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".

[ladyascension]

This would work for my husband’s “lawnmower miles” as well (steps and floors while on a riding lawnmower).

[jlv1015]

I recently upgraded from the Charge 2 to the Versa. With my Versa I immediately noticed an inaccuracy in the amount of steps and floors climbed it was tracking. In a 3 hour drive I logged over 2000 steps and 40 floors. I never had an issue like this with the Charge 2 (or the Flex I had before that). If the sensitivity levels for this watch cannot be changed, there should be a way to set the device to “drive mode” or something similar so it does not track this activity while driving. It’s frustrating that this is my 3rd FitBit device, the most expensive one I’ve had, and the least accurate. I understand that there is always some steps/floors tracked while driving, but neither of my previous trackers were nearly this inaccurate. 

[maxal1917]

It would be great to "pause" tracking for things like driving from smartwatches like Versa. Logging "Driving" activity later mitigates issue somewhat, but actually turning it on from fitbit device itself, as part of "Exercise", for example, so it would just pause steps counting, would be much better.

[Rich_Laue]

Mentioning the shopping cart is a red herring .

[newto]

Hi Fitbit Staff,

My Charge 2 tracks all kinds of inaccurate data while I am driving (even if its just sitting in my backpack on the seat next to me.

Its been at least four years since this was initially brought up as a pretty huge issue, your not inexpensive product exists to collect accurate data and it is failing to do that... still.  At the very very least I can't imagine that it would be that hard to add a "Driving" activity to the activities list that could either be activated to suspend the collection of data for the duration of its selection, or at least compartmentalize that data so it could be more easily removed later (rather than attempting to remember exactly the timeframe in which you were driving and entering that manually later and then turning around and deleting it). 

How has this not been fixed? I really like my Fitbit and I don't want to move to another product, but I drive a lot and my Charge 2 is essentially useless now.... 

Thanks for your consideration!

[Tinevimbo]

It would be great to have such a pause feature on the watches, especially the Versa and the Ionic. I totally agree with @leah8057's comment, as I'm experiencing the same issue of excess step and floor count on a commute. It really is cumbersome to have to use an app or log onto a Fitbit website just to negate some inaccurate data. 

[Tinevimbo]

It would be great to have such a pause feature on the watches, especially the Versa and the Ionic. I totally agree with @leah8057's comment, as I'm experiencing the same issue of excess step and floor count on a commute. It really is cumbersome to have to use an app or log onto a Fitbit website just to negate some inaccurate data. I also wonder why Fitbit has done absolutely nothing about this issue since 2014.

[corydoherty]

Implement a feature where you can temporarily set the fitbit to stop counting steps. Useful for when performing tasks that involve motion but no steps like driving on a bumpy road or using power tools.

E.g.

Step count 100

Enter car

Pause fitbit

Step count remains at 100 after driving rather than counting bumps in the road as a step

[Charmaine08]

Create an app similar to "Drive Mode" that will allow users to disable the steps & floor tracking while this feature is enabled; calories will still be tracked via the heart rate monitor. Forget to turn it back off? The watch will recognize when you are no longer moving at a similar pace and remind you to turn it off. This would be a good fix until the accuracy can be improved to the point where manual intervention is not needed. 

[Jessjong]

The driving hack also doesnt work when you are traveling between timezones and fitbit is automatically updating the time and it stretches across midnight. The data doesnt reset and my steps from yesterday are being counted as today. The daily step chart is accurate for some reason, but the overall step count didnt change (even though when I went to bed it did say 0 steps, then in the morning it jumped back up to 9,000). 

[Rich_Laue]

Why not add your vote to the current request that showed up with the search. 

[Bonefish88]

Have a Flex2

Its so annoying that it tracks whle driving it almost renders the whole thing useless. I dont have time to be logging this and that when Im in and out of the car at varuious times.

We need an ON/OFF or PAUSE or DRIVE mode that's simple, fast and easy to do !!!

[FigManFlex]

Yes please!! Pause/Stop counter mode. I don't need to register thousands of steps washing dishes, bbq'ing, cooking, mopping, vacuuming  folding  clothes, watering the lawn or any other chore I do that involves swinging my arm.

Thank you Fitbit  

[TheUrbanSpartan]

So, after reading lots of posts discovered an app called “DriveBit”. This totally works.

David Skipper
07950 312005

[tasket]

I agree a pause/off mode would be ideal. We bought my father the Charge2 as a Father's Day gift and all of the rest of us got one as well to encourage him, but he is a farmer and is constantly on and off the tractors and farm equipment. He noticed right away that his step count was WAY off. It was saying he's walked 15km on his first day! It's really disappointing.

[2Paps]

If you think that's bad, after traveling to, riding 4 days at a motorcycle rally and riding home. I racked up 112,960 steps ! ! ! ! !

