iOS app and Alta

[dkz251]

I've owned my Alta for a little more than a month now and have used it everyday. I mainly use it to track my daily steps and sleep pattern. Lately I've been using the ios app to track my exercise as i want to see the routes i take using gps. Once i went for a 2.86km walk, and it registered my steps as 5.6k, and then i went for a 4.19km walk, and it registered my steps as 4.0k. and then again i went for another 4.0km walk and again it registered my steps as 3.9k. My fitbit also doesnt seem to be detecting the numerous steps i've taken. 

when i do not use the ios app to track exercise however, it tracks the steps pretty well. i think. 

i've also used another gps tracking app and again fitbit alta underestimates my number of steps. 

just wondering if anybody else has this problem? does using gps make the alta underestimate the steps? 

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dkz251, welcome aboard to our Community. Certainly this is odd since when you use the GPS along with your tracker. it will be the GPS sensors on your phone the one that will track distance, elevation, and pace and If you wear your tracker while using MobileRun, the steps, active minutes, and calories burned that you see on your Fitbit dashboard come from the tracker. So the GP should not interfere with the accuracy of the steps.

However if you are not using the tracker your phone is used to calculate this data and is possible it might be lower the accuracy.

If the issue persist I recommend to review you have the latest version of the app which is 2.27.1. If you are running this version then force quit the app. 

1. Double tap the home button on your iOS device. Your open apps will show on your device's screen. 
2. Close the Fitbit app by swiping the app image in an upward motion. 
3. Reopen the Fitbit app. 

Once you have force quit the app try to perform a restart on your Alta:

1. Plug your charging cable into a USB port on your computer or any UL-certified USB wall charger.
2. Clasp the other end of the cable to the port on the back of your Alta. Alta will begin charging.
3. Press the button on your charging cable three times within eight seconds, briefly pausing between presses. The button is on the end of the charging cable that is plugged into your computer. 
4. Eight seconds after the first button press, you'll see the Fitbit logo on the screen. This means Alta is restarting.
5. After you see the logo you can unplug your tracker from the charging cable.

Once you have done this, give it another try and keep me posted how it goes.

[dkz251]

Hi Roberto,

I've followed your recommendations and today I've walked almost 5km and still it counts my steps at around 4.3k. I checked my previous walks, and sometimes on days where i've walked more than say, 10000 steps in total, it says ive taken 5.0k steps for a 2.9km walk, but on days like today if i only walked for about 8km in total, for a 5km walk it still says i've made only 4.3k steps. 

I've already updated to the latest version even prior to my post. i dont know if it's due to my phone being old (i have the iphone 4s) so it might be some app issue? 

I've checked online, and considering my stride length is around 65cm, i would expect a 4.82km journey to at least calculate around the 7000+ for steps. 

[RobertoME]

Hi there @dkz251, thank you for try my suggestion. I see what you mean, so in other words your amount of steps is not consistence with the amount of steps.

I hardly believe this issue is due to the model of your phone, since is your tracker the one reading your steps. So my next recommendation is to play with the configuration of the location where you wear your tracker. 

• The dominant wrist setting decreases the sensitivity of step counting and should reduce any over counting of steps when your body is not moving.
• The non-dominant wrist setting increases the sensitivity of step counting and should reduce any under counting of steps. Non-dominant is the default.

In addition to dominance (right or left), Fitbit Alta also needs to know which wrist you prefer to wear the tracker on. Tracker location helps orient the screen correctly in addition to adjusting the sensitivity of step detection.

Increasing the sensitivity of your tracker might be helpful to resolve the inaccuracy on how your tracker is reading your steps. To change this you need to access to your Account Tab > Tap on your trackers to access your tracker settings.

As additional note is possible the distance is not right too. so lets give it a try with these tips:

1. Make sure your device can track your activity when you're out of wi-fi range. To do so, tap Settings > Cellular and make sure Cellular Data is on. 
2. Make sure the app can track GPS when your device is locked. To do so, tap Settings > General > Background App Refresh and make sure it's on for both the phone and Fitbit specifically. 
3. Make sure your device is able to identify your location. To do so, tap Settings > Privacy > Location Services and make sure it's on for both the phone and Fitbit specifically. 

See you around and if you need more help, you can find me here.