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".

[SunsetRunner]

@Ton

With an iphone there is a Health app which automatically tracks steps. Now to turn off the motion sensor, go into Settings then scroll down to Privacy. In Privacy scroll down to Motion & Fitness and temporarily turn off either Fitness and Tracking or the Health app. It sounds messy. But, what I do is once I've turned off the motion sensor I put the phone to sleep then at journeys end, turn back on and go back to home screen.  I hope this all makes sense and is helpful

[Ton]

@SunsetRunner

Brilliant! Easy enough. Just checked it out: I already spotted quite a difference in yesterday's steps (Fitbit over 22.6K vs Health 19K...). I would say on that amount, over 3K is a lot. Thank you very much, mate! 🙂

Edit: Well, I have to add in total fairness that what I said it not reliable as I didn't have the phone on me all the time, but from tomorrow I'm going to pay attention and compare both devices

[GMDBRJ]

I second this. It could be automatically detected, of course.

[battlewithin]

This request is something like 3 and a half years old... I can't believe this doesn't exist! The cheap Chinese knock-offs have this function BUILT INTO THE WATCH! Come on Fitbit... You're making money off of so many people. The least you could do is provide a fix for something so simple a $30 activity tracker can do it!

[Survey]

Indeed many have mentioned this. Fitbit ignore us all.  Ridiculous that this feature isn' available!

[5ergio]

Whenever I drive drive my Ionic logs thousands of steps and tens of floors.

The current solutions two this issue are cumbersome/nonsense.

Current solution 1: log manually on the website the time I spent driving. So, to keep my data straight, I would have to take the time to log to the website every time I drive (so every day, multiple times a day) and log the time i spent driving. This simply takes too much time, and I guess nobody is going to adopt this solution.

Curren solution 2: shut off the watch every time you drive, and then switch it on again when you arrive. Also this solution doesn't make much sense: first one may want to be able to check what time is it while driving; second, switching off the watch means going through several menus (apps->settings->about->turn off->YES) and it takes too much time, then rebooting the watch once you arrive takes more than 30 seconds.

The solution I wish was available: a tile/app that puts the watch in driving/pause mode. When this mode is activated, the watch will not log the steps and floors. Once arrived, one would click again the tile/app and the watch would exit the driving/pause mode.

Additional features:
.1 Since I would likely forget to exit the driving/pause mode when arrived at my destination, the watch could vibrate briefly every 30 minutes or 1 hour to remind me it is on driving/pause.

.2 Since many commuters drive every day at the same time, it would be useful to set a time when the watch goes automatically on pause every day

.3 Since many cars have a bluetooth system that connects with your phone, it would be useful if the watch could go automatically on pause every time the phone connects to the car bluetooth.

Moderator edit: Subject for clarity and label

[AlexandraFitbit]

Hi @5ergio, thanks for your comments. I understand you are interested in automatic driving mode recognition and in the short term, if you haven't already seen it, you can also use Drive Bit witch is a third party app. You’ll find it here. 

Hope this helps!

[5ergio]

Thanks @AlexandraFitbit, this seems definitely a better solution! Though, I still hope we will get something accessible directly from the watch.

[RetiredRedcoat]

This way we can quickly log an activity as "driving" so steps are not counted and we can do so from the device without having to manually enter it.

[RJonsson]

I owned a Charge HR for a couple of years & now bought a Charge 2 when the HR's battery failed. I like the units but can't believe Fitbit has not created a option to pause step counting. There have been 1000's of suggestions & reviews asking for this. You always get a few thousand phony steps added from driving etc. Please look into this and create this option. 

[KenK24]

I'm all in on this idea as well. Having it as an app option with a notification of it enabled to NOT track would be effective. However, it seems to me that if the tracker uses GPS, why can't the software have the ability to stop tracking automatically once a certain speed is reached? 25mph maybe? 

[Disneylandmouse]

I got my fitbit Alta HR today. First hour I was in love but then I drove down the road to get the mail and it added 200 steps while I was driving. I contacted support and they said I'd have to go in manually each time I drive to try to change it. SO, what would be a great thing is a button in the app that you can press before you get into your car that stops the fitbit from tracking anything until you press it again. It would be a loooot easier and useful than having to take off the fitbit each time you get into the car which is what it's looking like I'm going to have to start doing.

[Ton]

@Disneylandmouse

Welcome to the club of unhappy customers, mate! If you still carry the Fitbit in the car, I'm afraid taking it off won't be much help. Hilarious that the support team still suggest the manual logging as a solution. I wonder if any of them uses one of their devices...

