How can I get my fitbit to register steps or revolutions using a Spin Bike or stationery bike?

[Cande]

My fitbit registers "steps" when I walk, run, hike, even Hula Hoop. But I'm surprised it doesn't register activity or steps when I use my Spin / Spinning Bike, even when placed on my waistband. Does anyone else Spin? Do you have a way to get it to register? (my husband sjust got me the spinning bike for my birthday!)

Thanks!

[Cande]

I bought a Spin Bike for my birthday in December. It took me a lot of trial and error to figure out how to get cycling to register on my fitbit. My best solution was to wear my fitbit on a neck chain (actually it's a fairly thin elastic, 24 inches long, knotted so that it hangs in front of me, outside my shirt, while I "ride." It might not have gotten revolutions, but it gave me a similar number of "steps" that I get when I run. I was happy enough with the result.

Good luck-- enjoy the biking!

[Mary]

I know what you mean.  I have stuck mine on my sock before for rides, just to log steps.  You could do the step conversion yourself if you really don't want to move your focus to calories burned on cycling days.  I think I would just think more like "10k steps a day is my goal, or 5k on days I cycle to work."   

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@vela_via wrote:

I think Fitbit's goal with steps is to just get you moving.  10,000 steps a day is a rough equivalent to the Surgeon General’s recommendation to accumulate 30 minutes of activity most days of the week.  I bike to work, but for awhile I was walking to get more steps.  I had no problem reaching my goal when I walked but I want to bike because it increases my heartrate more.  I feel like I'm getting penalized for biking. 

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[GerriD]

How does this work and if wearing the bracelot fit bit on your wrist why does it not do the same........on the wrist as it would hanging from the neck.........


If it works this is a great idea because I know lots of people they like spin and biking but are frustrated because it does not count steps...........

[GerriD]

Do you have the fitbit wristlet or the little thing you clip on.........


when I use the elliptical it counts steps so I do not understand when cycling it does not??


hmmmmm


Re: How can I get my fitbit to register steps or revolutions using a Spin Bike or stationery bike?


I know what you mean. I have stuck mine on my sock before for rides, just to log steps. You could do the step conversion yourself if you really don't want to move your focus to calories burned on cycling days. I think I would just think more like "10k steps a day is my goal, or 5k on days I cycle to work."

vela_via wrote:

I think Fitbit's goal with steps is to just get you moving. 10,000 steps a day is a rough equivalent to the Surgeon General’s recommendation to accumulate 30 minutes of activity most days of the week. I bike to work, but for awhile I was walking to get more steps. I had no problem reaching my goal when I walked but I want to bike because it increases my heartrate more. I feel like I'm getting penalized for biking.



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[Mary]

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@GerriD wrote:
Do you have the fitbit wristlet or the little thing you clip on.........


when I use the elliptical it counts steps so I do not understand when cycling it does not??


hmmmmm

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Gerri- I have the One, which clips on.  Though if you put a wrist one on your ankle I imagine it would log 'steps', too.  Which do you have?  

When you use the elliptical your torso or wrist is moving like a walking person, if yours counts steps on the elliptical.  Some elliptical/people/devices don't log steps.  When you ride a spin bike, neither your wrist or torso is moving like a walking person's is.    

I have no idea which device worn on a chain causes spinning steps to count but I'm guessing that person isn't sitting in the saddle much or has a lot of torso motion going on to cause it to think they're walking/running.  

There is a cost to 'tricking' it into counting spinning as steps.  It will give a bad calorie estimate.  So you have to choose -- Do you want 'spinning steps' in your steps total and a bad calorie estimate, or do you want to manually log spinning and have a good calorie estimate but no 'spinning steps'?  

[Aqualibrarian]

My friend wears his fitbit in his sock when he cycles. Try that!

[Heybales]

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@Aqualibrarian wrote:

My friend wears his fitbit in his sock when he cycles. Try that!

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as it's been brought out here and other threads - let your friend know he still not getting a decent estimate of calorie burn, unless per chance he is going slow enough for the bike to equal walking with only half the steps being seen.

So while he is getting half the "steps" as some sort of effort to reach step goals, the calorie count is off still.

[ChandlerBob]

My Orbiter keeps track of steps and distance. The Fitbit doesn't accurately count my steps or distance when using the Orbiter, when either attached to my shoe or the hand poles. My "fix" used to be to manually add the step count into the Fitbit using the old "Dashborad," but they have removed that step-editing option, much to my disappointment.

Perhaps you would make a feature request to have them add that feature back to the Dashboard. I've asked, repeatedly, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

[mcnixon]

Why does the eliptical count steps better than biking/spinning?

I think its mostly related to the motion and impact.  Elipticals can be closer to a walk or running stride, but with a little bit less jarring/impact.  I think the Fitbit has probably enough "range" in its sensativity (on wrist or waist) to measure most elipticals (I've tried a fair number of things over the years to count steps).

But when I look at spinning or biking, I think the circle of your feet, and even the rocking of your core, the goal is to be smooth on the pedals (I use clip in shoes most of the time, so I am also pulling up on the pedals), and I believe I should also be improving my core strength, so that my leg movement is isolated so that I have less rocking of my hips/torso.  So I do think its harder for any pedometer to give an accurate count (of single foot or both feet) when cycling (there is movement, but less of a clear transition between steps).  I've tried pedometers near shoe, top of calves, low outside hip, and on lanyard on neck.  I would agree with others lanyard on neck seemed to work best for me, but I confess, I've done less biking (and swimming especially), since I got a fitbit, because none of these things counts like walking/running (or eliptitcal).

