Swim Tracking Very Inaccurate

[AlmondMac]

I bought the Charge 3 yesterday on launch day primarily because of the swim tracking feature. I like to swim but I don't like having to keep count of my laps while swimming, so I thought the Charge 3 would be good.

After buying the Charge 3 yesterday, I took it to the gym to try it out. I set the pool length setting to 25 yards, started a swim exercise session with a goal of 20 minutes, and started swimming. It vibrated to alert me after 20 minutes, at which point I stopped. I synced the Charge 3 with my phone. The session was logged correctly at just over 20 minutes, but it only showed me completing 5 lengths for 125 yards. I'm not the fastest swimmer but I'm sure I actually did around 30 lengths.

I contacted customer support yesterday and their only suggestion was to have me restart the Charge 3 and try again. So I restarted it and took it swimming again today. I did the same thing, manual swim session with 20 minute goal. This time it logged 3 lengths, for 75 yards.

I read the Help article here:

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2087/?q=swim&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1

and I am not doing any of the things listed that might cause incorrect swim data. I swim freestyle and I swam continuously from start to finish. I do a flip turn between lengths.

Has anyone had similar (or good) results swimming with the Charge 3? If this is normal then I may have to return it. 

[Pinkypirate]

Yes I'm afraid I still have to count lengths and manually record the actual
lengths and energy used as the fitbit figures are not correct!!

[Bcbhuntley]

Same here. I noticed that on one of the screens (can’t remember where) the Fitbit (charge 3) is actually calculating one yard as 2’3” or a close variant of that instead of one yard = 3’. I’m always off by a third on swimming laps or lengths and have to manually enter yards, however it still records distance wrong and, as a result, calories wrong too I believe. Frustrating. Never buying another Fitbit. ☹️

[Bcbhuntley]

.....also, when I manually change the yards to 2500 (what I swim every day) it still says 74-75 lengths. 😒

[LynnAllen02]

I have the opposite problem, mine is actually recording feet that I swim not yards when I divide how far I went by 25 to see my actual laps swum is 41 laps and I know I only swam like 14! If I divide by 75 not 25, I get the correct number of laps!

[McGoogly]

Yes to being able to update the swim distance! I alternate with flutter board kicking and wish I could correct the lap counts since the gps in my Semse can’t seem to track my distance in the pool correctly (though my old Apple Watch did).

[ClaireLuisa]

I have had a nightmare. I have phoned Fitbit 6 times since June. I bought the sense in April. I have swum 4 times a week since April and not one swim accurately recorded.

They have ignored numerous emails and closed my case twice. Closed again this week. They said due to no contact but I phoned last week and they assured me it had been escalated and someone would call me. 

I am trying to find which Ombudsman to go to. Does anyone know?

[Alexbuxton]

This looks like it's a very common problem. I'm having it myself Fitbit product support don't help at all (you have to call through the Fitbit app and that cuts out, live chat is a boy, and the actual people just give you the same list of things that don't apply). Steer well clear.