I have bought a Charge 3 especially because it was supposed to track swimming. When it didn't seem to be working I read endless posts and suggestions and checked my lap length is correct, tried manual as well as auto detect, even did a couple of swims deliberately keeping my left arm still at each tumble turn. After two weeks I almost returned it (intending to buy a different brand altogether) because the only data that is usually correct is the length of time of my swim.
- Only one time in 25 swims, has the distance been detected correctly - it randomly records less than half up to 2/3 of my distance.
- Online swimming calorie burn calculators estimate 220+ for my usual swimming but my fitbit whether on auto-detect or manual usually records 160-175.
However, I actually like many of the features of Fitbit and do not want to change brand and app, so please could the tech guys
1) Allow edit on exercise data in the app (both PC and phone) so that at least the recorded swim times don't need to be re-entered even if everything else needs fixing.
2) Fix the auto-calculation of calories burned when swimming is entered manually (or edited once the first request above has been enabled). (Fitbit has my weight, gender, distance, time taken - this should be enough information to give a more accurate result for calories burned).
3) Address the inaccurate lap counting - a swimmer should not need to change how they swim (e.g. deliberately not moving one arm at every lap change so that the device detects the end of each lap) especially as many competing brands of fitness devices seem to have sorted this out.
Finally, could Fitbit please reconsider how they are advertising and promoting the Charge 3, as including a swimming tracker, until the above issues have been fixed as it could be considered false advertising.
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