Option to turn off step count (or add "Driving Mode") to avoid erroneous steps/floors

[MacWade]

I just got home yesterday from a driving 6 hours in my car and I checked my Fitbit. I was really suprised to see it had given me almost 8,000 steps, 3.24 miles, 134 floors, & way more calories thank I burned while I was sitting in my car.  I looked on the forum to see how to easily delete the steps, miles, floors, and calories so my data would be accurate.  The only way people are fixing it is by manually logging the activity "Automobile or light truck (not a semi) driving" and entering in the duration.  I think that is a cumbersome way to fix the issue everytime I drive because I have to make sure I write down what time I get into and out of my car so I know the start time and duration.  And how does it automatically know the calories burned when everyone burns calories when they are sedentary at different rates.

I think they should add a "Drive Mode" feature that when turned on it won't add steps, distance, floors, & will only add calories burned equal to you sitting in a chair.

You could access the "Drive Mode" either on your Fitbit One or on your phone app to turn it on/off.  If you have a Fitbit One you could press the button till the "Drive Mode" icon appears then hold the button down for 2 seconds to turn it on or off.

On the phone apps you would just go to your device under "Account" and there you could turn it on or off.

You could also have the option to give you an alert when you unlock the phone that reminds you that it is in "Drive Mode" so you don't forget to turn it off when you get to your destination.  It would also be cool if you could use Siri to turn it on by saying "Turn on Fitbit Drive Mode" or "Turn off Fitbit Drive Mode".

[asiekkinen]

There's an app I downloaded called 'drivebit'. When you turn drivebit on, it logs 'driving' into your fitbit so it doesn't count the steps. You just have to remember to turn it off once you reach your destination. You can edit the drive time before it sends to fitbit just in case you forget to turn it on or off. It's still a little bit of a hassle, but I think it's easier than logging 'driving' through the fit bit app.

[Manta69]

I'm pretty surprised to see that this 3 year old idea hasn't been implemented by Fitbit's software team yet... I'm a Harley rider (touring model) who's been looking for some practical way to set my Charge 2 on  some kind of driving mode to prevent it from erroneously tracking steps and flights of stairs climbed while I'm riding. The vibration of my bike's engine, bumpy roads and pressure changes from wind seem to be enough to fool my Fitbit into thinking that I'm on some kind of endurance exercise involving climbing every single stairwell of the Empire State building LOL! We shouldn't have to load our mobile devices with a bunch of third party tweaking software that should already be integrated into Fitbit's power-hungry app.

[Ton]

Unfortunately I think it's about time to just forget about it. It's pretty much ridiculously evident they won't do anything to implement this kind of feature. So either we move to a different brand of tracker or just get on with it and keep using the exercise log or 3rd party apps. I have personally put my mind at rest as I don't usually drive a lot and can live with the extra steps, but I do sympathise with those who do.

[Jen11]

It would be great if somehow you could tell the Fitbit that for a period of time not to count steps, I often get extra steps while horse riding and on a ride on lawnmower. I have to take the Fitbit off which then means I loose it!!! I'm sure others have this same problem.

Even better to have horse riding as a sport option.

[Manta69]

I'm thinking you're right, Ton. I installed DriveBit into my Android, and while it does a fine job of keeping my tracker/dashboard/web portal counts accurate while I'm riding, all of those erroneous steps/flights of stairs still show up on challenges and falsely earned badges anyways. It's a shame that FitBit firmware/appware isn't open source, as I'm sure that there are plenty of programmers out there who'd do a far better job engineering firmware and appware better suited to the various lifestyles of tracker wearers, instead of the 'one size fits most' approach that FitBit's seemingly lethargic software team has taken. I know the latest Charge 2 firmware update has actually bricked many user's devices, and the much touted Sleep Stages is still hit-or-miss for a lot of users... myself included.

[Ton]

Hi Manta69. Your mentioning the "open source" made me think... The Fitbit team is aware of the problem and that is a fact. They haven't done anything about it in years and that is a fact. It's against any common sense to think and very unlikely that they are not capable of solving the problem. That leads to only one conclusion: there must be some obscure reason why they won't do it. Commercial or whatever that might be, despite the number of customers they must be losing for that same reason, it's probably still cost effective for them. So my previous statement still stands, and the choice is either move to something else or make the best of what we have. I chose the latter but how many did choose the former?

[Dnagger92]

It sure would be nice to be able to push the button to stop the tracker from counting unwanted steps while driving. I always end up with numerous added steps due to driving. Sure be a nice feature to add.

[SunsetRunner]

Really Fitbit? 3 years, 380 comments and 1485 votes for this issue and you've done nothing about it. Doesn't say much for your team's approach to satisfying their customer's needs. I ride a motorcycle 50 miles into work and back each day. Each day my commute logs 7000 steps when I don't take one step. And this is regardless of whether I'm wearing my Fitbit, or not. All we want is a simple pause button. How hard can it be?

[Taigstar]

I ride a motorbike everyday and when I check my stats, it interprets my ride into climbing 100's of floors and taking a million steps, which is obviously incorrect.  There should be a function where you can turn your Fitbit off, as at the moment, I am having to log in everyday and log my rides as driving and guess how many calories have been burned the time it takes to ride to/from work.  The rest of the stats are way off as you cannot amend steps, floors etc.  This problem would be mostly solved if you could just turn the Fitbit off!

