Steps while cycling - Probably returning product.

[adri1234]

Hi.  I love the Charge 5.  However,  I have a major issue with my daily cycle to work.  I travel 15 miles overall to work every day and the Charge says I've done thousands of steps I haven't.  This morning it said I did 3000 steps whilst riding using the SmartTrack feature.  So this afternoon I decided to use the GPS feature and tell the Charge that I was going on a bike.  It registered 1500 steps!

This makes a lot of what the Charge 5 is registering redundant and invalid data.  Is there a fix for this?  Surely when I actively tell the device I'm just getting on a bike it should stop counting steps until I tell it I've finished my ride home.

If there's no fix (I see other commuters have had the same problem expressed in earlier forum posts) then sadly the Charge 5 will return to the vendor.

Come on FitBit.  This must be an easy fix.

Adri

[JohnnyRow]

You will likely register steps while bike riding, even when you tell Fitbit what you are doing, from vibrations through your wrist.  Fitbit makes no effort to turn off step counting during what would be considered not-step activities, nor does it allow any way to pause the step counting.  I wound not be expecting this to change soon as it has often been requested in the past.

If you would like to make your request added, the place to make that is the Feature Suggestion Board .

The only possible bright spot is that this affects only step count.  Calorie burn and zone minutes are based on heart rate so are not affected.

[Rich_Laue]

Users have been arguing for the last decade over these steps. 

Some want all bike steps removed. Others want steps recorded as if they had walked the same distance. While others want bike mikes converted to steps, without mentioning what the conversion should be based on. 

Doing a Google, I find this is a common complaint with almost every arm bases tracker on the market 

[CK37]

My charge 5 registers steps when I take a shower, at least you’re exercising. So no I really don’t think they’ll fix it anytime soon.

[t.parker]

@adri1234 it's like @JohnnyRow says with addition that extra steps affect also daily distance (as this depends on steps).

@CK37 Fitbit devices never stop tracking steps and since "steps" are really wrist movements that match certain pattern it's likely to get steps for non-steps activities. Any repetitive wrist motion will add steps. This is how it works in Fitbit's world and I don't think it will ever change.

[Widdershins]

You should see how many "free" steps I get while riding my motorcycle. 😁

[Stylez_P]

The more I dig into this issue the more enraged I get, this makes the step counter useless surely? its actually pointless it being there..

[Rich_Laue]

You will also find periods during the day, when you are stepping, but no steps counted. 

The issue is that fitbit users do not agree on how fitbit should handle steps during biking. 

Some feel that every pedal stroke should be counted. Some feel the miles should be converted to steps (no on says what the conversion should be.