Fitbit and tracking movements

[Lizzie8798]

Hi all,

I recently got a fit bit so still figuring out how to use it

i have a job where I work with my hands a lot (florist), and I’m worried because of this the fit bit isn’t tracking my activity properly 

For example, this morning when I was working it automatically tracked my movement as a 48 minute swim

my question is:

is there a way to fix this? I do wear my watch on my most dominant hand but I don’t think it would make a difference because I use both my hands pretty much equally

also does it matter in terms of accurately tracking my calories burnt? 

[JohnnyRow]

Calories are based only on heart rate so step count or tracked activities don't affect daily calorie burn.

Using your hands a lot, you might get extra steps credited.  Steps can never be totally accurate with tracker on your wrist; fitbit tries to tell the difference between arm swinging with steps and other arm movements but is not always accurate.  For most people it pretty much evens out;  the more you use hands and arms non-walking, you might get extra steps, but that doesn't affect calorie burn.

As for you swim, that is considered an auto-recognized activity (as opposed to one you intentionally start and stop using the Exercise App) and you can prevent that, you can prevent that.  On phone app, tap the 'days of exercise' tile, then the gear icon near top right.  It will show you the 7 'Auto Recognized Exercises' and the minimum time of each to count as an exercise session.  These are types of exercise that Fitbit supposedly can recognize just from the movement pattern of your fitbit wrist.  As you experienced, it is not always accurate in correctly recognizing these.  In my experience it is accurate for Walk, and I suppose for Run.  For any of the 7 exercise types that you don't expect to be doing, tap that choice and turn the slider left/off and then it will never get auto-recognized.  If you ever do want to do that exercise type, you can still use the Exercise App to record it.