Automatic Stride Length

no44s4me

Does anyone know if FitBit automatically adjusts the walking stride length the same way as it advertises automatically adjusting the running length?

heybales

The default is a calculated stride length based on gender and height.

Thinking of all the differences in leg length vs torso length, and personal efficiency in both motions (lighter is better) - it can be off decently.

Fitbit (all of them really, the calculations are built into the accelerometer chipset if they want to use them) takes that stride length, and your weight, and has an expected impact force for each step, and hang time to lesser degree.

If the impact was more, the stride was longer, if less, it was shorter.

So it literally does dynamically adjust for each step taken to estimate distance of that step.

Obviously if you set stride length or it is the distance at extreme end of range (like fast exercise pace walk or sprinting), then when it adjusts to the other end of the range (like grocery store shuffle or slow jog) it can be badly off.

That's why it's best to get your own stride length figures based on average pace of both walking and jogging that will be done - so when it adjusts it can have best chance for accuracy moving both directions above and below the starting point.

For walking for instance - you want the 90% of your day walking mostly correct, or the 30-60 min of fast exercise pace to be correct?
The former could easily have a major impact on estimated daily burn, the latter may be off 5% for that short time.