Walking on treadmill very inaccurate

[Jeff_G]

As I read in many other posts, my Surge is not calculating distance properly when walking on a treadmill.  The thing I found most interesting is the slower I walk the more accurate the Surge is in counting steps and distance.  When walking at 3.5mph my Surge says I am at a 40 minute pace.  At 3.5mph my pace should be under 20 minutes.  Increasing the speed of the treadmill would increase my pace instead of decreasing it.  After reducing the speed of the treadmill to 2.5mph it calculated a 22 minute pace which seems more accurate.

The solution mentioned mosts posts regarding similar issues was to adjust your stride.  It is inconvienent and impracticle to have to adjust my stride every time I want to walk on the treadmill and adjust it back when I am done.

Is FitBit working on fixing this issue?

[bowserb]

Jeff, I've had a similar experience and have asked--but not had a reply--for a basic technical description of the algorithms used to calculate miles based on steps.  For example, what does "Treadmill Run" do differently from just regular walking?  My guess is that it uses the running stride.  While I walk, not run, on the treadmill, I've had my stride at 4mph marked on the treadmill several times.  I put that into the settings, yet still if I set Run...Treadmill Run, the Surge calculates about 80% of the miles my treadmill reports.  Yes I am certain to keep my Surge arm swinging when on the treadmill.  Any adjustments to the treadmill or TV or iPhone are done with my right hand.

Those of us with a technical orientation could figure out how to get things like miles and calories to be more accurate.  Indeed, we could be of value to the company by reporting our results so that updates could be sent out to fix the inaccuracies.  Maybe I could even figure out why mowing my lawn is reported as "outdoor bike ride"!

How about it Fitbit tech support?  Information, please?

[Jeff_G]

I was originally using the "Walk" exercise on my Surge.  The first time I did this it did not get a GPS signal (which I assumed it wouldn't because the treadmill is in my basement).  The next three times I did this it did get a GPS signal.  Two if the times it showed me as walking up and down my street, the third time it showed me walking miles from my house.  I have since switched to the "Treadmill Run" feature and now my Surge is logging more miles than my treadmill when it was previously logging less.

I would expect inacuracies such as these on a cheap $20 pedometer, not on a $250 Fitbit Surge.

[bowserb]

By "walk", I guess you are referring to the "hike" exercise.  FYI, any of the exercises that show a little radar unit at the bottom left, use GPS, which I understand drastically reduces battery life.  Indoors, the GPS exercises are, as you determined, useless.  One calibrated as "Treadmill walk" would be helpful.

If you get a higher reading than the treadmill, I assume that is a stride setting causing it.  The surge has two strides:  walking and running.  I guessed the running stride is used for Free Run or Treadmill Run, although there must be more involved than just the stride, as my running stride setting is exactly the stride when I walk the treadmill at 4mph--and that's the setting that reports 20% lower than the treadmill.  Of course, through all this, I'm assuming the treadmill is right because it's calibrated to itself, although I have no way to check it.  It could be reading high.  Again, now knowing how the surge calculates miles, I have no way of knowing.

In limited tests, I did determine that the surge is counting my steps and floors accurately.  Also when I used a Mio heart rate monitor, I found it and the surge generally withing a couple BPM of one another, so I'm OK with that part of it.  No clue on the calories, though.  I just wish I could get the miles right.

[Vicky1964]

The surge does not calculate distance property when running on the treadmill either.  This morning the treadmill said I ran 4.0 miles and my surge said I only ran 3.18 miles.  My surge is usually off when I run on the treadmill any where from .50 miles up to 1.00 mile.  I know my treadmill is correct since I know what pace I am running and how far I have ran.

[bowserb]

Vicky, that's about the same percentage difference I'm seeing--about 20% low.  I guess you selected Run...then Treadmill Run, right?  And your running stride is set correctly in your profile?  If so, the Fitbit needs to look at the Treadmill Run calculations.

[Cindywaters]

How do you adjust your stride , mine doesn't pick up all my steps

[bowserb]

Go here to set it:  https://www.fitbit.com/user/profile/edit

If you don't set your stride it is calculated from your height and gender.  As to picking up steps, the trick on a treadmill is, I believe, that you can't hold onto the handrail with your fitbit hand.  It seems to be a combination of fore-aft and up-down movement that triggers the step counter...although I've not found any technical descriptions to confirm that.  I've just tested various arm and hand movements.

All that said, it seems that most or all of us have an accuracy issue on the treadmill.

