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".

[swolfp]

I have a charge HR and am using 3rd party app Drivebit to log driving, but it's far from perfect.. if it fails to log due to no 3G you lose the data etc, and it's a pain having to reach for the phone, open app at the start and end of every journey. What's more the driving activity counts towards total hours exercise. I live in a rural area with steep and bumpy roads and unless I log every drive I'd clock up 1000's of unwanted steps / 100's of floors every day.

I would much prefer to just put the wristband directly into driving mode, where it simply stops counting steps & floors. Perhaps this could be an extended hold of the button to go past 'normal activity start', and then release on 'Drive mode ON' or whatever you might feel like calling it! At the end of the drive a button hold would exit this mode like stopping any activity.

It seems that this is a much requested feature from the community, and fairly sure that it would be achievable through a firmware release without too much hassle!

Other than that, great product which I enjoy very much

[Pixiebean86]

I've had a few issues with my Fitbit not zero-info out at midnight. An option to adjust(delete/add) amount of steps would be very helpful in resolving this. I've tried to do the driving option that's listed in the help forum but that doesn't seem to alter my steps or calories for the day.

[smsf83]

Dear Fitbit,

As a fellow motorcyclist, I fully support and beg that you add this feature as soon as possible. The sheer amount of steps and floors added during even a short ride makes the whole product (which is otherwise brilliant) completely irrelevant.

Based around this problem, I have the following suggestions which would all be very quick fixes and easy to implement to the operating system:

• Pause feature
• Ability to add any exercise to the quick list available via the watch - the idea being that I could add 'Driving' (an existing database entry on the website/app) to the quick list and very easily start a driving 'session' when I begin my ride
• Ability to delete badges - you can delete weight badges but not other badges. So I have a 100 floor badge which I obtained after a motorcycle ride!
• Badges automatically update - the steps will backdate with adjustments when you add an exercise (for example when I add 'Driving' it takes away the steps done at that time earlier in the day). But it will not take away the badges earned (like my 100 step badge after a long motorcycle ride)

Overall I'm impressed at how well the watch copes with journies made by train and car but the motorcycle vibration is just too much.

As I say, these would all be very easy to implement!

Thanks

Scott

[salmore]

Hi,

I use my HR all the time and find that whenever I commute via my motorcycle or car it seems to think that I'm climbing stairs and walking a very long distance... 

I'm working to try and resolve this with the support team to try and log this as driving, however this is not working just yet.

I think it would be a great feature to be able to turn off the device when needed prior to commuting for example, thus not having it log random data. Frankly a little surprised the ability to turn it off is not available.. 

Thanks in advance.

[Bittybites]

Why has this issue of not being able to edit and remove steps for "driving" been going on so long? MONTHS.......this needs to be fixed ASAP. It is vital to be able to do this in activities. What the heck is the point of using Fitbit if it can't count your steps properly. Don't you think this has been going on long enough.

[4k_hiker]

2 pages of posts, spanning several months, complaining about the bogus data being captured and the inability to remove that data?

We're talking about a web page UI change and some very SIMPLE sql to update the database after the edit is done. This isn't rocket science at all so I'm very hard-pressed to understand why this has not already been addressed by the developers.

With the glut of devices for sale, all doing basically the same thing, the only way the company can maintain their current projected sales quotas is to PAY ATTENTION when your user base complains about some aspect of your product line!

BTW, as has already been pointed out, the "Driving" work-around doesn't work and is a very schintsy way of telling someone to pound sand.

So, really, how about an actual answer here to a percieved, (real), issue?

[JoHo68]

A pause feature would seem kind of an obvious feature. I was very surprised to see that it wasn't there.

Considering how inaccurate the Surge is, even after the latest firmware upgrade, there are a lot of situations where I simply don't want it measuring anything except heart rate, GPS, and neutral calorie consumption ("doing nothing") based on my body metrics.

So ... please?

(And to the person lurking the forum who's a software engineer, I'm also a software engineer since 32 years --- and this one _is_ a nobrainer)

[TandemWalker]

@Bittybites - Of course they look at these posts.

From my experience, having been active in these forums for almost two years now, I know for a fact that MANY ideas have indeed been implemented. The more traction a suggestion gets, the better the odds that Fitbit will work on it.

Notwithstanding, I personally don't expect Fitbit to comment on every specific suggestion... I'd rather see them work on updates and enhancementsinstead of spinning their wheels answering posts. The problem with answering posts is that one answer/comment often leads to another question/comment or a dozen of them; and soon you find yourself spending more time interacting people instead of assessing the merit of the suggesions and potential for implementation.

As Community users, I see our job in this context being to formulate the suggestion as clearly as possible; and bringing it to the attention of other community users and inviting them to vote. 

