Fitbit time and strava times different.

[Markys]

Did a 6 mile race last night and Fitbit recorded it as 50 mins and after syncing with strava, strava recorded it as 53 mins, why? And which is correct?

[YojanaFitbit]

A warm welcome to our Fitbit Community family @Markys! 

That sounds strange! If you were using your GPS in your Surge to track your race, it might be that it took a couple of minutes to connect with the satellite. When GPS signal is lost your Fitbit tracker continually  will search for a GPS signal as long as the exercise is in progress. You might have to take in count that the environment you are in can affect the signal strength of GPS. For example, if you are running in an urban environment with many tall buildings (as you already know), it may take your Surge tracker several seconds to get a fix. 

For best results, wait for your Fitbit to find the signal before you start your workout. However, if you don't want to wait you may be able to use the Quick Start option with the Fitbit Surge. Quick Start begins tracking your workout without GPS until it finds the signal. Keep the following tips in mind:

• Quick Start is not available if you're tracking a bike ride because cycling requires GPS to track distance. 
• If you see the Quick Start option and want to use it, press the Select button and then press Play. 
• While Surge continues to look for the GPS signal it will use your step count to calculate distance traveled. In this scenario you can expect that your total distance calculated for the workout will be slightly less accurate than if GPS data was available for the duration.

Hope you find this information useful, I'll be around in case you have any other questions! 

[Sparky617]

I would have expected Strava to have the shorter time because Strava auto-pauses and the Surge does not.  Were you using the Strava app on your phone in addition to your FitBit or was this exercise linked over to your Strava app from FitBit?

[YojanaFitbit]

I @Sparky617 Thanks for your input! You have a good point there, but it depends on how is he using the both tracker and Strava App. I think that we will have to see the logs and map to get more info about it!

Thanks for sharing! 

[samg3719]

Hi was there a resolution to this?

I had a 6mile race yesterday, my strava time was nearly 2mins slower than by fitbit time and my chip time from the race

[Sparky617]

Chip time would start as you cross the starting line.  Strava time would start when you hit start on your app.  Fitbit time would start when you start your watch.  How far back in the pack were you when the gun sounded to start the race?  In order for them to all have a chance at agreeing you'd have to start your watch and your phone right as you cross the line.

I did a 20-mile bike ride today and Strava was a minute longer than Fitbit.  My Surge takes longer to find a satellite than my phone.  Being a road ride, the two distances were within .2 of mile of each other.  I went mountain biking yesterday and Strava recorded 4 miles less than my Surge.  Our mountain bike trails are quite compact and have a lot of twists and turns and the sampling interval on both GPS trackers isn't frequent enough to capture all the turns.  Sometimes Strava records more miles, sometimes Fitbit does.  I use Strava on an iPhone 6s.  When I had a wheel sensor on my bike both Strava and Fitbit would always come up short compared to my cycling computer.  On a road ride they'd all be within a tenth or two of each other.

Of the three, chip time would be the most accurate, and the only one that matters for the race as that is what the results are based on.