Counting steps as I drive a vehicle?

[Rainbowdash88]

Hi can anyone help me my Fitbit is counting steps when I drive. It keeps clocking them when I am not walking stepping?

[USAF-Larry]

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@Rainbowdash88 wrote:
Hi can anyone help me my Fitbit is counting steps when I drive. It keeps clocking them when I am not walking stepping?

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Are you referring to the Charge 2 tracker?  I used to have that problem with the Charge HR, but since getting the Charge 2 it has not counted any steps while driving.

[Rainbowdash88]

Hi thanks for reply. I have the newest Fitbit charge 2? How has yours been?
Can vibration set it off?

[USAF-Larry]

I have not had nearly the problem with the tracker counting steps while driving with the Charge 2 that I did with the Charge HR.  With the Charge HR if I drove the smooth riding car it very seldom counted steps, but when I drove the Jeep or pickup truck, it counted a lot of steps from the bouncing.  But, since I got the Charge 2, I have driven the Jeep many times, and the pickup truck several times, and I have not seen it count very many steps.  It seems that the Charge 2 takes more dramatic movement of the arm to count a step.

[Jdavis1204]

I had this problem with my blaze for a while, my solution was to set my device to my dominant hand regardless of wich wrist I wore it on. It tends to give you a much more accurate step count when you have it set on dominant wrist.

[Kmransom123]

I agree with @USAF-Larry. My Charge 2 does seem to pick up less "false" steps than my Blaze.  It hasn't picked up any from driving so far.

[DerrickS]

@Rainbowdash88 @Jdavis1204 Unless you are driving on windy back-country roads or are in constant stop and go traffic, your tracker shouldn't count false steps while driving.

If you find that your tracker picks up false steps, I would recommend manually logging "Driving" to negate the erroneous steps. Click here for instructions how.

[mzdov]

@DerrickS Unfortunately, it does track false steps. I take the bus and train to work and my commute this morning racked up 93 steps not taken by me. Granted, compared to another device I purchased and returned (clocked 1500 steps on the train, bus and in the car), its significantly less, but would like to get a more accurate reading. Would you suggest the "driving" set up for this as well?

[DerrickS · Accepted solution]

@mzdov If the 93 steps were steps that were falsely recorded, I would definitely recommend negating them by manually logging "Driving". This will negate both floors and steps for the duration of of the log.

[USAF-Larry]

I can get more than 93 false steps just brushing my teeth, so I never worry about such a small "error".   If I do 16K steps a day, a 100 extra steps is something like 0.6% of the total, which won't affect my counts nor health that much.

But, as already indicated, you can enter a manual activity of Driving for the times you were driving, riding a bus/train, etc., and no steps will be counted during that time.

[ChakaCon]

Thanks so much for this post.  It was 'driving' me insane to have these false steps but this work around helps.  Hope fitbit creates a driving mode that you can turn on and off becuase even though it removes the steps it also removes all calories for that time period.  I was still breathng so I should have some calorie burn during that time. 🙂  so to fix one overstated error you understate another. 

[N8teGee]

I would also recommend the driveBit app. You can link this to your fitbit account, and when you drive just hit start on the app, when finished hit stop. This will the automatically log the said period of time as driving activity on your fitbit account.

[chaosreins]

It definitely tracks false steps. I just purchased the Charge 2 and every car ride tracks a minimum of 120 steps. No bumpy roads, no windy trails, etc. I will try the suggestion to switch the setting to my dominant hand even though I'm wearing the device on my non-dominant hand. It's not particularly user-friendly to have to go to my activities log and override steps every time I take a car trip.

[Dominique]

Here is my advice: spend more time focusing on getting enough steps during your day (whether it’s the default 10k goal or any other goal you’ve set yourself) and less time worrying about the few "false" steps you get credited with while driving, sleeping etc.

If the 93 steps you got while driving have an impact on your total daily activity, it’s a sign you’re not active enough.

[FocusT25]

There should be a function on the tracker to start and stop whilst driving. After a long journey or several shorts trips, i cannot remeber the exact times i set off and arrived and thus never input this data via the app. This really needs to be looked at. It can be a feature on the tracker itself, a "Driving Mode" that can be activated the same way excersise can be started. @DerrickS

[chaosreins]

While I agree with your advice, that doesn't excuse the "bug" in the system. False steps add up, and if I'm paying for a product to do something, I'd like it to do it correctly. Having said that, I did switch my setting to make my left hand dominant and am pleased to report no more phantom steps while I'm driving!

[alexishoponline]

Hello. Today i have logged in 2.500 steps. Great, you might say. The problem is, that maybe 100 are to be counted for. Does that also effect the estimation of calories spend. I think so. I mainly exercise in the gym or in a basketball court, so it is ok for not to count steps at all. It is a small percentage of my daily activity. So is there any way to disable steps counting that result to overestimating calories spent? Thank you.

[SunsetRunner]

Overall I like my new Charge 2 tracker and don't regret getting it.  However, I'm not that happy that this tracker isn't any smarter than my FitBit One when it comes to counting steps while I'm driving.  If I have the FitBit app running on my iPhone, why doesn't the tracker know that I'm not walking or running?  Recently the tracker counted 50 steps while I drove about 4-5 miles.  If I'm moving at 35 miles an hour, chances are I'm not walking or even running.  The iPhone I have with me would have GPS data that could confirm my rate of movement.  If the tracker doesn't know for sure whether I'm walking/running, it could vibrate and ask me to confirm.  Once I get out of the car, the tracker could detect that I'm walking.  Most people don't stand next to their car once they arrive at their destination...  ( my firmware version is 22.44.12 ) If the tracker adds 10 fake steps per mile, then it'd add 3500 on a trip to one of my favorite fishing destinations.  Now, I don't expect that, but I would be skeptical of the data displayed on fishing trips.  And *no*, I shouldn't have to manually log that I'm driving.  The tracker should know.  It really shouldn't be hard.

[Carolfb]

I've searched the android playstore for driveBit and nothing comes up. How do i get this and link it to fit bit tracker app?

[gdio53]

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@Carolfb wrote:

I've searched the android playstore for driveBit and nothing comes up. How do i get this and link it to fit bit tracker app?

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DriveBit hasn't been updated to comply with the new security requirements of the Fitbit app.

Try searching for TravelBit, it's a newer app and works very well.