Rude? Absolutely not. And as far as I'm concerned, the mods do as best they can to answer all unanswered posts. But the underlying principle is that this is a user community, which means that Community members are expected to help one another; and for the most part, you will see that interaction between us. Mods will step in if there is an issue to clarify or to deal with stale posts.

So I'm not sure what you mean by 'mods placating us.' Do you care to explain? 

TW

[vjvl51]

@Bittybites

I know that Fitbit changed something after I posted above (and on a few other threads) about my frustration.  Now my Charge HR does count my stairs in my house which are less then 9 ft high.  It's fairly accurate as long as I remember to not turn right around at the top of the stairs and immediately go down the stairs.

[Bittybites]

Yes Tandem, I will. There has been a problem for months with not being able to delete or edit the steps if you are driving or riding. If I go 1,000 steps that I actually did it shows that I did 3,000 steps because it is counting driving my bus or car and the bouncing it does. That is pretty important to me and many others if you read all the threads about it. The "quick fix" they said to try doesn;t work/ It will log it but not eliminate the steps. Since this has been going on for months perhaps you can understand our frustration.

[TandemWalker]

@Bittybites - Months? How about 2 1/2 years? But that does not mean that they have not looked into it, worked on it, and assessed the possibilities... My understanding is that the difficulty resides in the need to delete false floors without deleting bona fide steps.

For example, if I happen to go for a walk on a very windy/stormy day, using a regular path that normally should give me 4 or 5 floors, I can get up to 30-50 floors. I'd like to be able to delete those false floors without losing the valid steps recorded during that same time frame.

So yes, I do understand your frustration; but since I know that they've looked into is, and are possibly still working on a fix, I am not frustrated because I can appreciate and understand the complexity of coming up with a true fix, and not just another band-aid solution and would simply add insult to injury.

I'm not privy to Fitbit's metrics, but my guess is that the Floor functionality ranks right at the top of hot issues, just next to Sync issues. So I'm confident that they are fully aware of the fact that users are not happy with its quirkiness. However, as long as Fitbit trackers rely exclusively on an altimeter chip and changes in barometric pressure to capture floors, there will always be false floors; hence the reason for need expressed in this thread to be addressed. I know it has been addressed because of feedback received from Fitbit in another thread. I can only hope that they're still working on it and that it will be resolved soon.

TW

[scottmfinn]

I am a software developer and I understand that the solution for this is
more complex than just being able to add and delete steps. On that level,
we agree. However, I can't be the only data nerd out there who would
rather have no data than a bunch of bad data and this problem has been
identified and allowed to go on for months. A problem, that if
prioritized, could be easily addressed. If the apply simply allowed the
deletion of steps and floor independently, problem solved.

I can't stand the fact that the tallies be so far off. I ride a motorcycle
and every mile I ride adds about 200 steps - when I commute 10 miles to
work, that's 2000 steps that I simply would simply delete (were I able to
do so). I mowed my lawn with a push-mower (a normal activity that is
PERFECT for wearing a FitBit) and while mowing, added 75000 steps in 30
minutes of mowing. I have no concept of how an activity like that can't be
accommodated by FitBit.

To be frank, errors like this cause me to believe the device is junk.

PLEASE change the app to allow me to manually add and delete steps and
floors.

[Meratz]

Why not just have the Fitbit go into a "sleep mode" by taking location data from the phone it is connected to? As soon as the location info shows you moving faster than a normal person would walk or run it clicks into "sleep mode". When the same data shows you have stopped and your arm is moving at a normal walking or running rate, it would know you have stopped and left your conveyance and to begin tracking again. I would totally forget to turn the tracker back on if it was some sort of manual switch. It would be best to make it as automatic as possible. The less I have to fiddle with my tracker the easier it will be for me to make it part of the daily routine and continue to use it.

[DragonsLady]

We all tend to lie to ourself about somethings; but when we actually want to have truthful reportings, we don't need our Fitbit to lie to us as well.

I sit, in the evenings, in a rocker/lounge chair. I've noticed that the Fitbit is counting the rocking. This makes sense since it's using arm motion to count steps. But it adds unwalked steps to the daily/wkly total which in turn makes it invalid for counting to 10,000 steps and increases dissatifaction with the product and the company. 

Looking at the graph of a particular day, I can see times and steps when it recorded rocking chair motion. It appears the information was collected and then input into a spreadsheet from which the graph derived.

If so, why don't you put the ability to click on a particular line and delete it - then update the chart when the fitbit is synced? That would be a software solution that could be downloaded to our connection. I don't know if the fitbit would also have to be modified.

