Whether you reach 5 miles in 10,000 steps will depend on your stride length and whether you were walking or running. At 5' 1" my stride tested at 30.1 inches walking 4 mph, and it takes me considerably more than 10,000 steps to reach 5 miles walking. Running, more distance is covered in fewer steps so maybe running. Fitbit somehow "decides" whether to categorize our steps as walking or running and decides which stride length setting to apply. I mention that because I believe sometimes it will apply my running to some of my brisk walking. My running stride tested at 31.6 inches using a short strided jog that probably wasn't much faster than the 4mph walking. I am not sure the increments it uses, but I think it is at least minute by minute as this is somewhat connected to which "activity level" the fitbit credits us for and that seems to be minute by minute. In my case,I believe that Fitbit is crediting me with my running stride when it is giving me "very active minutes" which kind of makes sense because "very active" is meant to be vigorous and walking is usually considered "moderately active". But it isn't just the steps per minute, speed it factors in, it is also using something from the movement data--I believe either impact or up and down movement. I've had workouts involving jumping (jumping rope, plyometrics, etc) where it automatically credited me with a higher activity level even though the steps and "average pace" were lower than in some of my walks where it mostly credited me with moderately active. This is fair enough, jumping rope is more vigorous than walking for me. But I was really surprised to see the speed/pace wasn't as high. So there is a little more to it. I bring this up, because it sounds like your Force is not as sensitive to your movements as your One. I had read somewhere that torso worn accelerometers tend to be more accurate than wrist worn for a lot of activities--though the opinion was that the ideal would be devices you could wear in different places depending on the specific activity (and could somehow be claibrated to the changing locations). But where and how these types of devices are worn does effect what they can track. I have no experience with the Force or Flex. From othger's posts they seem so variable--like they work well for some but will either over or under estimate for others.

I think the customer service may have misunderstood since your Force was picking up fewer steps than your other devices. What distance did your Force and One give for the 3 mile walk? Did you use the activity timer to get that information? I think the Fitbit staff may have misunderstood that your force seems less sensitive not more sensitive. Asking you to wear it on your non-dominant hand should make it a little less sensitive since that arm whould move less throughout the day. To make it more sensitive, my understanding is that you would wear it on your dominant hand but set it for your non-dominant hand. Which calibration you use (dominant or nondominant) can apparently make a difference. The on lable use it to set it for the hand you wear it, but sometimes people have tweeked the sensitivity a little by playing with the setting and which arm they wear it on (often wearing it differently than they programmed it).

Are your Fitbit One and Fitbit Force stride lengths set the same? I think this setting should mainly effect the distance estimate and average "pace". but also it will depend whether walking, running or a mix of both were applied. So the settings for both are important. Sometimes it can be good to calibrate the stride settings for a more leisurely walk (whatever pace is natural for you) for "walking" and your brisk "in a hurry" walking pace for running. Of course, you would only want to do this if you rarely run or are using a different method to track your running. The different devices might sense the same movement different and class it differently.

I would also think that not everyone swings their arms at all while walking, I know for me the flex or force would be useless cause I get most of my steps marching on the spot here at the laptop & my arms are not moving at the time, same as when I'm walking to work or home, I usually have my phone in my hand and am not swinging my arms at all, even on my way home I have stuff on my shoulders that would make swinging my arms at all impossible without everything falling off the shoulders. Thank goodness for my One.

Of course it's not accurate exactly down to the last step, cause not everyone is the same when they walk.

Not that easy to lose at all in fact. We have 3 people here all with a One each...not once have any of us lost them, or had them fall out or off. This is over a year of usage so far. If work correctly , like on you underwear at your hip so your pants/shorts can hold it in place.... then it never falls out or off & counts accurate. People who lose theirs are just not taking care of it & where to put it. I know I've also never lost it when putting it on my bra.

