not tracking steps

[danequin]

so has anyone noticed if you are not swinging your arms when walking....your fitbit does not track steps if pushing a shopping cart stroller...holding the dog's leash...

[SantiR]

@danequin Welcome to the Fitbit Community! Great question! There is an specific option to log those kind of activities. Just go to your dashboard > log > activities, and select the "walk" option. Then click were it says "don't know your distance?" to get the difficulty of the walk. Click the drop down menu to find strolling and walking the dog plus other options. I left a picture below showing how that looks on the dashboard.

Hope this helps! See you around. 

[danequin]

@SantiRIf I manually log something they why have it, its supposed to track steps automatically!!!! If its going to track the activity how will it know how many steps you took??? Its going to give you a 5k walk and tell you, that you took 2 steps today???? that makes so much sense. It's supposed to track these things automatically that's why i bought it. so yes mobile track does kick in st times but sinc eth eapp crashes every 2 minutes when walking...that's no good. You have to hold your phone to make sure the app does not crash, so you can restart the app when walking...or check it. and please don't tell me to send a crash report, e-mail and phone support tell me that all the time and I don't get that promot EVER something is screwy with my fitbit app and no one knows how to fix it.....

[kalimm]

@danequin Fitbit (and most, if not all, other pedometers) track steps using an accelerometer. It does this by the motion/vibration that it feels when your arm swings back and forth. If your arm is more or less stationary, such as when you're pushing a shopping cart, stroller, or just sitting down, then your Fitbit can't tell you're walking.

If you want it to be more sensitive, you can try changing your wrist settings to "non dominant hand", but I would be prepared for you to pick up extra steps when you sleep, while cooking, or other little things that aren't typically large enough movements to be counted as a step.

When I'm shopping, I drive the cart one handed. When I'm walking my dog, I try to keep the leash in my right hand (since I wear Fitbit on my left wrist). If for some reason I need to hold the leash in my left hand, I just continue to swing my arm like normal. No activity tracker that is worn on the wrist will be perfect, but there are pretty simple work arounds if you're willing to be a bit flexible.

As for your app, what version do you have? They came out with 2.20.1 a day or two ago to fix some of the issues with 2.20. If you're using SmartTrack or activity mode on your Fitbit, you shouldn't need to have your app open. But if you need the GPS feature, you could try to download the previous version of the Fitbit app to see if it's the new update causing problems.

[danequin]

you are missing the point, I have two dogs, one is a pup and soon I will be walking one in each hand, I wear m fitbit on my non-dominant hand...still does not help...it needs to track steps if it can not and I have to enter the distace manually....it will look stupid take 5 steps for a day but enter a 5 k walk...how does that work...it won't be trakcing my activity...the app crashes when walking....that's no good either 

[kalimm]

I'm sorry, I realize that it's not ideal. But from what I've seen, you're probably going to have the same troubles with any wrist worn activity tracker. If your steps are most important to you for your walk, you could try attaching your Fitbit to your shoelaces or to your belt loop. For your dogs, have you considered using a dual pet leash or a coupler so you can have them both in one hand? 

If you enter a 5k walk, Fitbit should calculate the number of steps that you would have taken for that distance and add them to the Dashboard. Your manually logged activity will overwrite the steps that were actually tracked so you won't have any duplicates. The only drawback is that these manually logged steps don't count for challenges, but they will count for your daily goals. 

[danequin]

Its not tracking my steps my phone says I have more steps than my fitbit being cheated by this activity tracker grrrrr not helping fix fitbit its screwed up big time

Moderator Edit: Format All-Caps

[SantiR]

@danequin If it is not tracking your steps, try to restart it! It should track/show the right steps after doing that. 

@kalimm Thank you for all the great help!

See you around! 

[Dpmthw]

Cannot set date or time..won't connect to LGV20