DriveBit Problems

[joicetti]

I have a FitBit One which I love--really motivates me to move!--but I live in Southern California and drive a lot so I'm contending with extra steps as a result of that. I have an iPhone and downloaded DriveBit to resolve this, but I'm noticing problems. Advice? Specifically:

1) Maybe 25% of the time, DriveBit doesn't actually start/stop correctly. I push 'start' when I get in the car, and then when I press 'stop', instead of logging an entry, it just displays 'start' again and my drive time is essentially lost. I know the logging requires a network connection, which I'm certain I have so it's not due to that. If I happened to notice the start time when I got in the car I can proceed to log the drive manually, but otherwise DriveBit is useless to me on these instances where it doesn't work.

2) When it does work, DriveBit doesn't actually seem to remove all of the driven steps. To test this, I've taken a screenshot of my pre-drive screen, and when I arrive at my location, my steps don't actually even back out to that number. If I'm at 11,000 steps and then I drive, I would expect it to be at 11,000 when I arrive, and then start counting from there when I start walking again.

My alternative could be to remember the start/stop time myself and manually enter it, but obviously this gets to be too much, and on top of that I'm missing out on earned calories since I have no idea what to 'claim' for the time that I've been driving.

I live 20 minutes away from work and drive a car with a stiff suspension, so I accumulate about 30-50 steps on the drives to and from. Not a huge deal considering I don't have the FitBit on in the bathroom in the morning and evening so I figure it all evens out. However if I'm on a roadtrip for several hours and I get 2,000 steps added that I haven't taken, that's a problem.

On a daily basis (especially weekends) I'm in and out of a car frequently and would love to be able to 'trust' the DriveBit to do its job, but I keep taking screenshots and noticing the inaccuracies. Anyone else experienced the same?

[joicetti]

I have a FitBit One which I love--really motivates me to move!--but I live in Southern California and drive a lot so I'm contending with extra steps as a result of that. I have an iPhone and downloaded DriveBit to resolve this, but I'm noticing problems. Advice? Specifically:

1) Maybe 25% of the time, DriveBit doesn't actually start/stop correctly. I push 'start' when I get in the car, and then when I press 'stop', instead of logging an entry, it just displays 'start' again and my drive time is essentially lost. I know the logging requires a network connection, which I'm certain I have so it's not due to that. If I happened to notice the start time when I got in the car I can proceed to log the drive manually, but otherwise Drivebit is useless to me on these instances where it doesn't work.

2) When it does work, Drivebit doesn't actually seem to remove all of the driven steps. To test this, I've taken a screenshot of my pre-drive screen, and when I arrive at my location, my steps don't actually even back out to that number. If I'm at 11,000 steps and then I drive, I would expect it to be at 11,000 when I arrive, and then start counting from there when I start walking again.

My alternative could be to remember the start/stop time myself and manually enter it which seems to work and correctly revert the steps to what they should be. Obviously this gets to be too much, and on top of that I'm missing out on earned calories since I have no idea what to 'claim' for the time that I've been driving.

I live 20 minutes away from work and drive a car with a stiff suspension, so I accumulate about 30-50 steps on the drives to and from. Not a huge deal considering I don't have the FitBit on in the bathroom in the morning and evening so I figure it all evens out. However if I'm on a roadtrip for several hours and I get 2,000 steps added that I haven't earned, that's a problem.

On a daily basis (especially weekends) I'm in and out of a car frequently and would love to be able to 'trust' the DriveBit to do its job, but I keep taking screenshots and noticing the inaccuracies. Anyone else experienced the same?

[Colinm39]

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@joicetti wrote:

I have a FitBit One which I love--really motivates me to move!--but I live in Southern California and drive a lot so I'm contending with extra steps as a result of that. I have an iPhone and downloaded DriveBit to resolve this, but I'm noticing problems. Advice? Specifically:

1) Maybe 25% of the time, DriveBit doesn't actually start/stop correctly. I push 'start' when I get in the car, and then when I press 'stop', instead of logging an entry, it just displays 'start' again and my drive time is essentially lost. I know the logging requires a network connection, which I'm certain I have so it's not due to that. If I happened to notice the start time when I got in the car I can proceed to log the drive manually, but otherwise DriveBit is useless to me on these instances where it doesn't work.

