When is "running stride length" used?

[billman]

I calculated and set both my walking and running stride length by walking and "running" 1/10 of a mile on my treadmill and counting my Surge steps.  Walking at 2 mph and running at 3.5 mph.  I set both stride lengths in Settings on the dashboard.   However, when I use the treadmill at 3.5 mph and track using Treadmill Run, the Surge still calculates my distance at my walking stride length.  When does the running stride length kick in?  Is there a way to tell my surge what stride length to use?

[MikeF]

No idea and no are my answers to your specific questions but I'm also frequently told that treadmill steps vary somewhat from your measured steps in the real world so if your tracker is setup for supreme treadmill accuracy, you may need to be careful of the results you gat when out and about in the real world.

[VivisFitbit]

Hello there @billman! I'll be happy to help you with this. Fitbit tracker measure your steps based on the intensity, patterns, frequency, intensity and patterns of your movements. Your distance is measured based on the amount of steps you walk on during your activities.  On a treadmill all this information is predetermined. That's why the informatin between your Surge and your treadmill will be different.  Placing your Surge on "Treadmill" mode is always a good idea.  You can also try to manually log this activites on your Dashboard. To do so: 

1. Go to the Activities page by clicking Log at the top of your dashboard, then click Activities. 
2. Under Log Activities, click a common activity or search for your activity in the search box. 
3. Select your activity from the search results. If the activity is not in our system, you have the option to create your own activity by clicking the Create custom activity text that will appear below the search field. 
4. Enter the duration, distance (if applicable), and start time of your activity. You have the option to manually enter the number of calories burned here if you'd like to. 
5. Click Log Activity. Your activity will now be visible and editable in the Logged Activities area. 

Thank you so much for your help @MikeF!  

Keep me posted! 

[billman]

Thank you for the reply, Vivi.   I'd like to understand better what you mean by "measure your steps based on the intensity, patterns, frequency, intensity and patterns of your movements"  Are you saying the my surge does not actually count each step I take, but rather approximates the steps based on intensity, etc.?

This doesn't really answer my original question, though it does explain some discrepancies I'm seeing (particularly when my treadmill is inclined, when my step count seems to drop dramatically).   My original question is "when does walking stride length flip to running stride length?"  It appears that it does so somewhere between 4.0 mph and 4.5 mph treadmill speed.

I *always* put the surge in Treadmill tracking mode when I use my treadmill; and I don't assume that my treadmill is accurate, but I do assume that it is consistent.  

Bill

[KevinM62]

Billman, I have the opposite problem. When fast walking it thinks I am running. To get around this I set the run stride distance and walk stride distance to be the same. Not the best solution. You are right that the transition seems to be at about 4.5mph.

[shipo]

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@KevinM62 wrote:
Billman, I have the opposite problem. When fast walking it thinks I am running. To get around this I set the run stride distance and walk stride distance to be the same. Not the best solution. You are right that the transition seems to be at about 4.5mph.

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Too funny, a few weeks ago we were having a day of walking at work; apparently I was walking too fast and it said I was in a bike ride.  😛

[VivisFitbit]

Hello there! @billman and @KevinM62 I'll be glad to provide you more details about this. It is recommended walking at a speed of at least 2 miles per hour to obtain accurate step readings when walking. It must be faster than that to detect when one is running.

Fitbit trackers use a 3-axis accelerometer to understand your motions. An accelerometer is a device that turns movement (acceleration) of a body into digital measurements (data) when attached to the body. By analyzing acceleration data, our trackers provide detailed information about frequency, duration, intensity, and patterns of movement to determine your steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned, and sleep quality. The 3-axis implementation allows the accelerometer to measure your motion in any way that you move, making its activity measurements more precise than older, single-axis pedometers.

Fitbit trackers have a finely tuned algorithm for step counting. The algorithm is designed to look for motion patterns most indicative of people walking. One condition for a motion pattern to be recognized as a step is the motion must be large enough. The algorithm implements this by setting a threshold. If a motion and its subsequent acceleration measurement data meet the threshold, the motion will be counted as a step. If that threshold is not met, the algorithm won’t count the motion as a step. Other factors can create enough acceleration to meet our threshold and therefore cause some over counting of steps, such as riding on a bumpy road. Equally, it's possible for the algorithm to undercount (not meet the required acceleration threshold). Examples here include walking on a very soft surface such as a plush carpet.

