activity will (or should) wipe out any steps recorded by the tracker during that time frame.

TW

[bmunchausen]

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@TandemWalker wrote:

So if you wear your Fitbit One for your gym classes and subsequently log this activity manually, your steps will remain

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That's exactly what wasn't happening. If I logged an activity, I saw steps disappear.