The Google Fitbit Air is a fascinating fitness tracker, especially because of its screenless design, week-long battery life, and attractive $99 price tag.
However, if you’re buying the Fitbit Air primarily for workout tracking or step counting, the accuracy isn’t particularly impressive out of the box.
I recently compared the Fitbit Air against the Pixel Watch 2 in a step-counting test, and the results weren’t great. Over a 5,000-step walk, the Fitbit Air undercounted by roughly 650 steps, an error margin of more than 10%.
Thankfully, I found one simple setting that noticeably improves the Fitbit Air’s step-counting accuracy. It’s a quick change, but one that makes Google’s budget fitness tracker a better value for the money. Here’s what you need to do.
How to change your Fitbit Air’s stride length
Here’s how you can change this hidden Google Health setting
The setting you need to change on your Fitbit Air to improve step-counting accuracy is your stride length.
By default, Fitbit Air estimates your stride length using your height and gender. It then uses that estimate to calculate how many steps you’ve taken.
However, it appears that this estimate isn’t accurate for most users, and you need to change this setting.
If you’re unfamiliar with the term, stride length is the distance your body travels in one full stride, from the moment one foot touches the ground until that same foot touches the ground again. In other words, it’s roughly the distance covered over two steps.
The first thing you’ll do is measure your stride length. The easiest way is to mark a starting point, walk 20 normal steps at your usual pace, measure the total distance you covered, and then divide that number by 10. That gives you your average stride length and is usually much more accurate than the default estimate.
After you’ve done that, update the Fitbit Air with the stride length you just measured.
To change your stride length on the Fitbit Air:
- Open the Google Health app.
-
Tap the profile icon in the upper-right corner, then go to Google Health settings.
- Tap Activity.
-
Scroll down and select Stride length.
- Replace the default walking stride length with the value you measured.
How much difference does changing stride length really make
I tested it myself to see whether it improved step counting accuracy
You might be wondering how much difference this setting actually makes. To find out, I did a simple test.
I manually counted 1,000 steps before changing my stride length and recorded the Fitbit Air’s measurements.
Then I updated the stride length in Google Health to my manually measured value and repeated the same 1,000-step walk to see if there was an improvement.
|
Test |
Stride length |
Starting step count |
Ending step count |
Steps recorded |
Actual steps |
Steps missed |
Accuracy |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Before changing stride length |
71.4cm (Google’s estimate) |
1,611 |
2,541 |
930 |
1,000 |
70 |
93% |
|
After changing stride length |
69.7cm (manually measured) |
2,576 |
3,524 |
948 |
1,000 |
52 |
94.8% |
For reference, I’m about 5 feet 6 inches tall. Google estimated my stride length at 71.4cm, but when I measured it myself, it came out to roughly 69.5cm.
Before changing the setting, the Fitbit Air counted around 930 steps during my 1,000-step walk. After updating the stride length to my measured value, it counted 948 steps over the same distance.
An improvement of 18 steps might not sound like much on paper. But that’s almost a 2% reduction in error from changing one setting, which is significant.
I wish Google would prompt users to measure and set their stride length during the initial setup instead of relying entirely on an estimate.
Changing one setting on my Fitbit Air did the trick
Changing this one setting made a noticeable difference for me. I’m obsessed with hitting my daily step goal and try to walk 10,000 steps every day, so I kept noticing that the Fitbit Air was consistently undercounting.
I love Fitbit Air’s form factor, which is why I wasn’t ready to give up on it. However, after adjusting my stride length, step counting has become more accurate than it was out of the box.
This isn’t the only setting worth changing. There are other tweaks you can make to the Fitbit Air to improve sleep tracking and improve the overall experience.
- Battery Life
-
7 days
- Health sensors
-
Optical heart rate, 3-axis accelerometer, temperature sensor
- Dimensions
-
35 x 17 x 8.3mm (Module)
- Water Resistance
-
50 meters
- Connectivity
-
Bluetooth 5.0
- Materials and finishes
-
Polycarbonate module
The Fitbit Air is a screen-free (and distraction-free) health tracker that weighs just 12 grams. It tracks sleep stages, heart rate, and SpO2 around the clock, and it’s rated for up to a week of battery life. It syncs with your phone via the Google Health app.
