Does Ionic give steps for bicycling?

[anitacan]

I have both a Charge HR and a Blaze, and while the Charge HR gave me steps for cycling (approx 10,000 steps for 20 miles of cycling) the Blaze doesn't. 

What does the Ionic do in terms of steps for cycling? While steps may not be appropriate for cycling, I like steps for cycling because steps is the only metric than can be used in competitions with friends.

Thanks!

[SunsetRunner]

Hey!

I was just looking on the forum for more information on this myself, and have seen your message. 

Now, I've had a Charge HR 2 and now I'm using the Ionic, and both devices count steps towards the daily total (on the dashboard) which are caused from cycling. Whilst the specific exercise seems to zero out any 'steps' taken, I'm still getting numerous amounts of steps added to the daily total. 

Is this an unavoidable situation? 

@anitacan - sorry to barge in on your thread/question - haha! 😄 

[anitacan]

@SunsetRunner So if you use Exercise Bike function, you don't get steps for cycling on the Ionic, but if you don't use the Exercise function you do get steps?  Do you get as many as for the Charge HR 2?

[Bikerdog]

I took a 13 Mile ride today and got 1800 steps using the bike mode in the exercise app, if that helps. The bike mode itself was great, it was bright and lots of information, and the heart rate  information seemed fairly accurate.

[SunsetRunner]

I did 39.8km bike ride yesterday, the first I've tracked with the Bike exercise as I normally just use my Wahoo Elemnt, and received 7078 steps to my daily goal!

[ijob007]

I get steps from spinning and weirdly of all, I get steps from driving my car!

[SunsetRunner]

@anitacan - from what I can understand, no matter if you activate the exercise through your fitbit or allow the fitbit to auto-track your exercise (after the 15 minutes of exercise) it will zero out the 'false steps' on the actual exercise itself, but will still add the daily total - which I find odd really. 

Now I messaged Fitbit support about this, and got this reply:

"Thanks for your feedback, Carly. On bumpy trails it's possible that your Fitbit Ionic will register steps but these should be negligible in your overall stats. Since your Fitbit Ionic has the Exercise App, make sure you choose the Bike exercise before you commute to work. If you're relying on SmartTrack to automatically detect your bike ride, make sure the Outdoor Bike exercise is on. Let us know if you have any other questions."

In relation to your question, I *think* the Ionic has been made a bit more cleverer, and I get less steps counted on the bike rides I have completed so far. 

[SunsetRunner]

@ijob007 - yes! Haha, I drive for a living and get a few odd steps here and then whilst driving, but actually I find the Ionic adds alot less than what my Charge HR 2 does. 

[SunsetRunner]

@SunsetRunner - Woah, that's a mega ride dude! See, does that amount of "steps" added to your daily total frustrate you? It would me to be fair - almost like you're getting double bubble for the same single exercise. 

What would be good if (and especially if you activate the exercise from the device itself) if the 'steps' added would be nulled as it knows you're on a bike ride. Not sure why it doesn't do that. 

[SunsetRunner]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

@SunsetRunner - Woah, that's a mega ride dude! See, does that amount of "steps" added to your daily total frustrate you? It would me to be fair - almost like you're getting double bubble for the same single exercise. 

What would be good if (and especially if you activate the exercise from the device itself) if the 'steps' added would be nulled as it knows you're on a bike ride. Not sure why it doesn't do that. 

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I’m in two minds really. If you subscribe to the Fitbit culture the goal is “steps per day” but I rarely run and got a bit ticked off my activity, be it rowing or cycling or other non-step based activity, didn’t count towards my daily total. To that end I used to ride with my Fitbit in my sock to get the “steps”. However, with the Ionic I did find it strange the first time I noticed phantom steps added to my total.

I’m still trying to work out the whole Strava integration thing because there appears to be some double counting of activities, with some of the duplicates receiving steps and others not. Yesterday’s ride for instance has one with the 7078 steps and one without. I ride with a Wahoo head unit that auto loads to Strava and I’m wondering if the duplication derives from that. However, I wear a chest strap HR monitor, which syncs with the head unit, and yesterday, because of the cold dry wind, did suffer quite a few drop outs. Yet the HR trace for both of the activities on Fitbit are identical and appear from the Ionic. All very strange.

[anitacan]

I got an Ionic and just did a 30 mile bike ride. I didn't turn on the bike exercise, and got negligible steps for the ride, so I have the answer to my question. I'm disappointed, but not surprised given the Blaze worked the same way.

[InkyMyCat]

When I was cycling last year before my back surgery i would keep my fitbit blaze (the Brain part) in my pocket and i got the steps. 

[937dytboi]

I went for a bike ride using the bike tracking and it accumulated steps

[RustyCradle]

So why is my new expensive Fitbit Ionic dumber than my cheap old Fitbit HR? Even the simple old HR could figure out I was cycling, and assign a 'step count' that served as a proxy for exercise quantity, but this Ionic just sits there and pretends I am doing nothing while I spend an hour or so in the saddle. SAD!

[937dytboi]

Why not just manually start it, instead of relying on the ionic to determine if your in the saddle or not

Get Outlook for iOS

[RustyCradle]

Why should I have to tell it I am cycling when IT ALREADY KNOWS I am cycling? Talk about a stupid ‘feature’. 

[937dytboi]

Ive personally never used the auto detect for cycling simply because i want my whole ride tracked, it usually picks up other activity pretty good, it may be wrong but its a simple switch in the app.

but i never really rely on the auto detect if i know im doing an activity. I remember when i cut my lawn it auto detected that i was riding a bike. But that kinda make sense.