This seemingly small fix would make a lot of sense to those of us who use rocking chairs. And it would help keep us accountable which is the whole point of the Fitbit, right?

[dewarchavis]

Maybe a "Time-out Mode" when you're, for instance, driving, using escalators (I find it funny to see my Surge having counted 6 floors when I had just used escalators to go up a building. I might have moved my hands too much during the ride?), riding buses (some buses in ny country are annoyingly bumpy) or doing anything that you wouldn't want it counted in your daily total steps?

Maybe when turned on from the Surge menu, the step counts are still recorded, but aren't added in the total steps, just put aside to be able to be added later manually by the user from the mobile app or dashboard?

And if the device detects an increase of activity (like, singificantly increased movements or HR), it vibrates to ask if the user has forgotten to turn the Time-out mode off?

Sorry if my English is confusing, non-native speaker here.

[asiekkinen]

Love MacWade's idea! My fitbit one gives me steps when I am driving, cycling, dirtbiking.... it is really annoying to have to pay attention to the times so I can log 'driving'. Come on Fitbit! Let us know when it is coming!!!

[sinder255248]

I have the exact same issue.  As I upload Strava data from a cycle ride I end up with an inaccurate calorie count for the day as it's taking the vibrations as activity and double counting the calories from both strava and the incorrectly recorded activity.

I think something really simple like a drop down box with a time picker.  You select half hour, the server then ignores any data recorded from the fitbit over this half hour period, once the time expires the logging is enabled again.  The "pause" will need to be synced to the server so that all devices become aware of the request.  This would mean I could wear the device no matter what activity I'm doing and fill in the missing data using my other devices that sync through Strava.

[smsf83]

To all of those with this issue, I have since found a 3rd party app in the Android store which allows you to quickly log 'pause' periods.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=mobi.littlebytes.android.fitbitdrive

It has a big start/stop button available for the home screen. So at the start of any vibration-heavy activity (driving, commuting, etc), I hit the start button and it starts the clock. At the end, I hit stop and it automatically sends a 'Driving' activity to fitbit. This removes the steps and stairs data of this time period from my daily total but keeps the useful information like heart rate.

Very useful app, and I recommend it to you all.

It is just a shame that we are forced to go around Fitbit when, as this simple app shows, it is a very easy solution to implement properly.

[___TSC___]

Another way would be to allow tracking a activity and label it with "Driving" after synchronising with FitBit. On Surge you could directly select "Driving" for starting/stoping the activity.

[gorbykitty]

Please please add the option to delete the entire day's entries.  So many times I realize that my fitbit died sometime during the day or I forgot to wear it and that day winds up completely skewing and screwing up my averages.

[SunsetRunner]

While trying to figure out how to delete steps and floors logged whilst driving, I created several custom activities that are also called 'Driving'. I would like to delete, or at least rename, these so that they don't appear in the drop-down list when I want to log a drive. Others on the community help forums seem to have a similar problem, e.g. this question.

The problem is that I can't distinguish between the options when I type 'driving' into the activity search box and therefore have to find the right one by trial and error. It is already possible to edit the custom foods database, and it would be most useful if one could do the same for the custom activities database.

Thank you

[drumfire]

I'm a drummer and yesterday during a 2h rehearsal session FitBit Surge counted 10000 steps while I was sitting on my throne.

So the "step count pause"/"driving mode" (I suggest to call it "sitting mode") will be nice. During this mode FitBit could still monitor the arms movements to track the calories burnt.

How to activate it? For the Surge I suggest the pressure of two buttons at the same time. Easy, fast and safe. A special icon in the display will be nice.

Otherwise add the "drummer" activity.... You'll make a lot of musicians very happy...also because palying drums burns a lot of calories. 

Thank you!

=============================

EDIT:

In the FitBit faq they say that the Surge is able to recognize the fact that you are sitting but you move the arms (their example was the drumming activity ) and the Surge will still count steps because it try to estimate the calories burnt during this activity.  Wonderful! 

Moderator Edit: Formatting

[blueclaws]

Furthermore, it would be great if the mode could be enabled through the fitbit itself, in addition to the app. Just like there is an active mode, there should be an "inactive mode" for situations where the algorithm just can't differentiate between real steps and fake steps, and the user is prepared for that.

[Fit777]

Yes, I also face this problem when riding my motorcycle. It is a must have feature. Now, I have to remove my Fitbit and charge it in my motorbike box to disable the tracking every time I ride my bike.

[Mel93x]

Can you please add a tile to the main menu of the Surge watch that will pause steps & stairs? I jump on my motorcycle 2-10 times a day and I need to be able to log driving from my watch not from the app or computer, mostly because it doesn't work for me anyways. Thank you for considering.