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Comment by thedz | Hacker News Reader

I once left my fitbit in the wash (and then dryer) and was wondering why I was suddenly getting all these "congrats on hitting your steps goal!" alerts on my phone.

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Got a badge for climbing 33 stairs + a plethora of others, while in actuality I was riding my motorcycle.

A few hours' ride is good for 10K steps. I don't know if it depends on the type of engine or motorcycle brand. I'd love to experiment :-)

I noticed the condition of the road had a significant affect on the readings. I think we could use supervised learning to perhaps determine different activities.

my truck runs on five of the six cylinders available to it, and shakes like it does. Holding the steering wheel with my left hand means I hit step goals like crazy.

Be careful about continuing to drive it like that you may end up wrecking the catalytic converter.

You're right to be concerned. I paid $1500 for it, three times that to have the misfire issue "fixed" (among a bunch of other delayed maintenance), and after the misfire came back I gave up. I've been driving it on 5 cylinders for years now.

If only I could find an "open loop" switch to just disable the engine monitoring. Everything runs fine in open loop mode.

That's an interesting puzzle. If you want my $0.02 cents on it check the knock sensor or unplug it for a bit and see what that does, alternatively replace ignition coil for that cylinder, cable, cap and plug.

Those would by my main suspects if it works well in open loop mode, knock sensor first.

If it runs fine in open loop mode, it sounds likely to be a bad knock sensor causing the ecu to think there's detonation and retard the timing to the point it doesn't fire at all. As far as getting it into open loop mode, unplugging the throttle position sensor or any of the other intake sensors (MAP, Mass airflow, etc) would probably get you there.

I think my best was 125 stories, over a mountain pass.

Mine has never registered a stair climb, despite my office being on the third story of the building, and I typically park on the 4th or 5th floor of the garage.

Its sleep stats are also laughable. It's shown me as sleeping right through the time I was showering and cooking breakfast.

Mine (fitbit one) seems pretty good on the stairs. It was 1 floor out over 125 going up and down the stairs in a hotel.

That's not normal. You may have a defective unit.

My wife put her Fitbit on the cat's collar after she forgot to wear it one day...

Wow , thought I was the only one. I accidentally left mine in the washer/dryer the other day. Was expecting it to be broken, it came out with 4,000 steps :)

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