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]

My Charge 2 doesn’t register my driving, so can’t see why Charge 3 does.  Or have they made it too sensitive to movement! I has issues with it registering while I showered, can’t test Charge 2 with that.  Re while driving they said to manually put my stride into it.

i looked at Apple Watch that was lightweight but still seemed clunky.  Didn’t look like you could change band.

staying with my I think classy Charge 2 Rose Gold one, make one as classy Fitbit and I’ll be there once you fix up the issues!

[SunsetRunner]

YMy Charge 2 doesn’t register my driving, so can’t see why Charge 3 does.  Or have they made it too sensitive to movement! I has issues with it registering while I showered, can’t test Charge 2 with that.  Re while driving they said to manually put my stride into it.

i looked at Apple Watch that was lightweight but still seemed clunky.  Didn’t look like you could change band.

staying with my I think classy Charge 2 Rose Gold one, make one as classy Fitbit and I’ll be there once you fix up the issues!

[leannadkins77]

the charge 3 doesn't register steps that i have noticed while driving my car,  but my husband has a large truck and the ride is bumpy.  that's when it registers as steps and especially when we are pulling our trailer!

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S8, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

[SunsetRunner]

Agree with this but maybe not limited to driving mode. If I go to the cinema mine thinks I’m asleep as you don’t move much. It’s the same issue, it’s an activity that the watch can’t detect properly and I have to delete out. 

[Matclar]

These trackers count steps if you are moving your hands doing ANYTHING. Any wrist base tracker is going to count more steps than a phone in your pocket which is likely using the motion of your leg or up and down motion.  

I think of mine more is an activity tracker which is I believe how it’s advertised. The Fitbit zip it’s more of a step only tracker. The more steps to get more activity you’re doing so it doesn’t bother me too much.

[MartinJar]

I agree 100%. I’m a delivery driver and I want to teach my steps while on deliveries but my charge 3 is counting steps while I’m driving. So I have yet to get an accurate count. This needs to be resolved!

[GrumpyCyclist]

This has been going on for ages now. I have a Versa and it records maybe 5000 steps a day from driving if I don't use DriveBit or manually enter a 'driving' activity. This suggestion just keeps getting ignored and ignored. If these devices can tell automatically that I'm walking, running, swimming, cycling, then I'm sure that they're smart enough to figure out that if I'm moving in excess of, say, 30mph for 10 minutes then I'm probably driving so stop recording steps.

All the manual options - manual or Drivebit - also end up adding the driving as an activity and I keep getting congratulations on reaching my exercise goal for the week after only 2 days. Driving is not exercise. All we need is the Fitbit to stop recording steps while driving.

Oh, and for me, taking it off and putting it on charge while driving actually makes the matter worse. Maybe 10,000 steps get recorded and of course I lose all heart rate info 

[OmuGuy]

GrumpyCyclist, the device has no way of knowing that you are doing 30 mph. It records data from accelerometers. If the device is moving at a constant speed, it won't record anything. To function effectively, it requires better algorithms to filter out violent accelerations along a single vector. The device also requires better algorithms to filter out non physiological patterns of motion, such as when driving. I don't have knowledge of how other companies handle these things. FitBit is more about motivation than accuracy. It's no good expecting the devices to provide absolute values. Results are simply relative to what you've done before. The perfect device does not exist, but for 200 dollars, I think that the company could do better. It seems to have spent funds on still-not-implemented SPO2 sensing and neglected the basics. Without starting and stopping his device, someone like Martin Jar delivery driver, should certainly be able to get a reasonable reckoning of actual steps.
The Charge 3 is so dumb that yesterday it sensed a motorcycle ride as cycling (as if I could continually accelerate and decelerate like that on a bicycle at all, let alone keep an HR of below 80...) and, probably because of air-pressure differences occurring at the wrist from airflow during accelerations, it added at least 180 stair climbs to the daily total.
If the company spent resources on actually gathering monitored data from non-physiological activities and then analyzing it, it could develop effective algorithms to filter out the noise. If the processing power of the devices themselves is inadequate, the filters could be applied when the data is synced.
Anyway, learning is expensive, as we are discovering by buying these things and finding out the limitations of works in progress.

[GrumpyCyclist]

At the very least a manual driving entry - whether by DriveBit or not - shouldn't get included as an exercise activity. Just remove the steps and stairs climbed during that period without making it an activity if nothing else is possible.