2) When it does work, DriveBit doesn't actually seem to remove all of the driven steps. To test this, I've taken a screenshot of my pre-drive screen, and when I arrive at my location, my steps don't actually even back out to that number. If I'm at 11,000 steps and then I drive, I would expect it to be at 11,000 when I arrive, and then start counting from there when I start walking again.

My alternative could be to remember the start/stop time myself and manually enter it, but obviously this gets to be too much, and on top of that I'm missing out on earned calories since I have no idea what to 'claim' for the time that I've been driving.

I live 20 minutes away from work and drive a car with a stiff suspension, so I accumulate about 30-50 steps on the drives to and from. Not a huge deal considering I don't have the FitBit on in the bathroom in the morning and evening so I figure it all evens out. However if I'm on a roadtrip for several hours and I get 2,000 steps added that I haven't taken, that's a problem.

On a daily basis (especially weekends) I'm in and out of a car frequently and would love to be able to 'trust' the DriveBit to do its job, but I keep taking screenshots and noticing the inaccuracies. Anyone else experienced the same?

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@joicettiOn the tests I have done in the car, I don't use Drivebit, but, in my case probably 100-150 steps/hour over a 4 hour country drive on freeways, hills and normal asphalt county roads.  I found when I overwrote the steps with the "driving in car" activity the calories were about ballpark with "just leaving it alone" and not doing anything. My Fitbit One is waist mounted and I submitted the results to Fitbit.  So I accept the results because we miss steps in our normal day to day activities, don't record desk work or standing, so in the end it all balances out. My scales tell me that...

I can feel for those with Flex who suffer with steering wheel vibration on rougher roads.

[Colinm39]

@joicettiI forgot to add this screen shot and the calories at the 110kmh on a freeway were about 2.5 times my BMR which equated to the effort of driving a motor vehicle, Hence I don't worry about it.

[matt1902]

I notice that when DriveBit uploads driving data to Fitbit it doesnt include calories (however if you put the same data directly into Fitbit it does).  Is DriveBit made by FitBit or is it a separate company?  Either way, how can we get it sorted so that calories can also be calculated automatically?.

Thanks

Matt

[SunsetRunner]

DriveBit is not a Fitbit product. You would have to ask them. Here is their website.

[TandemWalker]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

DriveBit is not a Fitbit product. You would have to ask them. Here is their website.

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But Pat, if Matt already has Drivebit, one would think that he is already familiar with their web site, don't you think. That being said, I think that the question Matt raised is a very valid one. Just so you know Matt, there is no need to use a third party app to nullify steps registered by your tracker while driving. All you have to do is to log a driving activity at fitbit.com and it will cancel them out; and also log the related caloric burn. Notwithstanding, that doesn't do much for false steps recorded while sleeping, etc. So I think that what we need is the ability to cancel out false steps, no matter how they came about, without having to resort to a band-aid solution such as logging a driving activity - even more so if no driving was involved.

  TW — Happy New Year! 

[joicetti]

Yes many problems with Drivebit so I'm afraid I've stopped using the software and am just removing extra driving steps manually. 

In addition to not working some of the time (see original post) it also removes all calories burned during the drive time (as per another poster above) so your overall total is inaccurate. Again as someone living in Southern California I am in and out of a car constantly so I'm heavily impacted by not being able to remove steps easily AND when/if I do (by logging them manually) I have to guestimate the calories for that drive time, meaning my daily totals are off no matter how I cut it. 

As someone else mentioned I'm not sure why there's not an easy way to just stop the device and then restart it when whatever activity (sleeping, driving, etc.) is going on that you don't want steps from, sort of like when you start/stop sleep mode. Maybe they think it's an extra complication that will result in people forgetting to start/stop the device? 

My car has stiff suspenion so a 20-minute drive gives me hundreds of extra steps, so I'm not trying to make a mountain out of a moehill. On a road trip I could get to my 10,000-step goal without even standing up.

I use the Fitbit as a motivational tool so I've come to terms with the fact that it's not completely accurate. With that said, over time I'd like to see these things addressed and corrected at some point as they continue to improve the product.

[blueowlnut]

MY DRIVEBIT WORKED FOR 2 DAYS AND NOW NOTHING 😞

[WendyB]

@blueowlnut You need to take it up with DriveBit.

It is not a Fitbit Product

[gdio53]

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@bluewlnut wrote:

MY DRIVEBIT WORKED FOR 2 DAYS AND NOW NOTHING 😞

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See this post.

[blueowlnut]

Thank you

*Kind Regards*

Moderator edit: personal info removed