Waving arms counting as steps - what to do

[JesusArr]

Hello Ricardo I just bought a fitbit sense 5 days ago with the hope of accurately track my steps and workouts. And I've come to notice that my steps differ for more than 5000 steps from what I've normally tracked with my previous devices that I know are accurate. This is insanely wrong data and I would like to get it fixed. I've tried every solution I've found in these forums... how can I fix this?

It would even add like 5 steps if I wave to say hi to someone...

[Guy_]

Hi @JesusArr  - have you tried setting the hand dominance to dominant?

[Rich_Laue]

Hello @JesusArr I'm not sure what previous devices that are being referred to, but waist mounted step counters seem to be the most accurate since they look at the natural rhythm of the hips during a walk. However, even this type can give false steps and miss steps. 

Fitbit tests and updates it's algorithms, in general is getting better at not counting as many false steps, but to sit there and wave the arm, after 5 waves, yes steps will be counted. How often thorough out a day does the normal person wave their arm more than 5 times? 

As for an arm based tracker? It is only able to look at arm motions and looks for movements that are expected when the feet are stepping, and can be fooled. This may be why they are called an activity tracker. 

Their are really only two suggestions that may help. 

Set the tracker for the a dominant arm and a power off restart. Power off is the best way to do a hardware reset. 

Have you taken a walk and count steps. I start the walk tracker on my fitbit. Start walking on the right foot and count every left step. At 200, 300, or 500 steps, stop walking. Wait for the display to catch up. The display usually is very close to the expected 400, 600, or 1000 steps. 

Yes on walks, I find it very accurate. 

Through the rest of the day, not so, with periods of lost or extra steps. Testing against a hip based step counter, over a weeks and months everything averages out. 

Am I worried about the missing or extra steps, not really, this is normal when using the arm to detect what the legs are doing. 

[JesusArr]

Yes, currently set as dominant hand. Its not working /:

[JesusArr]

I'm currently siting in my chair and if I move my arm to look at the time it adds one step. Right now my fitbit sense is set to the dominant hand and is not making a difference since 2 days ago. I've had my phone galaxy s22 in my pocket since 630 am, it currently holds a step count of 3384. While my fitbit is showing a count of 5822, that's over 2500 steps difference...I get that it can't recognize or confuse some movements from my hand and set them as a step, but the amount its adding is nonsensical, even with my old galaxy watch and previous fitbit I used to have a similar number of steps in both devices of those devices when comparin to my phone, just being set apart from a couple hundreds

[Guy_]

@JesusArr  - it shouldn't react as much as that,  try a restart first.

As it's under warranty you can also try a factory reset from the watch Settings but wait 5 minutes for that to complete, then you have to set it up again.

If that still doesn't fix it take it back to the shop for a replacement new one.