[Jm87]

Pretty self explanatory.  Driving or in-transit mode feature to ensure fake steps aren't counted.  I find the food database very small, is there a way to automatically add new foods to it?

[imnotechnie]

I do a lot of gardening & raking, digging etc give me hundreds of steps. I also do a lot trail riding ( horseback) and it counts all my horses steps.  There should be a pause button!  There are a lot of activities that give you unearned steps.

[Markos_46]

How has this still not been done

Come on!  I've given up using my Fitbit because of this, if it had a simple stop/start or pause of activity recording I'd use it again but until there is, it'll just sit in my drawer because what it ends up showing me after my commute to work on my motorbike is stupid & I don't want to go in a add driving as an activity & have to remember when I started/stopped etc each time I go on the bike.

I'm just a small fish in a big pond, Fitbit wont give a sh*t

[SakenPT]

I've been following this and still everyday I log my driving (only don't put drive info on weekends and stuff not in my routine) and I can't blame ppl for giving up... It's tiring, annoying and really messes the usuability of the bracelet in terms of exercise goals...

I haven't given up but sincerely I regret buying it.. not worth the money, I use the heart and sleep sensors (work well) and that's it... I could have spent less money with the same results...

Unfortunately I think fitbit will only care if we hurt it where they care. Income.

This means that every user here would have to annoy them on facebook\amazon or whatever site that has reviews and bluntly expose this bug (yes a bug, this is not a feature, it's a freaking bug... everyone can see that).

So I suggest that everyone writes their heart out where it hurts them... where new potential buyers can see it.... and change their minds about buying it.

[Ton]

@ SakenPT

Although quite tempting, I'm afraid your idea would still have little impact on the Fitbit company... I just took the liberty to look at the reviews figures on both .com and .co.uk amazon sites. The % ratio of positive (and most of them extremely enthusiastic) reviews versus the critical ones is about 80/20. Whether one considers the latter big or small, it doesn't really matter apparently. The positive reviews still make the negative ones lose their importance judging by the number of people who still keep buying the tracker. But, taking your suggestion a bit further, I wonder if moving the indirect target of our protest to a direct one would make a difference... I mean if someone could maybe prepare a complaint form and post it here, then each one of us could copy and email it to the customer service. English is not my mother language so I wouldn't dare to do it myself, but I'm sure there must be someone here surely more versed than me. Ball over to you, my dear friends! 😉

[Paresh]

it is must feature in all fitbit, Surge gives count of zero to 2000 steps on drive of 2 hours on same route after doing all suggested settings. this would definitely help tracking proper steps and floors.

[Thands79]

I am a drummer. I recently got the Fitbit Charge 2. I really like how it helps me get my steps in as well as monitor my heart rate. But because of the design, the Fitbit is actually creating a lot of false positive steps due to me drumming. I ended up with off the chart steps for the day...which screwed up my average. 

Sure, I could just take the fitbit off, but it also shows me the workout level I'm getting through the cardio feature...so I'd rather not abandon the tech during that time because of other useful tracking during that time. 

What i I could really use is a feature where I could tell the Fitbit to pause counting my steps, and then unpause, to avoid these false positives AND have a good track of my heart rate during drum sessions. 

Thanks!

[Jen11]

I would love for this to happen, many times a day I would use this, it's stopping me from buying a new Fitbit.

[markarock]

Ok, let me add my voice to the clamor, FWIW.  I get tons of extra steps just cutting grass with my tractor.  So, not finding a "pause" button, I just took it off and put it in my pocket.  No joy.  Still counted steps.  So I put it on the kitchen counter.  Well, I sure slept a lot that day!

This is screwing up my weekly progress report big time. 

My Charge 2 is becoming less and less relevant, and less and less valuable each day, especially as the active outdoor days are here for a while.

This can't be that hard to do.  C'mon Fitbit folks.  This functionality is WAY OVERDUE!

[n5xbs]

I just purchased my third Fitbit, a Charge 2.  I was really hoping that the erroneous steps and floors would have been addressed with this new generation of trackers.  I drive a school bus and the steps and floors I get from driving 6-8 hours a day are way more than what I get from actual walking and workouts.  This makes my numbers false.  

Please Fitbit, provide a feature to ignore activity while driving.

[Thehazo]

PR is the best means to an end and we can do that with Twitter.. send a
message to #fixfitbit to @Fitbit and @fitbitsupport

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[JeremyTheEnemy]

That's a great idea. I also would like to turns stats completely off from my Charge 2. For example, I Don't want it to count my steps since I already wear a Flex 2 around my ankle for that. I don't mind if it prevents other stats like stories climbed as long as it warns me first.

[Ton]

Good idea. I just posted mine...

[stevebower]

Given that entering 'Driving' is needed frequently to negate steps when travelling, can it be added to the common activities shortcuts. (it's still preferable to be able to suspend tracking FYI) 

[B.Wagoner]

Get R' Done software team. Tired of turning my fit off 4 times a day... 

[camguy]

I second the suggestion of the original poster. One pause option for steps and another pause option for heart rate monitoring would be great. Certainly for drumming, guitar playing (strumming ,etc.) and other similar activities. Sometimes I think that my HR gets thrown off as well when drumming but I need to have a closer look to be sure...Certainly the steps get cranked just like the OP

Fitbit Charge 2