Add Drumming to Exercise to pause steps tracking

[maxroulstone]

Add an activity called 'Drumming' where the Fitbit still tracks HR and calories burned but does not count steps. Like the 'Driving' activity, just call it 'Drumming'. I have seen many people complain about this and it has a simple fix of just adding it.

Alternatively, you could allow individuals to create workouts themselves and choose for steps not to be counted!

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject and updated label

[vinnie2k]

And make those new activities startable from the FitBit itself.

[shadygarden]

 I agree that a drumming activity should be added.  I do African djembe drumming for 2 hours at a time and it is certainly a physical workout.  Fitbit will register this activity as a large number of steps although I am sitting the whole time but my heart rate is definitely raised as in aerobic workouts.  Changing this activity on the app to driving does not reflect the actual activity.

[SantiR]

Good idea, thanks for taking the time to share it with us. Keen to hear what others think?

[shadygarden]

Santifitbit:

This is not the first time that drumming has been suggested to Fitbit to add.  If you look community discussions there are many others who have been suggesting this for quite some time.  Shouldn't Fitbit respond better to this suggestion????

[Willamina]

I want this too. If golfers can have golf, drummers should have drumming, the way I play my heart rate is like a decent bike ride, but I don't want it making up distances from the steps it thinks i did. 

[Tubmonkey74]

+1 here for adding drumming as an activity. I just got a Charge 2 and would love to be able to wear it while playing drums without it tracking steps, since it's a cardio-based activity which will raise my heart rate and burn calories but I don't actually take any steps as such, hence it counts as its own exercise.

[Draagyn]

Amen to a drumming activity or tracker! From what I can tell, it wouldn't be too hard... Heck, it'd be nice even if the device switched steps to "beats" or "hits" or something like that, then average out across both arms, hr, etc.

This could also span much more than drumming—guitar strumming, conducting, playing piano, and lots of other stuff could benefit from a feature like this. 

Pretty please! 

[Willamina]

Yes, a simple "StepFreeExcerise" would cover loads of things where not travel type movement is taking place and the arm movement is misleading. All the Fitbit really needs to do is record the heartbeat and work out some calorie consumption from that.

[MikeDooz]

Another +1 here for a drumming activity, please! I absolutely love my fit bit and would love it so much more if I could leave it on while I teach drums for 6 hrs a day.

[SunsetRunner]

+1, registered just to comment here.

This would greatly improve QOL of my Charge 2.

[bob_williams]

I too would like to see an option like this.  I am a professional drummer, playing several shows in any given week and having to manual record multiple activities (driving, custom drumming one) is a barrier to usage for me and others I've talked to.  

[JayDlay]

Yeah, this is something I could really use. You get a great workout playing drums, but not at the level FitBit observes. Its so unfair for my wife because I can crush her weekly steps just by rehearsing a few nights a week. 🙂

[RJHG]

I just played on my practice pad for about 2 minutes and logged hundreds and hundreds of steps.

couldnt you just tie the Fitbit activity to the gps on my phone if enabled and log drumming as a stationary activity automatically since I'm not covering ground?

an update rob the sensor movement definition could accomplish this as well.

at the very least a fast action button in the app would allow me to at least 'punch in' when I begin the activity

[Jeromebrn]

Please add Drums to activities. Adding it with "custom activities" option doesn't work for me. It doesn't display anyway. Or please, explain me.

As a double kick drummer, you can imagine how many steps my Charge 2 display after 30 min of drumming.

[shadygarden]

So we have been requesting adding drumming as an activity with no real response from Fitbit.  Fitbit, what does it take to use our suggestions?

[Apostol.]

I'm in the same boat here, during practice sessions with the band i rack up at least 20.000 steps.

When i remember it, i start a manual exercise, the workout one.

When i don't it auto detects some form of exercise, be it "run" or sometimes "outdoor bike" (confused there)

Nevertheless its useful because i can track my heart rate during drumming which is usually from 110 -160 bpm depending the song.

The thing I'm not so sure about is calories burnt.

Although i move all my limbs all the time, i am not running so the calories burnt must be inaccurate (i guess).

So yeah add please a drumming exercise.

[NvRMnD907]

I play the drums as an upper body workout every other day. I found that with the high level of movement that I came out with over 20k steps during a 3 hour practice session. I know that my activity level and heart rate during this activity are extreme but didn't want it to count towards my steps/distance. In order to track my heart rate during drumming I put the charge on my left (unused) ankle and since the strap is too small put a compression sock over it. Tracked my heart rate about as good as my wrist while not raking up unbelievable amounts of steps. I place the monitor on the inside of my ankle just above the joint (where I believe the artery is). There isn't an activity for drumming when categorizing the workout so I just put it under "Boxing". Works great! But I agree that having a category named "drumming" that simply removes the steps from the activity would be simpler.

[Jeromebrn]

That's clever from you @NvRMnD907. But in case of double kick drums, that doesn't work.

[Apostol.]

@NvRMnD907

Quite clever indeed, but even if you don't play double kick drums as @Jeromebrn mentioned (i don't), we drummers usually move our left foot on the hihat all the time so while the net effect of the "steps" will be lower it will be still close to the wrist one.

Even worse for me i wear the watch on my right wrist which as you know is the "hihat hand"(if you are right handed).

So imagine a fast song with 1/8 notes on the hihat, i rack up thousand of steps in no time.

[Frosticles]

Would love to see a drumming function. I am a professional drummer so would be extremely useful. 

[JXP2112]

Please add this feature. I need this.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello Fit Bit

Feature Request

In the activity log, please include a yes/no button for inclusion of steps in daily total.

The Problem

Many people have found that certain non-active, auto-detected, activities add unwanted steps to the daily total, e.g. motorcycling popping up as “outdoor-bike”. In my case, I play the drums and this gets auto detected as outdoor-bike. I can live with the auto-detection, as I know what I was doing. However, the phantom steps detected are added to my daily total. This is a problem. The phantom-steps are included in the daily total even though the activity log says the activity has contributed +0 steps to my daily count. I can easily rack up 15,000 steps without leaving my apartment. Indeed without taking a single step!

Previous Feedback

I have searched the forums and see that this issue has been brought to your attention many times over a number of years. For some reason the concerns of your customers have gained no traction, except for suggesting some cumbersome hacks.

It seems that for some reason you have decided that including phantom-steps in the daily total is a good thing. Many of your customers disagree.

The Solution

Add a simple check box in the activity log, “Include steps in daily total yes/no”.  This way the users can decide what works best for them.

I would be grateful if this could be considered for a future update. As it stands, my newly acquired Versa is useless as an automatic step tracker. 

I look forward to a to a positive outcome from this request.

Keith

[post78]

Yes to Drumming please.

[shadygarden]

Fitbit,

For some time I have been following the drumming comments which are all in favor of Fitbit adding drumming to activities.   Now that it is clear that Fitbit users would like this, what will Fitbit do?  Fitbit might enjoy the fact that it's customers are involved in an active discussion which indicates involvement in the product, but I have not seen any helpful action or response on this from the Fitbit company.  Could the Moderator please respond?

[Frosticles]

Yep. Would also like any update or possibility in this tracking please.