I do find that the Versa is massively more sensitive to adding steps while driving than my Blaze was. On the same 8 hours of drive the Blaze would add maybe 400 steps total, the Versa is at least 5000. There must be some useful way of using that sensitivity

[aanddmom]

I think you're right.  I had an app on my phone, which was discontinued this summer -- MOVES -- which accurately detected WHICH activity I was doing.  I was always so delighted when it thought that my cycling was "transport" and then I could manually change it to cycling!  If the free phone app could figure it out, why can't the $150 activity tracker figure it out?

[Holydiver951]

I work where I drive golf carts sporadically throughout the day, so my Fitbit is constantly recording false steps. It takes too much time to adjust everything and add driving to accurately reduce the false steps in a day.

I have a Charge3 and I feel it would be relatively easy to just have me hold the button, bring the screen up that lets me turn off screen wake and notifications and have a step count disabler button be there too. Could probably set it up so it asks me how long to disable it for 2 mins, 5 mins, 10 mins so that it would auto turn back on instead of me forgetting to turn it back on.

Sincerely,

Dan

P.S. it's a great tool thus far, but for me, that would make it the best tool.

[Lilbiddy]

Everyone wants this for all the fitbits.

How much longer do we have to wait? 

[SunsetRunner]

My Charge Fitbit does not register when I’m driving.  Why on earth would you want a tracking in regards to driving!!  I don’t want to track my driving, my gps or car tells me how far I have travelled.  Just fix the issues re Charge 3 that so many of your customers are asking for!  I.e. clock faces that you have for Charge 2, they are really great, steps, HR and date on the one face.  I’m sure many like me don’t want to have to tap thru to get the info, plus that tapping surely means battery drain!

[SunsetRunner]

Oops meant to say Charge 2!

[Lilbiddy]

Fizzz12 the issue here is that many people find that their fitbit is registering steps while they are driving. They would like a driving mode to stop the devise erroneously registering activity not to actually track driving.

[Tayler05]

I agree, my husband who drives a motorcycle half the year gains approximately 1200 additional steps each way. Very misleading by the end of the day. He has a Charge 2. 

[Cddiab]

I need to be able to have my Fitbit not count when I am in a moving vehicle, I travel too much and it really messes up my steps. 

[SetxSpyder]

Good luck.You and everyone else on this thread.  The other trackers do a decent job but the VERSA cannot handle this.  And nothing being done about it either.

[athafoud]

Great Idea, but why not to take it one step further and say "Automatically Identify Driving Mode"?

Charge 3 (and the newest models) support either GPS or Connected GPS, which means that it can identify the speed on which I am moving. With this, together with my Heart Rate (and average resting point) and the intensity of a persons movements I suppose it is 'easy' to identify if a person is actually walking or if she is a passenger or driving. Of course we should expect some special cases like 'Walking in the Train' e.t.c

Going forward, the car driver, can also give additional input, such as if she is mostly driving a Manual or Automatic car and if RHD or LHD. The RHD or LHD can be also derived from the location of the user, if e.g the location setting is set to "Automatic". With the afforementioned info together the FitBit hand placement (dormant or not dormant), we can rule out more 'invalid steps'.

And still there is a lot of room for improvement, for example you can consider User Moving Patterns and User's Daily Schedule.

[vyshwanara]

May be In 2030.. Best of luck

[DrIngles]

Four years and no movement on adding the "driving" icon? It seems so easy and all of us drive so why the hesitation? Perplexed.

[MrsToady]

My Charge 3 logs car driving as steps/outdoor bike, it's infuriating! I can delete the exercise, but not the steps or floors.

[LeahLiv]

Welcome to the club.

[sagar13]

True that!! My next wearable will not be fitbit for sure..

[Stevenew]

This is a major issue and I find it absolutely amazing that the issue has existed since 2014. Even free apps on my phone dufferentiate this so why Fitbit cannot detect driving is beyond me.

Personally I thing having a way of telling it I am driving is a compromise - much better would be for it to know. It should know I am not climbing stairs or running or walking once it knows I have accelerated beyond say 15MPH. It could also detect my car bluetooth for example. There are so many ways of accomplishing this and it is npt yet even on the todo list.

I am about to return two Charge 3s that have been recently bought.

Come on FitBit - surely you can do something in 5 years to fix this?

Shame there is little mention of it outside these private forums as this would have saved me from buying into Fitbit.