diff --git a/README.rst b/README.rst
index 63cd42ff..9c722b2d 100644
--- a/README.rst
+++ b/README.rst
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ Documentation
                    file=sys.stderr, ncols=None, mininterval=0.1,
                    miniters=None, ascii=None, disable=False,
                    unit='it', unit_scale=False, gui=False, dynamic_ncols=False,
-                   smoothing=0.7):
+                   smoothing=0.05):
 
 Parameters
 ~~~~~~~~~~
@@ -127,8 +127,8 @@ Parameters
     for window resizes) [default: False].
 * smoothing  : float  
     Exponential moving average smoothing factor for speed estimates
-    (ignored in GUI mode). Ranges from 0 (initial speed) to 1
-    (current/instantaneous speed) [default: 0.7].
+    (ignored in GUI mode). Ranges from 0 (average speed) to 1
+    (current/instantaneous speed) [default: 0.05].
 
 Returns
 ~~~~~~~
diff --git a/tqdm/_tqdm.py b/tqdm/_tqdm.py
index 1d867135..0589eab5 100644
--- a/tqdm/_tqdm.py
+++ b/tqdm/_tqdm.py
@@ -211,7 +211,7 @@ class tqdm(object):
                  file=sys.stderr, ncols=None, mininterval=0.1,
                  miniters=None, ascii=None, disable=False,
                  unit='it', unit_scale=False, gui=False, dynamic_ncols=False,
-                 smoothing=0.7):
+                 smoothing=0.05):
         """
         Parameters
         ----------
@@ -265,7 +265,7 @@ class tqdm(object):
         smoothing  : float
             Exponential moving average smoothing factor for speed estimates
             (ignored in GUI mode). Ranges from 0 (average speed) to 1
-            (current/instantaneous speed) [default: 0.7].
+            (current/instantaneous speed) [default: 0.05].
 
         Returns
         -------