Blaze not counting stairs

[DianeinMich]

I got my Blaze a couple days ago and have been wearing it along with my One. It seems every day it counts less flights of stairs. Today, after it counted 9 flights, I walked up the stairs at home 7 times and Blaze didn't add to the count. I'm stuck on 9 flights for today. The One says 21 flights of stairs. I did reset the Blaze and that still didn't work. Could mine be defective?

[KelliGig]

I just tested it. It counted the steps but it still only says I've gone up once today. I've gone up at least 4 or 5 times...

[Jessco_inc]

I did 165 floors today at the gym cuz i was tryi to get that one helicopter badge.i i was so happy to get to this goal only to discover that my blaze track 5 floors only. Five stupid floors in a whole hour of stair climbing. I am very disappointed with fitbit today. I even took a picture of the floors climbed. But still sucks to not have my badges. Now im less motivated to work hard because i dont even get to see the rewards.

[Rich_Laue]

@Jessco_inc Sorry for the confusion but the stairs need to be physical stairs, I assume your 165 floors I where on a machine,no you won't get a badge and credit for cell stairs. Fitbit monitors air pressure to determine a physical change in altitude. Therefore unless you where walking up and down between the first and second floors, your 5 stairs where not from the gym time. Sorry.

[Darklydexter]

If there are days when it is accurate and there are days when it is not accurate, I guess that has to do something with atmospheric pressure changes?

[KelliGig]

I don't think it has ever been accurate but I've been holding my arm up as I walk and that seems to do the trick. Although I also realized that I usually run up 2 stairs at a time so maybe that is confusing it? I don't know.

[sknight]

They should give us an option to manually input stairs climbed.

Moderator edit: format.

[Rich_Laue]

@sknight I know you are frustrated, please remember your comments here are directed to fellow Fitbit users.

My thoughts on Stairs counted are.

• It uses air pressure to detect changes in altitude
• The altitude gained must be 10 feet, my ceilings are 8 feet.
• While most of the times it works great, it can be easily fooled
• Requires the Fitbit to detect that your walking.
• To detect that a person is walking up stairs the arm has to be free to move.
• For the arm to be free to move it can not be holding onto the hand rail.
• Not holding on is highly not advised, it's recomended to hold on for stability.
• Since a person needs to physically gain altitude any extra calories that are burnt will also be the calories lost on the way down.
• Fitbit does not use the stair data in calorie counting. Maybe for the above reason
• I would suggest adding your vote and comment on this suggestion here, this is where the developers monitor for users input.

[jmara]

My Fitbit Blaze hasn't been counting stairs either.  This sounds silly.  But, I got it to recognize stairs by doing this...Before I climb a fight of stairs, I put my fitbit hand down near the ground.  And, slowly raise it as I climb the stairs.  So, when I land at the top of the flight of stairs, my fitbit arm is stretched as far as it can go over my head.  And, then my fitbit registers the stairs.  It's not ideal.  Especially for how expensive the Blaze was.  But, at least its logging the stairs now.  

[KelliGig]

I've been raising my arm as I rise as well, just not starting from the
ground up... Ridiculous we have to do this but thank you.

[KNFB]

Alta NOT counting stairs.  Have 18" ceilings in my house with 17 stair steps to the 2nd floor and 17 to the basement.  On both sets of stairs there is a small landing where the stairs make a 90 degree turn (the landing effectively breaks the stairs into 6 step and 11 step segments).  Had a FitBit One (lost it) that counted stairs, albeit inaccurately.  Why doesn't Alta?  Also, keep getting 'outdoor bike' stats even when I'm in the house all day...why?

[Rich_Laue]

The Alta doesnt have an altimeter like your One does, therfore it can not count changes in alr8tude. No stair counting on the Alta

[gretchenmoll]

My observations

1)Try placing the blaze on your non dominant hand .

2) Holding on to a rail while climbing stairs will disable step counts.

3)Flights of Stairs taller than 10 feet get reduced to about 4-5 steps

[Rich_Laue]

True, the Fitbit tracker will not count floors unless it is also counting steps. 

[Nick1000]

As someone else mentioned, my "One" was accurate regarding floors climed, but my Blaze misses many.  The problem seems to be with the Blaze.  Also, you mention the metric of 10 feet.  Most flights of stairs in homes are less than 10 feet.

[Dot23scott]

I'm in same boat.  Second day, and I have stairs at home and at work.  Yesterday late afternoon it counted only 1 flight, when I'd done 3 at work and 2 at home.  I've climbed 3 today, and my Blaze says 0. The Charge HR was pretty accurate for me.  One of the reasons I went to Blaze from Alta was I missed the functionality of the heart rate, and star climbing.  I had to upgrade because I'm allergic to the plastic bands and Charge HR doesn't have interchangeability like Alta and Blaze do. 

[Rower429]

Thanks for this. Have the same problem. The stairs in my house have a small landing. And I can miss 3-4 stair climbs during a day. 

[Rich_Laue]

While their is a maximum time allowed to cl8mb the stairs, a small landing should not slow a person down enough.

For floors to be counted, the tracker first needs to see that a person is walking.  If no steps are being recorded, then no floors will be reworded.

[Rower429]

Well, then we are back to the ongoing issues about missing steps. The requirement for arm swinging means I can't carry anything while walking. 

[Rich_Laue]

In general you can carry something, the tracker just needs to detect steps. 

There are a few ways the tracker does this by looking at arm motions. This could be the natural movement of the arm while walking or the slight up/down motion of the body that naturally happens witheach step.

If your carrying something, the arm will move up/down with this notion and steps will be counted. This would be the same as having the tracker in a pocket, where the movement is similar and steps are still counted. 

That problem with a hand rail or a cart/pusher is that the bar prohibits this natural uo/down motion. 

[Staceygolar]

Atmospheric pressure was mentioned as a factor in stair counting. The past 2 days when I walk outside my Blaze is tracking more stairs than I have done. We have been having some severe wind the past couple days with wind gusts of 30-50 m/hr. Could the wind gusts be changing the atmospheric pressure making the Fitbit record stairs I didn't do? It tracked me at like 55 flights of stairs yesterday when I did 2 flights but did a 4.25 mile walk with constant wind and wind gusts.