I know a lot of people mention losing or washing the FB One. I have not been in that position yet but my husband has. He, of course, does not need or want to wear a bra and after losing his FB twice and washing it once, he decided that he would research the devices out there.

he concluded that the FB One was the best choice even with the rubber clipped case design so what he decided to do is find another case for it and put it on the lanyard. He came up with this one:



The FB One fits snuggly inside and is not going to fall out. There is even enough room to have the FB in the rubber case, clipped to the case logic case so he is doubly sure it will not lost.

He took of the keyring and strung a piece of cord through it, then burnt the ends so the line was one solid piece. He has found this to be a great option for him. The FB One sits at his chest level and he gets all the benefits that the One has without the headache or hassle of thinking its going to get lost.

I researched the FB Flex months ago and compared it to the One and found that it was not as accurate as the One. I bought my husband the Force when it came out (after the first FB was lost) and he found the accuracy just was not right as compared to the One.

I would also think that not everyone swings their arms at all while walking, I know for me the flex or force would be useless cause I get most of my steps marching on the spot here at the laptop & my arms are not moving at the time, same as when I'm walking to work or home, I usually have my phone in my hand and am not swinging my arms at all, even on my way home I have stuff on my shoulders that would make swinging my arms at all impossible without everything falling off the shoulders. Thank goodness for my One.

Of course it's not accurate exactly down to the last step, cause not everyone is the same when they walk.

I don't have other devices to compare against, so I can't beat the OP in terms of hard data, but thought I'd share that in my month of use of the Force, I have walked swinging my arms, walked without swinging my arms, walked while holding my phone to my ear with the hand with the Force on it, walked outside while clutching a travel mug (or shoving my hands as deep into my pockets as they will go) and not moving my arms at all, and the Force has been pretty darn consistent with tracking my steps accurately. (As you say, not perfect, but I don't think anyone reasonably expects that.) No idea if I magically fit into their exact programming model or what, but I thought I'd share my anecdotal success.

There have been some shipping delays throughout the country. I don't know about the Fitbit shipment but someone on the opposite coast to me send a package Fedex (I believe overnight--they shipped it Wednesday and it was scheduled to arrive Thursday). Well it hasn't, they keep changing the delivery date and currently they have no date estimate for delivery. I wonder if there is an issue with whatever delivery service they use. Fedex says it is severely disrupted throughout the country, for example. On one hand, I would expect them to investigate the rasgh issue--but it sounds like it doesn't affect everyone. I think they would announce if they were doing a product recall and would offer a different device. If you are wanting a Force after having a defective one it is unlikely the rash issue is affecting you. I suspect it may be related to the weather even if fine in your area.

You can play around with the stride length. Mine wasn't accurate for the stride length measured so I adjusted it a couple of times till it became more accurate. If it's underestimating, shorten stride length, if overestimating, longer stride length (I think that's right).

I have an unusual job that involves knowing how to pace out certain distances, and I've learned that my pace when working is a lot different than the pace I measure for the sake of measuring, and I suppose this is true for actually working out versus measuring as well.

Hope this helps if it's not already resolved.

It's the number of steps counted that I have a problem with and nothing I have read or been told leads me to believe that correctly setting the stride length will improve basic step counting accuracy. It will make your distance estimates more accurate though presuming your tracker is counting all of your steps.

As someone who has become a little obsessed with this subject, I have read some "scholarly research" on the subject. One of the things I learned from that is that, in most of us, stride length (scientifically defined as two steps) varies dramatically with walking speed. The thing is we speed up by combining faster steps with longer steps. The upshot of that is, unless you are always walking at the same speed, your stride length will always be wrong

Mostly agree. Stride length settings shouldn't effect whether the fitbit is actually counting your steps. It can improve the accuracy of the pace and distance stats--even if fitbit is missing some of your steps (assuming there is some consistency in the pattern of how it misses them). If you use the Fitbit counted steps in your stride calculation than that helps as it really just needs to know what distance to provide per fitbit counted step. Whether this helps or not, kind of depends on your goals. Most people (I think) want a fitbit to track their activity throughout the day and give them an educated calorie burn based on their actual acitivity. For this goal, the distance isn't really that important the important thing is whether the fitbit is picking up enough of their activity (but not too much). If your goal is to have a way to estimate distance when walking, then calibrating the stride can help even if the Fitbit misses some of your steps.