[TMPinc]

I carry a Fitbit One in my pocket.  I have been doing this for several years.  Generally, I like this just fine.  But I expect it to be accurate.  It is not.  Over the years, the whole situation goes nuts from time to time.  It is especially so when I have flown somewhere and back.  It typically takes several days for things to level out and start being halfway reasonable.  Syncing is seldom real-time.  Specifically, recently, I was riding on a park and ride bus and looked at my device to see it adding steps.  It was not as though I was walking the distance the bus was traveling, but it was adding steps.  I just completed a 3 hour +/- drive yesterday.  There was a 3000+ step difference between my Samsung android step count and my Fitbit One count.  I am not enthused with having to do anything extra.  I am interested in the Fitbit working accurately on its own.

[sshouston]

Agree with you. Everyone asking for workarounds...Fix the **ahem** defect (it
is a defect). Fitbit is venturing in health monitoring...why the hell would
I believe anything there when I know they don't have the capability of
doing something simple...counts steps correctly.

[Sandishmily]

I haven't used my fitbit since August when I started driving bus. It's completely useless to me. Quite frankly my samsung health app does a much better job and doesn't cost a dime.

[Markos_46]

I haven't used my Fitbit Blaze for about 2 years now as it was pretty pointless having it count all the motorcycle riding as steps etc, logging it as an exercise is stupid - has there been an update to enable a 'driving mode' yet?

If not I'll just give it to someone that only ever walks or strap it to my dog, probably more useful to him than me. 

[2Paps]

Surely you jest!

[Shivam12325]

Hello, guys as I have been through the forum's and the problem I am facing is that my steps, floor climbed and calories are increasing when I am riding or driving. After going through many things I found out that if we manually log in the driving activity it decrease the step counts and calorie burned. So why should we be doing this again and again it is very frustrating and it is not the thing because of which we buy Fitbit tracker. How is it possible that riding for like 15 mins increase's 2000 steps and calorie burned is 110 kcals. 

So, why not provide Driving as an activity in Fitbit device itself which automatically does our job. The Moment we start we start the activity and end as we are done. As while driving and riding there are not so much step we are taking.

Please, developer, take this into considerations as there are many questions about this on forums and discussion. 

[Sparrow91]

So I ride a harley and riding does burn calories using your weight to hold up 500 plus pounds while still or moving plus fighting the wind and stuff you use alot of muscles. Obviously not the same as weight lifting or anything but I have had sore muscles after long rides. The thing that sucks is the vibration causes my step count to go up. So as of now I can only record it as driving to remove the "bike" exercise with steps and lose any calories i burned. I'm sure cyclists also encounter this could there be an exercise that would allow calorie burn without recording steps ..

[sshouston]

Shivam12325
I don't think anyone from fitbit cares about people grumbling or shouting
on this forum about this particular issue with the devices since fitbit
started. You can't count how many people have raised this issue on this
forum. Good luck!

[Ton]

@sshouston

...Amen!

[ERS70]

I realize this is a previous suggestion;

Many people who buy a Fitbit are people who want to start to live more active lifestyles and not just people who are already fit or go to the gym every  day. People who maybe need to be more active because they sit most of the day. I drive a bus 8 hours a day and bought the Fitbit Flex 2 because I want to live a more active lifestyle and the Flex 2 is helping me be more aware of my daily activities. But for folks who drive all day is there plans to implement a simple “driving mode” for the Fitbit app in the future? It would be much simpler than adding driving as an “activity” 3 times a day to remove false steps.

Sincerely

Erich Silva

[Ryansammac]

There needs to be a setting where you can pause your steps while driving. It is ridiculous that every time I go for a drive, which is how I spend most of my day I have to remember what time I started driving and how long it was that I drove for, access the app and add the activity and than sync. It's something that should have been taken care of long ago. 

[Endui]

There were few topic like that but motorcycle mode has been never added to Fitbit trackers. 

I got my versa couple days ago but it still counts extra steps while riding a motorbike.

Please add this option finally for the trackers. All this mode need to do is to read Heartbeat but no steps. 

User Sparrow91 says in one of the topic:

"So I ride a harley and riding does burn calories using your weight to hold up 500 plus pounds while still or moving plus fighting the wind and stuff you use alot of muscles. Obviously not the same as weight lifting or anything but I have had sore muscles after long rides. The thing that sucks is the vibration causes my step count to go up. So as of now I can only record it as driving to remove the "bike" exercise with steps and lose any calories i burned. I'm sure cyclists also encounter this could there be an exercise that would allow calorie burn without recording steps ."

topic: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Motorcycle-Mode/idi-p/1555605

Which I agree 100%. 

Please review and add. 

Thanks

Endui