I just bought a fitbit charge 3. I really love it. ???? It seems that the steps are recording way to many steps that I am not doing. Does it record steps if I am moving my arm? Thank You. null

Question

gtrain · Accepted Answer

Yes and No. I work at a job where I have to sit in front of a computer alot. I have noticed no matter how much I wave my hands it wont pick it up. I have noticed some nights when I sleep it will record no steps (the usual) or sometimes a few dozen. Not sure why but it is never to bad. All pedometers and step readers are never 100% accurate. This one is pretty good.

Answered by gtrain 6 years ago

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Newyorker · Answer

Yes it does. It is one of the drawbacks. Try switching to the other wrist.

Dibbinz · Answer

From what I've gathered, it does track movement of the watch. It will register the swaying of the arm.

ipabrams · Answer

There are a lot of things I like about this, but in the end it goes on the Absolutely Do Not Buy list because of a fatal flaw: to compensate for the lack of GPS, the Charge (2 and 3) counts steps based on some algorithm related to hand/arm movement and maybe something else. This means that if you travel in a car you are going to be "charged" with exercise steps. Some users report that driving shows up as "outdoor bike". If you want to read more about this problem, go to the extensive Fitbit Community discussion about it at the link below this comment. You will there encounter the less-than gracious fitbit bot or employee who quickly responds to every message with the same inane boilerplate--we have the best engineers and here is how to make sure your fitbit is measuring your steps accurately. Neither of these responses will in any way help to stop your fitbit from counting driving as exercise. Some other sage advice that the bot-person offers includes to count the exact start and end time of every car trip (or bus ride , etc...) and enter that manually as "driving" into the app. That would be fun, I'm sure. In short, this is fine if you only wear it when you are in the gym or on a run or on a bike and don't want to be bored. But it is not a fitness tracker. The other issue--also verging on a fatal flaw--is the screen quality. Assuming you have not been dissuaded from buying this by what I have written above, you MUST use screen protectors because the screen is easily scratched by contact with any hard surface. I bumped a concrete wall in the Montreal metro and put two large gashes into my screen. At any rate, here's the link for the driving issue discussion board. Hope this has helped you to avoid some regret. https://community.fitbit.com/t5/forums/searchpage/tab/message?advanced=false&allow_punctuation=false&filter=location&location=forum-board:charge3&q=driving

Answered by ipabrams 6 years ago

Johnboy · Answer

It’s all all about movement. Yes you can swing your arm while sitting but that’s cheating.

“I just bought a fitbit charge 3. I really love it. ???? It seems that the steps are recording way to many steps that I am not doing. Does it record steps if I am moving my arm? Thank You.”

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