How accurate are fitbits? is it worth getting a new one?

spacetreemonkey

I've had my fitbit inspire 2 for 8 months and I'm having problems with it. It seems to be overestimating how many steps I'm doing. I haven't been able to find a fix for this on the fitbit forums and I haven't been able to contact the fitbit support team (websites not working for me).

It seems like maybe because I brought an older model they have stopped bringing out updates for it. I'm not very happy because I paid like $100, and I used to eat back all of my calories, but I don't think I can do that anymore.

Would you buy a new fitbit or look at another brand? I really like some of the features, and like the look of two of the recent products, but I don't know if I should support a brand I'm having trouble with. The fitbit I brought was about as cheap as you can buy them, so I didn't buy a warranty because it would have cost more than the fitbit itself.

What should I do?

Thanks

chris_in_cal

spacetreemonkey wrote: »

I've had my fitbit inspire 2 for 8 months and I'm having problems with it. It seems to be overestimating how many steps I'm doing. I haven't been able to find a fix for this on the fitbit forums and I haven't been able to contact the fitbit support team (websites not working for me).

It seems like maybe because I brought an older model they have stopped bringing out updates for it. I'm not very happy because I paid like $100, and I used to eat back all of my calories, but I don't think I can do that anymore.

Would you buy a new fitbit or look at another brand? I really like some of the features, and like the look of two of the recent products, but I don't know if I should support a brand I'm having trouble with. The fitbit I brought was about as cheap as you can buy them, so I didn't buy a warranty because it would have cost more than the fitbit itself.

What should I do?

Thanks

I have the exact same fitbit. I bought my used for $20 on ebay, and it has always worked consistently so I feel like It is a very good deal.

Here is how I see it, your fitbit inspire 2 is broken, or it is not broken.

If it is broken, that's it, they aren't repairable. This is unlikely.

If it is not broken, the inspire 2 is a basic and minimal watch. It is only capable of doing a very few things well. It can count steps, and it does a great job of tracking sleep.

What is the step count it gave you from yesterday? What do you think your actual step count was?

spacetreemonkey

I don't know. I think I did between 6000 and 8000 steps, and it told me I had done close to 20,000 steps, but I've just logged back into my account, and the step count has gone back down to where it was supposed to be.

rileysowner

Like everything it is going to be an educated estimate in terms of accuracy. The bigger question is are the numbers really off. You example of 20000 steps would be way off unless you work a job where you are walking around most of the day. If you are not, then 20000 would be extremely high. I have a newer fitbit and work an office job so I rarely get numbers over 5000-6000 unless I go out of my way to walk before or after work. My wife works in a job where she is walking around work pretty much the whole day and she walks to work and will get around 14000 steps most days. I would like to know the steps your fitbit gave you for say each day for say the past week compared to what you think you walked.

cmriverside

I'm going to be the rebel here and tell you I lost 80 pounds with no fitness "devices."

It can be done just as easily without a device. Save your $$ and log food. Simples.

chris_in_cal

rileysowner wrote: »

I have a newer fitbit and work an office job so I rarely get numbers over 5000-6000 unless I go out of my way to walk before or after work.

Unlike @cmriverside who chooses not to waste money on shoes, because, you know, life can be done without them the fitbit is a simple, fun device. I don't care about my daily step count very much, and I don't try to calculate any calories burned from step count. However, nearly always on my sedentary days I am also getting 5000-6000 steps/day, and on run days or days I am off doing something I get up to 13k-15K steps per day.

I think a simple fitbit does a fair job of coming up with a step count estimate.

@spacetreemonkey give it a couple of days. Try a few different things. I think you'll start getting more results that make sense. The device hardware is pretty solid nowadays, the biggie is the software in the apps/webpages/syncs etc. Sometimes it is fussy.

spiriteagle99

I don't have a fitbit, but I do have a Garmin running watch. On days that I do a lot with my hands, like driving for a few hours or petting the dog, it records much higher step counts. (i.e. on a day I only walked about a mile it said I had taken 10,000+ steps.) As a result, I don't have it linked to MFP and I don't take my calorie burn from the watch. Instead I log deliberate exercise, such as runs and walks and bike rides, and ignore the miscellaneous extra steps that the watch gives me. I use the watch for other things, like recording my runs, and it does that job pretty well. I just take the HR with a grain of salt and ignore the step count unless I'm trying to increase my activity level.

spacetreemonkey

I have not connected my fitbit to mfp. I have signed up for mapmywalk and am tracking my calories that way. If nothing else, it will tell me how far I've walked and how fast and I can work out calories from there.

If I add activity from mfp, how accurate is it? I heard that mfp tends to double the calories burnt, but that was years ago, maybe they have improved since then?

cmriverside

spacetreemonkey wrote: »

I have not connected my fitbit to mfp. I have signed up for mapmywalk and am tracking my calories that way. If nothing else, it will tell me how far I've walked and how fast and I can work out calories from there.

If I add activity from mfp, how accurate is it? I heard that mfp tends to double the calories burnt, but that was years ago, maybe they have improved since then?

The only way for you to find out if you should use MFP's numbers is to use MFP's numbers and see what your weight does.

I looked at several websites which really knew not a whole lot about my specific situation/intensity of exercise etc. They generally were giving me numbers of 500-600 per hour of moderate exercise (about the same as MFP.) Most exercises are not that easy to quantify, unless it's cycling, running, or walking. So I just used a flat number. I figured 300 calories per hour was too low for some things and too high for some other things I was doing, but that it would cancel out in the end. That's what I used. 300 calories per hour of (my)moderate exercise. It's easy to do the math for me, I have had very close tracking with it and it works.

Whatever you use, YOU get to run your own experiment over Time. Pick a number - 100% of MFP's calories burned, a fitbit's estimate, 50% of one of those, 60%, use some other website's guesses, or pick a random number like I did. You can even use some TDEE calculator and and use that to manually set your calorie goal by rolling your exercise calories into your daily calorie Goal, the way TDEE calculators do. Use your decision/number for 4-6 weeks and then look back at your results. You need trending data over time.

cwolfman13

spacetreemonkey wrote: »

I don't know. I think I did between 6000 and 8000 steps, and it told me I had done close to 20,000 steps, but I've just logged back into my account, and the step count has gone back down to where it was supposed to be.

Did you do anything unusual where maybe you were moving your hands a lot? One of my hobbies is off-roading 4x4 and all of the jostling around always gives me crazy step numbers even though I was in my truck all day.