@shipo That is interesting, I'd like to know if your Surge was on "Walking" when your activity was recorded as biking. Restarting your Buddy is always a good idea, just follow @MeylinP's steps.

Keep me posted guys! 

[shipo]

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@VivisFitbit wrote:

@shipo That is interesting, I'd like to know if your Surge was on "Walking" when your activity was recorded as biking. Restarting your Buddy is always a good idea, just follow @MeylinP's steps.

Keep me posted guys! 

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If I recall correctly, I had my Surge set up to auto-detect a walk after a certain period of time.  Since 90% of my exercise comes from running, the auto-detected walk events were cluttering up my Activity log, so I have since disabled the whole auto-detect thing.

[billman]

I mowed the lawn and it showed up as a bike ride!  🙂  And there's no way to change the type of activity (that I've found), so that "bike ride" is now part of my record.

[billman]

Thanks for the explanation, Vivi.  So what I'm hearing is that the step count is calculated purely from arm (and body, I assume) motions.  And, consequently, there are a lot of things that can affect the step count, like swinging my arms out of sync with my steps.  (And getting the 10,000 step notification when I roll over in bed.  :-))  I'm also presuming that real walking/running versus being on a treadmill affect the accelerometer as well.  Do you have any recommendations for what to do with my arms (or not) to get more accurate step counts?  (Which, of course, isn't related to the stride length question.)

[KevinM62]

Hi Bilman, I get the same. You can change it in the app. If you find the activity and top right should be a 'pen'. Select this and you can edit the activity and change it. Problem is that ( I think) you can only change it once. If you change it, you cannot get the edit 'pen' back for a second try.

[CharityDawn]

Thanks for this explanation. I've been researching for a couple weeks trying to figure out why my steps are so low on my Alta. I have been unable to actually calculate my stride. I read on Fitbit forums that the average steps/mile is 2,000. I am a 5'2" woman of 115 pounds. Fitbit has put on a default walking stride for me at 25.5 inches and 36.2 running. When I figure it out, that means I should get more than 2,400 steps per mile. However, I know I am always getting several hundred steps less than 2,000 every mile I walk. 

I use map my run run and charity miles GPS to keep track of all my walks, runs, and walk/runs. If I walk only, my average pace is 4 miles per hour. Is it possible the step discrepancy is happening because my Fitbit thinks I'm running? If I calculate my steps/mile based on my running stride, it gives me 1,750. That is much more like the reading I'm getting. If that is what is happening, is there any way to fix this problem?

Also, it shorts me considerably on distance. The other day I had 2.5 miles just from walking during my everyday activities. I then fitness walked 8 miles according to both GPS apps. At the end of that, my Fitbit said I only had 7.5 miles for the day. It only gave me 5 miles for the 8 miles I walked for exercise. 

I just discovered how I can choose which activity to track ahead of time. Will choosing this help correct my problem? I look forward to your reply. Thanks for all your help!

[Paxton]

I use the Fitbit One, which I like because it accurately seems to get my step counts whether I'm walking or running, and I don't need to worry about waving my arms too much or too little because it seems to be using my hip movements while it's clipped to my pants pocket.  So steps have always accurate for me.

However, I use an elliptical in the morning and a neighborhood walk in the afternoon.   Both step counts are accurate, but the mileage count for the elliptical was quite low - I figured, correctly, that this was because I needed to set a "running stride" as each step counted for a greater distance.   That continues to get the accurate step count and now gets the accurate mileage as well.   But now my walking mileage in the afternoon is too high!    I walk between 3.75 and 4 miles and hour, and it seems to pick up a lot of those steps as a running stride, thereby overestimating mileage.  I set the two strides back to my walking stride, as I figured I don't want to over-estimate either.  But it's frustrating that distance is overstated when I try to make it as accurate as I can for two different modes.

I thought of trying to mathematically weight various stride lengths that came out to 6 miles a day (3 on the elliptical and three in the neighborhood), but don't want to have to assume what my exercise has been on any given day.

[Paxton]

Is there any solution to this?

[ChristinaPe]

I have the same exact problems.  Would love to know how to correct.

[TheRockKalEl]

Hi,

I did not have time to find a place to perform the accurate calculation of my stride length as recommend here https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1135

So, in the mean while I'm setting the stride lenght manually using as reference this table https://www.milestonepod.com/blog/achieving-ideal-stride-length/ 

Which could reduce the distance error when running on the treadmill.

Regards,