I agree the stride varies by speed, and route and what we are wearing, etc. I guess I would just calibrate for the "average" in your life. I walk briskly outside most of the time, and calibrated for a walkign pace that felt natural outsde. I am sure my fitbit distance for steps inside is usually overstated as my inside stride is likely shorter. I don't worry too much about the accuracy, but it is usually pretty accurate when walking outside since I calibrated both my stride settings. We really have more than two stride variations so I think if it is usualy correct or close than that is good. Serios distance athletics enthusiasts likely have other ways to track their workout distances and there is always the option to log the activty.

At one point I tested my strides on a treadmill in part because I find ti easier to run on a treadmill. The result ended up underestimating my distances. I think my stride was shorter on a treadmill in part because the machine controls it and maybe I was taking smaller steps to avoid falling off the thing. I am sure it is different for regular treadmill users, but am not sure how well the treadmill translates to outside activity--it didn't translate well for me anyway.

I am not sure about the Force, but my One is actually more accurate at 4mph in part because that was the walking speed I used when I tested my stride (I also tested at 3.5 mph and it seemed fine at that speed too). So I am not sure I would exepct it to in general be less accurate at faster speeds. But as mentioned, I don't have a Force and it is possible the two devices would sense movement differently. It may be that at the faster speed your steps are softer and more fluid? That doesn't seem to be the case with me, but it sounds like some fitbit users who are into working on a fluid running technique have posted that their fitbits do fine walking but miss some fo their running. Mine picks up my running quite well. The activities it missed steps for me are some types of dance that involve fluid movements and isolating the impact/motion to specific areas of the body. Some people posted in the fitbit forum that it undercounts their very slow treadmill desk walking--don't people usually do something like 1-2mph on a treadmill desk? I thought the issue was generally more with the softness of the movement not the speed. My fitbit seems to like brisk paced movement. Hopefully yours is a dud, but there is a possibility it doesn't track your movement well at that pace especially if the movement isn't traveling through your arm in some way. Running on a treadmill does tend to be lower impact though, but it sounds like you have the same issues outside?

Indeed, as many may not know, it's not the swinging of the arms that counts as steps - it's the ability to detect impact of steps despite the swinging of the arms.

That's the difficult thing, as evidenced by what you found.
For some an issue, for others not.

So it probably has to do with how the arms are swinging at just the moment of impact.

I guess one could in theory negate the impact seen by a sharp reversal of the direction of swing at just the right moment.

I've had a Fitbit Flex since they came out, and recently upgraded to a Charge HR (just because it's purple).

I don't sweat my step count. All that matters is my burn. I lost the weight & have maintained for nine months—you can't get any more accurate than that.

Trust your Fitbit for several weeks, then reevaluate your progress.

heybales wrote: »

Read post right above yours.

It doesn't use arm swings.

I did read the post. But Fitbit themselves say:

"Why is my Flex step count different than my count on other Fitbit products?
Flex has been tested extensively against our clip-based devices like the Fitbit One and Fitbit Zip. That said, because Flex is specifically designed for your wrist, if you move your body a lot and not your arms (or vice versa), you may get a slight difference in activity than you would see on your clip-based trackers. "

This is what I was saying when devices try to get clever. Look around at the many posts where people say their flex count goes up driving a car and other say no steps counted pushing a stroller. Even here you will see a number of people have the opposite experience. It all kind of shows these devices don't really work in a consistent accurate way.

Having said that, if you measure against something real as I suggest, then you can hopefully establish what the results mean to you, just don't take it as gospel.