Fitbit Charge vs Treadmill?

[Blackadder337]

Hello all,

So October 2016 is my first trip to WDW since about 1987 or maybe 88... some time around then. Without WDW in mind, I started making a few lifestyle changes in Nov. 2014. So in the past year I've gone from about 250 lbs down to 225 give or take (without trying too hard). I've been walking quite a bit since April, but with winter coming, I figure it won't be as easy to walk outside, so I bought a treadmill.

I'm pleased to say that after having the treadmill for a full month, I manage to get in at least 3.5 miles (5kms) of walking/jogging before work EVERY morning, plus my normal daily walking around.

I've noticed the mileage, steps and calorie numbers are quite different between my treadmill and my Fitbit Charge. I know that if I actually use some sort of HR monitor it would give a more true calorie count , but I don't have one. I also can't use the one on the treadmill because the hand sensors are too low for me to reach when I'm doing my workout.

Has anyone looked into seeing whether a treadmill or a fitbit is more accurate? So far I'm just assuming that if I split the difference between the two, it should give me a ROUGH idea of where I'm at. But I was curious if anyone has looked into this before?

 

[wilkeliza]

Treadmill is more accurate for distance/mileage but less for steps/calorie unless you have a type that you can add weight and height to help with calorie counting. I find fitbits distance to be incredibly off as well as iPhone's. I have a garmin for outside use. The fitbit uses an acceleromiter and a few other devices to figure out steps and flights etc so any time you shake the device it is going to count as a step even if it is or not and it multiple those steps by the average length of step to get the distance. A properly calibrated treadmill will not be very off distance wise at all.

 

[Ariel484]

+1 to everything @wilkeliza said. I've noticed the same thing with my Fitbit.