[Vicky1964]

Yes I selected Run, then Treadmill Run. No my running stride is not set in my profile.  I don't even know what my running stride would be

[arsica23]

I am glad to have found this post.  I just got a surge yesterday, and was very excited.  I have used a Garmin Forerunner for many years and when I use it on the treadmill, It pairs with a foot pod that has been calibrated via GPS function. (it has precise accuracy)! Today I wanted to use both just to see how it compared.  Well I was SHOCKED to say the least, how completely inaccurate the surge is.  I did choose Treadmill run function by the way.  My garmin read 4.81 miles while my fitbit recorded 4.02.  I was thinking there might be a slight difference-five or take a quarter mile max.  but this is Whacky!  Anyway...As someone mentioned above, I would expect this from a cheap podometer, and not from such a costly device.  I think I will try to figure out my stride for the fit bit, this may have something to do with that.l  I see where I can enter it, but do any of you have suggestions how to best measure my stride? 

[bowserb]

If you can measure off a distance and step it, count your steps and divide into the distance, you'll have it.  Generally, a distance that requires at least twenty steps is recommended. The trick with that approach is that you can't easily control your speed as you can on the treadmill.  So...

I got my wife's help doing it on the treadmill.  Set at 4mph, I got into a steady walk.  My wife sat down next to the treadmill (it's at home, so this is fairly convenient) and put a little piece of masking tape at the point where my left toe was farthest forward, then farthest back.  Then she watched for several steps to see if it was consisent, adjusting a bit as necessary.  I measured the distance and done.  Set it in my account settings for Run stride.

However, my Surge is still about 20% under the distance the treadmill reports when I choose Run...Treadmill Run.

[Paul-H]

Surely the way forward is to sync the watch. Treadmill data sent to watch for accurate reading as I have the same problem with a cross trainer. Thought this was done automatically, but I'mstruggling to find away and even with Life Fitness one of their partners none of the equipment will recognise a fitbit device. Complete waste of money I fear 

[bowserb]

My treadmill doesn't have that kind of communication capability, so that would be out of the question for me anyway.  I truly believe an update to the Surge software could fix this problem.  Unfortunately, since Fitbit has announced a new watch, they may be abandoning the Surge for future updates.  I hope I'm wrong, but no one from Fitbit has stepped in to add input to this thread, so I'm not encouraged that we'll see a fix.

[Paul-H]

I've only had my Surge 2 weeks, think I will be taking it back and demanding my money back. Good luck with this.

[Jeff_G]

I could be wrong, but I dont think they have any immediate plans to abandon the Surge.  The Surge is the only tracker they categorize as a "performance" tracker.  The newly announced Blaze is categorized as an "active" tracker along with the Charge HR, a step below "performance."

[bbarrera]

Its a hardware problem - Surge doesn't support ANT+ which is used to sync with a treadmill or spin bike or practically any other ANT+ sensor you will find in gym (e.g. elliptical, rowing machine, etc). Therefore Surge only syncs with your phone or computer using Bluetooth. 

I take my Garmin Edge bike computer and HRM (chest strap) to gym. The spin bike immediately connects to my HRM, and the Edge bike computer syncs with spin bike and records power, cadence, and heart rate. The big advantages of ANT+ over Bluetooth are: i) multiple devices can connect to ANT+ sensors -- versus Bluetooth where HRM can only connect to treadmill or phone, but not both, and ii) gym equipment has long used ANT+ so its the standard to sync and connect.

[Taylor522]

I have been using my Fitbit for 4 weeks, 3 x per week I walk 10k on a treadmill at the gym. The Fitbit consitently displays only 8.4k ie 16% inaccuracy. From previous us of a strap on monitor I suspect that HR display is also 16% under actual HR. Disappointing performance of the ChargeHR!!!

[Rich_Laue]

@Jeff_G ive moved your post to the treadmill thread, a question about steps will be ignored in heart rate thread

While people fond their step count fine while on a free walk/run some are finding that on a treadmill the accuracy goes down. The difference i see is no forward motions and a softer bed to run on. The gro7nd moving under you oppose to you moving on the ground, might be affecting the arm motions in a subtle ways.

[Oriondestiny]

When I do the treadmill, I go by the treadmill reading for distance because the faster I go, the less steps it takes to get a mile. For me, I do 19 steps every 100th of a mile at 4.0 miles per hour, so I do around 1900 steps per mile. The fitbit is set base on your height so for me my fitbit says that 2300 steps is 1 mile. When walking outside, I use a MapMyFitness or MapMy{what ever} to track my distance by GPS on my phone. I would call the fitbit a step tracker but would not use it as a distance tracker. At the end of the day, I will only say I did 7.21 miles worth of steps but don't think of it as anywhere acurate.

[yo_mama]

Maybe ur treadmill is old and wrong