Fitbit Distance Tracker

[237SJ]

I`ve come across a few people who claim to have walked miles because their Fitbit told them. For example, a friend of mine moved house the other day and her Fitbit said she had walked 13 miles while she was putting her things around the new house. I`ve also met people at work who claim to have walked ridiculous amounts of miles but unless their steps are calibrated, surely the whole thing must be rubbish?

[vulcan42]

13 miles walked when placing items in a new house sounds excessive but it might be a huge house. I remember reading that a football referee had one fitted in a top division match and he ran/walked just over ten miles.

[237SJ]

Apparently, it works out the distance according to the users` height and weight but even that isn`t accurate because some people have longer legs than others so their stride is longer and anyway, it is assuming that a step is a stride which more often than not during daily activities, it`s not.

[Fitzer]

But they are calibrated, one enters one's pace length, you even have to tell it if you wear it on your dominant wrist. However walking around one's house one is hardly likely to hit a full stride, in addition the default unit on Fitbits appears to be the km. I do know that when I compare mine to a track made using my GPS it is usually within 10%. Fitbit themselves say that the step counter can be confused by non-step movements and that it is only a guide to general activity levels.

[Clanad]

Seems there's other uses for the Fitbit Tracker... sen here:

http://www.cnet.com/news/tmi-some-fitbit-users-sex-stats-on-google-search/