The Fitbit Community is a gathering place for real people who wish to exchange ideas, solutions, tips, techniques, and insight about the Fitbit products and services they love. By joining our Community, you agree to uphold these guidelines, so please take a moment to look them over.
Hi @John_Strike, thanks for taking the time to share this suggestion about being able to stop the step tracking while cycling with us. We rely on feedback like yours to help us develop products and features that we know our community wants to see. If this suggestion receives votes from other customers and gains popularity, it will be shared internally with various teams at Fitbit. To learn more about how Fitbit decides which suggestions get developed, visit our FAQs. Watch this space for status updates. In the meantime, try visiting Health & Wellness to talk with other members about all things health and fitness.
Hi @FlyCoho, thanks for sharing this suggestion about being able to stop the step tracking while cycling or spinning with us. This idea was already requested in the Feature Suggestions board, so I’ve moved your post here. This will help us to keep the forums organized and make sure the suggestions don't get confused, or split a popular vote. Click on the thumbs-up to show your support.
We already had this request with few votes. This suggestion, with 25 votes, will not get anyone's attention
On the other hand, we have users who are upset about not getting enough steps during a bike ride. We also have users that want every pedal stroke counted as a step.
It would be great to be able to toggle the step count on/off when simultaneously using the "workout" mode for exercise. I use "workout" to track my horseback riding, but my calories always end up wildly inaccurate because not only does my Fitbit account for calories burned to my activity, but it also counts steps while riding.
I agree. It is absurd that you are awarded "steps" for cycling and presumably other activities that do not involve steps. I went on a 19 mile cycle ride yesterday and this gave me over 3,000 steps. In a similar vein I was also awarded six "floors" from 1, 600 odd feet of ascent. It's not as if Fitbit didn't realise I was cycling as I tracked the ride in the app. I have used quite a few other tracking devices, including Garmin and Apple Watch and none of these awards steps or floors while cycling. Fitbit also seems to award extra steps in other situations e.g just milling around the house, and even driving a car. In my opinion the step count issue is the worst thing about the entire Fitbit system. Oh that and the hiding of certain metrics behind a pay wall.
Completely agree with all of the above. It is ridiculous that there is no option for steps to automatically switch off when you are doing an activity which by its nature does not involve steps!! And especially considering simple it would be to implement. I bought my Fitbit because I wanted something that would track my bike rides and help me monitor my progress in returning to walking and running after a serious injury. It seems that the Fitbit is incapable of doing both so I'm planning to switch to Garmin, which is a shame because the rest of Fitibit's functionality (not to mention price point) is exactly what I need.
The fact that an activity that is non step based as cycling is counted as steps is ridiculous. I was wondering why I never got distance when I set up my inspire to cycling. Luckily I dont rely on Fitbit only for my cycling. I mean whats the point of putting it on cycling if it wont give any important cycling metric.
I just bought a Charge 5 and love it apart from this one problem. I cycle commute and can't turn off steps while cycling. It's making me consider returning it as what's the use of a all the data if it's not reliable?
If I choose the Cycle activity Fitbit should turn off steps until I press 'stop activity' and then resume counting. It seems an obvious error in the device that could be corrected with little coding I'm sure.
When I cycle or row, steps are detected by the watch, through bumps in the road and other movement that are not steps. These are added to the total, and the actually steps taken are wrong by around 4000!
Hi @EllaSteps, thanks for taking the time to share this product feedback about preventing your Fitbit device from counting steps when cycling with us. We found two similar ideas in this board and you can see them here where you can add your vote:
Please support these ideas by adding your vote as this helps our developers to keep tracking its popularity and demand over time. To learn more about how Fitbit decides what product feedback is developed, visit our FAQs.
Bit of a joke this is even a feature to add.. it shouldn't be counting cycling steps to begin with, this is not a feature request people should be asking for, its a bug it the software that needs fixing. The fact any generic smart watch/band has this working correctly out the box but fitbit (a premium band) doesn't is pretty laughable.
Step counting is a pretty big deal and a main reason people buy smart devices, so for this to be a problem on a premium device is mind blowing. I am impressed fitbit has managed to stick around this long tbh.
Join us on the Community Forums!
Community Guidelines
Learn the Basics
Join the Community!
Not finding your answer on the Community Forums?
Go to the Help Site
Contact Support