Fitbit not counting steps on your walking pad?

Fitbit devices use wrist-based accelerometers. Their step-detection algorithm is designed around a normal walking gait where arms swing freely. When you’re typing, your arms don’t swing — they rest on the desk. Fitbit sees low wrist movement and logs few or zero steps.

Treadmill-desk walking is also slow. The combination of stationary wrists and low-cadence walking (60–90 steps per minute) means the signal often stays below the detection floor entirely.

And wearing a Fitbit on your ankle to work around this can skew resting heart rate data and sleep metrics, since the device isn’t calibrated for that position.