Steps on Apple Health don't match with Fitbit

[SunsetRunner]

Anyone else notice a discrepancy in the number of steps recorded in Apple Health and the iPhone Fitbit app? Not sure it’s related but I downloaded iOS 12 over the weekend and now I get a lot fewer steps in Fitbit. They used to be the same- yesterday there was a 1700 step difference with Fitbit trailing. I use my iPhone as my tracker so they should be the same.

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[Baltoscott · Accepted solution]

Hi @SunsetRunner

Do you have any other devices writing info to Apple Health?  For example, and Apple Watch or a Garmin or some other tracker?  If so, those devices will change the step count you see in AH, but the Fitbit app will only pick up the steps actually recorded by your iPhone, not any steps added to AH by other devices or picked up through calculations from other apps.

The only other thing I can think of would be the timing of syncs between Apple and Fitbit servers.  That should sort itself out at the end of the day.

[SunsetRunner]

No, I’m not syncing any other devices with Apple health and the data has been wrong for the past 5 days. Off by 500 steps yesterday. Doesn’t look like it’s going to resolve itself over time. 

[Baltoscott]

Weird.  I'm sure you would have mentioned it, but the another thing that could affect the step count on the Fitbit side would be manually added step-based activities.  For example adding an 3 mile walk as an activity in the fitbit app would overwrite whatever the phone recorded for that time frame at replace the step count with a calculation based on your stride length.  This would result in the fitbit app and Apple Health showing different counts for the day, because the AH step count would be based on iPhone recorded steps and the fitbit count would be iPhone recorded steps modified by activity's calculated steps.

[SunsetRunner]

Nope. No added activities on either app.  I’m only tracking steps. 

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @SunsetRunner, have a warm welcome to the Fitbit Community, it's great to have you on board. It's nice to see you too @Baltoscott, thanks for all your help. 

@SunsetRunner, I appreciate your participation in the Forums and for letting us know about this situation. First of all, keep in mind that Apple Health and the Fitbit app can't share information between each other and both of them uses the sensors on your phone to count steps, this might result in discrepancies as Fitbit and Apple use different algorithms to count steps. Now, if you notice the discrepancy is fairly large, my best recommendation would be removing MobileTrack from the Fitbit app and add it again to your account. However, before tying this, make sure MobileTrack has synced one last time before removing it from your account to prevent losing information. 

Now to set up MobileTrack again:

1. Go to the Fitbit app and tap on Account > MobileTrack
2. Remove it from your account
3. Restart your phone
4. Open the Fitbit app and tap on Account
5. Select MobileTrack and follow the onscreen instructions.

I hope this can be helpful, if there's anything else I can do for you, please feel free to reply. 

[Baltoscott]

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@MarcoGFitbit wrote:

... First of all, keep in mind that Apple Health and the Fitbit app can't share information between each other and both of them uses the sensors on your phone to count steps, this might result in discrepancies as Fitbit and Apple use different algorithms to count steps. ... 

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Thanks for chiming in @MarcoGFitbit.  I didn't realize Fitbit directly accesses the iPhone hardware, as opposed to just relying on Apple's calculations.  Makes sense that the step counts would be somewhat different.

[SunsetRunner]

I hope I’m not posting this on the wrong place ... Apple health and Fitbit had identical numbers until I downloaded iOS 12 and Fitbit 2.79 over the weekend. Something has changed. I believe it is Fitbit.

My goal is 10,000 steps/day. On Monday evening, According to Fitbit, I was 65 steps short of that goal with 3 minutes until midnight. I can easily do that many steps in 1 minute. So, I counted 200 additional steps before midnight to make sure I met my goal. Fitbit did not change- only gave me 9,935 steps for the day, compared to 11,877 steps for Apple health.

That’s quite a discrepancy and since I KNOW Fitbit skipped over 200 steps during a 3 minute period, I suspect it’s Fitbit that changed. I downloaded 2.80 on Tuesday and the discrepancy is less but it still exists. It’s off by almost 400 steps so far today.

Sent from my iPhone

UPDATE:

Thanks for your reply. I’m not using a mobile tracking device at this time. Batteries needed replacing every 3 weeks so I just started tracking steps on my iPhone. I’m about to just track them on Apple health because of the discrepancy.
Laura

Sent from my iPhone

[MarcoGFitbit]

Hello @SunsetRunner, I hope you're doing well, thanks for taking the time to reply. 

I appreciate you have come and let us know about these discrepancies between the data in the Fitbit app and Apple Health app. Tell me, after updating to iOS 12, did you reset MobileTrack by removing it from your Fitbit account and adding it again? If you haven't tried that, I would like to suggest you to try it and then monitor both apps to check if you're still facing this issue. Please note that as MobileTrack does not use the data from Apple Health, it's possible there's still a slight discrepancy between the data as both apps use a different algorithm to count your steps. 

I hope this can be helpful, give it a try and let me know the outcome. 

[MLCambridge]

I have been trying for months to sync Fitbit data with Apple Health.

Firstly, Fitbit is intermittently unreliable. I got 300 steps while sitting on a bus going from NYC to Boston without getting up from my seat! I also have walked up to 50 steps around my apartment with no steps recorded on my Fitbit.

I have Sync Solver. Some days if I sync to the iPhone Fitbit app and then open Sync Solver and hit Sync, and then open Apple Health about an hour later, the steps will be there. But, only intermittently. If I forget to do it in that order with pauses between the steps, the Fitbit steps never get there. I specified within the Apple Health App for it to get steps primarily from Sync Solver, but there is no way to make sure that Sync Solver and Apple Health connect.

Very disappointing. I am about to do a research project and wanted to get steps to Apple Health with a wearable tracker that is not the Apple Watch, and can't seem to find one that is reliable. People complain about Garmin as well.

[GinnyG]

After I upgraded my iPhone to iOS 12.3.1, my steps are wrong too, but in the other direction.   My daily goal is 2,000.  Im now showing that I’ve gone over 200,000 steps, which is impossible for me.   

[Jennylmorris]

My Fitbit Versa 2 records approximately 3,000 steps more than Apple Health. My partner’s Apple Health is roughly the same as mine, so it seems Fitbit is out. Any suggestions?

[Lnzy27]

I wear my Fitbit tracker around my ankle. It always always lives more than my Apple Watch. Some days it’s literally thousands of steps but then again I noticed if I go to Costco for example and I’m pushing a cart around the Apple Watch doesn’t seem to log many steps yet my Fitbit app on my phone and sometimes watch it while I’m walking and I literally watch it count the steps and it’s always been accurate. It’s a bummer we can’t sync with Apple health, but at the end of the day I trust the Fitbit information.