Charge 5 won't track floors

[RobinLloyd15]

I just got my new charge 5. Was excited about it, but just realized it’s not going tracking the floors I climb daily. That’s a really important feature to me. Is this feature just not available on the charge 5??? 

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[BToddB]

As a snow skier and trail runner, I would like to see the change in altitude during my activity.  I downloaded the .tcx file and opened it with Excel.  I noticed that the altitude (in meters) is provided for the entire time of my activity, but there is no reporting of this altitude tracking in the fitbit app or on my Charge 5 device. Are there others Users who would also like to monitor or track your altitude?

[JohnnyRow]

Charge 5 does not have an altimeter.

[BToddB]

Hey JohnnyR,

Do you know if any of the Fitbit devices have an altimeter?

Todd

[JohnnyRow]

Most of the recent ones do have altimeter.  It was left off the Inspire line, and the Charge 5.  But Charge 3 and 4, and I think 2 do have, as do the smartwatches, Versa series, Sense, Ionic I think all do, for getting count of stair flights. 

[JohnnyRow · Accepted solution]

Charge 5 does not track floors climbed.  It does not include the required hardware altimeter, so it could not even be added with firmware update.

[Chuck241]

Just stupid to remove a feature.  

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The Charge 2 has the altimeter.  I “upgraded” from the 2 to the 5.  There are a lot of things I like about the 5 but I really hate that this feature was removed.  And I’m reminded of it every time I look at the app.  

[N8teGee]

I've merged these two threads so that this can be discussed in one place. 

May I suggest you all add your vote to the following feature suggestion (here). I know it's asking to add an altimeter to the C5 (which is impossible), but seeing as Fitbit closed the previous multi page thread about this, it's the only way to make it clear how important this feature is to users. Hopefully the more votes this gets means that Fitbit will reconsider adding the altimeter to future Charge models. 

[BToddB]

Funny that you can actually download altitude readings from the .tcx file made available on the Charge 5, and yet Fitbit decided to not offer tracking info to the user through the App.

Todd

Sent from Mail for Windows

[N8teGee]

@BToddB You are right it should definitely be possible, although not particularly accurate from my understanding. As far as I know GPS+GLONASS aren't particularly great at measuring altitude, with a Barometer being preferable. Still as you say, there should be no reason not to offer it when the user is using GPS. 

[poruatokin]

I'd suggest the reason they removed this feature was to avoid the issue of "Too Many Floors" that they refused to accept as a defect in previous models.

I'm one of the many Charge 4 users that had the fault (also Charge 2 and 3 were affected) where the Fitbit would start reporting hundreds of floors per day within a few months of purchase.  When the moderators started giving insulting excuses such as "it's a gust of wind" many paying customers became disgruntled and as a result many posts were deleted.  Unfortunately, the company has never offered a valid solution to the problem and even this week I noted another Charge 4 user reporting the issue.

[JohnnyRow]

Another possibility is a physical space issue inside the watch, with the added internal GPS.

My mistake.  Charge 4 also had internal GPS.

[poruatokin]

Charge 4 had internal GPS

[JohnnyRow]

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@poruatokin wrote:

Charge 4 had internal GPS

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You are right.  My mistake.

[laygan]

Just sharing my response to similar issue in Charge 4

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Charge-4/Wildly-Inaccurate-Stairs-Climbed/m-p/5047340#M58731

One possible workaround to this issue is to be completely honest about this deficiency and allows users to set floors count to auto (so expect potential false counts) or manual. Users who are doing exercise involving floors climb can activate the feature to start logging.

[hiker95]

Just received my Charge 5 for Christmas and it's not tracking my stories/flights of stairs.  I always loved this feature on my older Fitbits.  What can I do to troubleshoot or do I just have a defective device?

[JohnnyRow]

Charge 5 does not have the altimeter son cannot track flights of stairs.

[N8teGee]

Hi @hiker95. I've merged your thread with an existing one to keep the discussion in one place. 

As @JohnnyRow pointed out, the C5 unfortunately doesn't have the required hardware (barometer) to track floors/stairs.

I would recommend for you to vote on the feature suggestion posted further up in this thread (here). 

[fionac]

@poruatokin 

I was one who complained about the number of floors, sometimes hundreds in a day - it was ridiculous and became increasingly irrelevant.  I stopped even looking at the number of flights I was doing a day.  In reality, it was 25-40 flights a day, but the 3 and 4 would often tell me I'd done 80-90.

I'd rather not have a feature than have one so bad it's laughable.

[hiker95]

Well that explains it.  I was really under the impression that the C5 did have this feature.  My bad.  I guess I can live with out it.  As others pointed out, if it was a flawed feature I guess I really would rather not have it.