And FitBit still hasn't heard our cries for corrective action!   😫

---

@MacWade wrote:

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.

[Shadowpanther3]

I have had my Charge 2 for a week now.  Yesterday I arrived at work with 43 floors completed and 3000+ steps.  My company has rewards for achieving fitbit goals so I am trying to be as honest as I can.  I do go into LOG and record the driving time which does lower the step and floor counts, but all the rewards and other things triggered by my absurdly high step count are still there.
If I can Log Driving in as an Activity just like Running, Walking, Exercise, why can the developers NOT simply add Driving as an optional mode I can select directly from my Fitbit?
This honestly sounds like a ridiculously easy solution and the fact I see posts from FOUR YEARS ago about this and it is still an issue is frankly disappointing.

[coralbm]

Currently we have to manually enter the activity (driving) to delete steps/floors, etc. after each road trip. I commute to work everyday, this means twice a day having to log in the driving time. It could be really helpful to have a shortcut in the watch where we can indicate driving mode on/off and estimated time (maybe) so that it won't log anything for the specified time. Thanks!

[TuanLa]

Hi fitbit-management team,

I have bought 2 fitbit versa. It has the same problem when I riding motorcycle.

I know it's hard for you to fix every issues by yourself but if you open the source code to everyone, coder from everywhere in the world will contribute the solution to fix it.

It's software issue. I hope you can hear the deepest voice from customers like us.

Best regards.

[erinlintz]

Yes PLEASE! I have a Versa. Since the beginning I’ve thought that all we need is a driving mode to activate just like I would a workout. I know it’s not the most convenient but it’s WAY better than what I have to do: remember to screen shot the time I get in my car or on the train, remember to screen shot again getting out of the car or off of the train, go onto the fitbit website, log my time, calculate the duration of time. Most days I’m in and out of my car multiple times, so having to remember to do this for 5 different drives during the day is ridiculous, inconvenient and a huge waste of time. If I forget, I know I just have hundreds of steps sitting there that weren’t actual steps. 

Drivebit: yes it’s a decent option, but I don’t always have my phone. And honestly, why use a third party app when this seems like such a basic option that Fitbit could easily add? Why use a phone app period? It would be ideal to just use my watch. If I could just look at my watch, and click driving mode like I would a workout, it would be a HUGE weight off my shoulders.

I called Fitbit about this month’s ago and they said they are working on a fix and would be sending a software update, so I kept the Versa in hopes that this issue would be solved. It has been months, though. This is so disappointing, especially with this being my first Fitbit, meaning my first experience with Fitbit has been disappointing. 

[TuanLa]

Hi erinlintz,

Drivebit is for Android Users. But for IOS, I'm afraid they will choose Apple Watch instead... 😞

Please help to continue contact them by phone, wouldn't you...

Best regards,

[LeahLiv]

What is drivebit?

[TuanLa]

Hi LeahLiv,

"DriveBit is a simple application used to help in logging commutes to FitBit.com.

FitBit devices may misinterpret driving as steps and the only current workaround is to log the driving time as a driving activity on the FitBit site or via your mobile device. This can be an irritating task to have to repeat.

DriveBit is here to help. Simply launch the application, tap start when you start your commute and tap stop when you finish your commute. That's it! We'll keep track of how long the drive was and when it started and post the driving activity for you.

Settings allow you to select any of the transportation activity types or create your own activity type that you'd like to track.

DriveBit plugs into Locale and Tasker to allow you to start and stop drives based on any number of inputs (location, time, Wifi connection, etc.).

Drive bit also offers widgets to add to your home screen or lock screen for easy recording of your commutes."

But it is for Android users only...

[LeahLiv]

 I am in total disbelief  that instead of developing something that allows us to pause our steps you are sending people to use a third party app. Is it really too much to ask for a simple feature? Than having to add yet ANOTHER app to my phone....are you all serious? Truly disappointing. I've had to take off my Fitbit completely or accept the fact my steps will be inaccurate on long or multiple drives a day. Imagine buying a fitness tracker for accuracy and because of poor software programming and consumers request falling on deaf ears I have to now accept its inaccurate daily. How is that fair for something I spent my hard earned money on? Also Because its bloody tedious to select driving as an activity each time and memorize all the times especially on a day with multiple drives. This is not just an expensive watch that tracks my period which I already do on a "third party app". What an absolute pack of rubbish. Thank alot @Fitbit

[Harlich]

The FitBit back end software seems like a mess. As a developer I can understand that these simple features are not difficult to implement. I have actually returned my fitbit versa and swapped out for a samsung gear sport. The accuracy is far better and doesn't have all the connection problems fitbit faces with android. The samsung app ui and ux isn't as good as fitbits but I can live with that.