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Miles/Steps wrong

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‎11-16-2016 14:16

‎11-16-2016 14:16

I just started using the surge today. I ran for a little over 20 minutes on my elliptcal, and it showed that I had gone only .70 miles. I have the S Health app on my Galaxy phone, and that showed I had gone 2.22 miles. How does the software track this exercise? .70 miles doesn't seem even close to what it should be. I set the exercise to elliptical. should I not so this and leave it on auto-detect?

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6 REPLIES 6

‎11-16-2016 18:17

‎11-16-2016 18:17

Were you using the gps while on the elliptical?
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‎11-17-2016 03:50

‎11-17-2016 03:50

I went to exercise, and then to elliptical, so I don't think that uses GPS

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‎12-03-2016 07:32 - edited ‎12-03-2016 07:34

‎12-03-2016 07:32 - edited ‎12-03-2016 07:34

Welcome to the Community @MikeB2115! Let me help you out with your Surge. By default, SmartTrack recognizes an exercise that lasts at least 15 minutes. You can lower this setting to 10 minutes, or increase it as high as 90 minutes. For example if you only want SmartTrack to detect your longer walks, you might change your duration settings to a 30-minute minimum. If you would like to modify your minimum exercise duration check out the instructions below: 

 

  1. On the Fitbit app dashboard tap the Exercise tile to open your exercise history. This is the tile that says "Track exercise" if you haven't worked out today. If you've already worked out, you'll see the exercise category on the tile instead (for example, Run or Hike).
  2. Tap the gear icon at the bottom, then tap the target exercise and adjust the duration.

In order to have your steps and distance as accurate as possible I recommend performing the restart 2 or 3 times in a row and adjust your stride length. 

 

To measure your walking stride length:

  1. Go to a track or some place where you're sure of the distance.
  2. Count your steps as you walk across that distance, making sure you travel at least 20 steps.
  3. Divide the total distance (in feet) taken by the number of steps to get your stride length.

To adjust your stride lengths using the fitbit.com dashboard, click the gear icon in the top right and go to Settings > Personal Info. The stride length fields are in the Body Info section. If you use the Fitbit mobile app, go into the app and turn off Set Automatically under the Stride Length setting.

 

@Adam_Temple While you're using the elliptical you won't have the option to use the Gps.

 

Hope it helps! 

Magin | Community Moderator, Fitbit

If you find something helpful, give it a vote and don't forget to mark it as an Accepted Solution!

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‎12-24-2016 14:19

In response to MaginB

‎12-24-2016 14:19

I appreciate the answer. I adjusted the stride, so the number of steps is normally closer closer to what my S-health app says. But the distance is stil way off. My normal routine is in the morning I go for a walk, usually about 3-4 miles. When I do this, the surge and S-health are very close in the distance and number of steps. In the evening, I'll do between 20 and 40 minutes on my eliptical, and here is where the problem is. Tonight I did 21 minutes, and my S-health and Fitbit were very close in the number of steps (about 4000), but S-Health showed me going 2.28 miles, and the Surge had me going .6, which doesn't seem to be even close to what it should be(my eliptical showed 4.3 miles, but I don't think that is accurate either). Is there a problem tracking distance on eliptcals, and other equipment?

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‎01-07-2017 13:54

In response to MikeB2115

‎01-07-2017 13:54

Another obsevation, the steps are incorrect also when using an eliptical. The Fitbit is consistently about 1000 steps behing S-health when I use the amchine. It's strange too, becasuse S-health picks the eliptical workout as running, so the strides are much longer than running on an eliptcal. My machines stride length is(I think) about 14 inches. So the Fitbit steo count should theoretically be more. Does anyone know what stride length Fitbit uses when exercising on an eliptical and if it can be changed? I already tried changing the running stride length to 14 inches, but that had no affect.

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‎02-02-2017 12:55

In response to MikeB2115

‎02-02-2017 12:55

MIke, my Surge is also way off when using my elliptical both in distance/steps (8400 steps according to my elliptical vs. 1560 according to my Fitbit) and in calories Fitbit reporting about half.  Both systems measure heart rate and get about the same results there so the difference isn't caused by an error there.  Folks in this forum have been asking for a way to edit or update their distance or steps for about 2 years with no response from Fitbit, which is a shame given that it should be a relatively simple software change (one would think).

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