My background:

I've been a runner/marathoner for 10 years, cycling/triathlons on and off for 5.

And I've used pedometers for challenges at my work for 4 years now (I do about 4 million steps/year).  And I guess before that, I did 2 years on the Nike+iPod.  (I also love Garmin GPS)

Once a year, my work does a pedometer challenge, (2 were pre-Fitbit, and we just started our second year with Fitbit).  so we have about 80-85 days to do a million steps.  So I'm mostly in the camp of count my steps while I bike/spin (because in our challenges its all about biking).  And I really wish I could get some credit (even per arm stroke) for swimming.  Maybe my best bet is to hit the treadmill when I'm watching swimming on TV.

Mike

[kmahalak]

strange that thet show spinning in the comercial if it does not give accurate info.  spinning is what i do, now i think this fitibt is useless.  

[Cande]

Mike (mcnixon). I think your analysis regarding spinning could be correct! I used to live to spin and got a spin bike of my own a year ago. Then, I was willing to put in the effort of modifying placement of the FITBIT and even modifying my spinning style until I got a "result" that approximated my running.
But I've recently tried twice and just can't get it to register.
I'm not going to give up, tho, because I love to spin (but I want credit for the time on my FITBIT)

[Cande]

I'd rather have the steps, I don't care about calorie count. Thx!

[Heybales]

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@kmahalak wrote:

strange that thet show spinning in the comercial if it does not give accurate info.  spinning is what i do, now i think this fitibt is useless.  

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They do?

Then that is false advertising, considering they state everywhere else biking of course requires manual entry for calorie count, because of fact all steps aren't seen, and neither is formula correct for spinning anyway.

Now - the new devices do have method of starting an activity and saying what it is, which takes care of the above issue.

[Colinm39]

The Fitbit ads in Australia are really promoting Fitness and when you look at the ads it was the only wearable device from Fitbit then. Add table tennis, swimming, weight lifting and it's all incorrect, but at HR models like the Surge and the Charge HR with some overlaid Hr graphs and it would be then perceived as correct.

[timlazisa]

Oh dear I didn't want to do this but hell, I'm gonna have a moan. So I've bought a device at vast expense to track my fitness and it ONLY logs footsteps.....WTF! Are they kidding and now ythey have us all figuring our there problems for them via these forums, cute, very cute! hahaha

[Heybales]

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@timlazisa wrote:

Oh dear I didn't want to do this but hell, I'm gonna have a moan. So I've bought a device at vast expense to track my fitness and it ONLY logs footsteps.....WTF! Are they kidding and now ythey have us all figuring our there problems for them via these forums, cute, very cute! hahaha

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Well, it's mainly called a daily activity tracker.

Where did you see it advertised as a fitness tracker?

That's included as something it can do, when you check out the FAQ's, it can do it with limitations.

So there is 24 hrs in the day it's tracking calorie burn.

How many of those do you actually exercise?

4% is 1 hr.

How many of the daily calories?

24% is 600 in a good strong workout out of 2500 daily burn. Now that is rather high, but even if it saw say 300 underestimated out of 2200, that's 14%, though the workout is 50% off.

So it's a daily activity tracker for mainly the other 23 hrs of the day.

With the 1 hr potentially being badly underestimated (like if you swam and didn't correct it) to being very good estimate (walking/running if stride length right).

[Mare61 · Accepted solution]

Hello Cande

 I am a spinner & I just had the same question you did. I spin alot of miles & log my calories burned & mileage as activity. But if you want to log in as steps put it on your shoe it will measure your steps. I just figured it out but not sure if its totally accuate. Remember if you log in both calories burned on your activity & use the bit on your shoe while spinning it will be double of what you really burned. Good luck!  

[Cande]

Great idea, the shoe solution 🙂

[Heybales]

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@Mare61 wrote:

Hello Cande

 I am a spinner & I just had the same question you did. I spin alot of miles & log my calories burned & mileage as activity. But if you want to log in as steps put it on your shoe it will measure your steps. I just figured it out but not sure if its totally accuate. Remember if you log in both calories burned on your activity & use the bit on your shoe while spinning it will be double of what you really burned. Good luck!  

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Just looking at stats on my ride tonight, have a cadence sensor so I know exactly how many right foots went down in a revolution, so not even truly steps, but 1 foot only.

87.8 in 45 min ( I was able to coast 10 min total) - so 3951 single leg "steps" you might say.

So each foot really went down 7902 steps as Fitbit would count steps.

Fitbit saw for the workout - 5248 steps.

This was Zip on hip, and I spin pretty smoothly, so I don't think it was even weak impacts of foot going down, but likely road and me moving body enough.

Calories burn using personal VO2max formula - 884

Fitbit calories - about 300, already manually entered my workout, so it's gone now.

Distance guessed during the 1 hr total time for the steps seen, which included stoplight time - 2.74 miles.

Well, that 2.74 mph for 1 hr walking actually works out to 254 calories - so not far off at all.

http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

Of course, calorie burn no where near correct, but I can see what it tried to do.

Steps, eh, lacking about 2500. But I don't have step goals, so I don't care.

But if the Zip had been on foot, truly seeing just the presses of that foot, if accurate count, would have received even less steps counted.

[Dominique]

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@Mare61 wrote:

Remember if you log in both calories burned on your activity & use the bit on your shoe while spinning it will be double of what you really burned. 

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That's not the way it works: when you manually log an activity, whatever calorie amount you enter for that activity will cancel (replace) calories calculated by Fitbit during that same period of time. If you don't enter steps, steps counted by Fitbit during that period of time will remain.