How do I track my distance while on a wheelchair

[Jebetl1962]

Hi 

my friend gifted me an inspire 2. I’m a part time user if an electric wheelchair that goes between .5 up to 6 miles an hour. I do not want it to track those speeds - cause there’s no way in hell I will ever be able to walk that fast. However, I would love it to track just my steps when I am walking. Is there a way for a setting to be set to only record steps below a certain mph? Thank you in advance, Joyce. 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

I expect there are other wheelchair users (not me) who will chime in here and perhaps give you a better answer, but until then, I'll give you what I would expect.

First, there is no way to turn step counter off for certain times (or speeds).  But steps are detected, or more accurately inferred, from movement of the wrist and arms, as in arm swings when walking.  I expect a non-motorized wheelchair would count each each arm push as a step, or maybe as 2 steps. But if not using arms when motorized, it should not count any steps at all, unless there happen to be a lot of vibrations that can trick the fitbit into thinking the arm is swinging, such as can happen riding a bicycle, but I would doubt that in a wheelchair.  And if not using arms, speed would not be a factor in step count.

Second, and you might already know this, many measurements, such as calorie burn and Zone Minutes, are based on heart rate, and step count does not affect this, though higher step count does usually raise the heart rate, it does not directly factor into the calculations, so even if the step count goes crazy, that does not necessarily mean calorie burn and Zone minutes  will be affected.