Galaxy fit 3 step counting unreliable and inaccurate

[Christine_Black]

I bought the fit 3 about  a month ago, i used a fitbit before that, what i noticed is that the step counting is very inaccurate and unreliable, especially on stationary machines at the gym.

For example, yesterday i took 30 minutes on the elliptical(9km approximately), followed by 30 mins on indoor bike, i manually started both exercises on the band, yet it counted about 3k steps for both, approximately the amount of steps i get from 20 minutes walking at a normal pace(2km approximately).

This is completely throwing off my step counting goals, i had it set up to 8k steps but even after intense exercise on stationary machines and also walking to and from the gym, the counter didn't even reach 6k steps. Comparatively for the same amount of activity the fitbit registers around 11k steps.

Is there a way to calibrate the pedometer better? It's really frustrating, as i can't meet daily goals reliably, i don't want to have to overwork myself to compensate for the band's shortcomings. 

Please advise

[Obsydian]

Hello and welcome, not way to calibrate but that's a great idea.

If you start an exercise manually, when you end it, the watch asks for the distance from the machine, note only for treadmill exercise I think.

My gym has a mix of machines, most have Android watch connectivity via NFC and then BT, but allot don't work so usually resort to manually starting exercises off the watch.

[Moiramon]

I've noticed they they seem to register arm movement to count steps. I've done a mile walk pushing a push chair and it hardly counted any steps.

[Christine_Black]

tbh i have never noticed if it asks that, usually on the treadmill it even ends on its own, but only on the treadmill and generally it has no issues there but with the elliptical and the bike, no dice. Which is odd cos i move my arms way more on the elliptical

Edit: It 100% doesn't have the option to input distance manually on the elliptical or the indoor bike, the phone app doesn't either. I will try to only run the exercises through the phone next time to see if the pedometer moves cos today i had them both run at the same time and the pedometer wasn't moving at all at the time. This is becoming rather frustrating.