FLOORS goal

[100down]

I'm a little confused by the floor goal.  I have had days of just over 10k steps and hit 10 floors and other days over 15k steps but only hit 4 floors, whats gives?  How are floors calculated? 

[WendyB]

Floors have nothing to do with step count.

Floors you must go up 10 feet in elevation for it to count as a floor.

Weather does effect it

http://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/How-does-my-tracker-count-floors/?q=count+floors&...

Floors are counted using an altimeter. An altimeter is a sensor that calculates altitude based on atmospheric pressure and atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation, so the it calculates elevation gain based on the reduction in atmospheric pressure. Your trackers register a floor when they detect continuous motion combined with an elevation gain of about 10 feet. Given the fact that 10 feet is an average between residential and commercial floor heights, although commercial floors in particular tend to be higher than residential floors.

[genome]

It's not really accurate though.  I run or walk the same route every day and have registered anywhere between 2 and 19 floors over exactly the same surface.  I also get a floor when I go upstairs in my house and sometimes I don't.  There isn't much consistency to the floor count.  

[emili]

if it is windy out you will get additional floors. so on the days that you get 19, it was probably pretty windy. They do at times miss a floor count if it doesn't sense the change in elevation. If you aren't really concerned about the number of floors, you can remove that tile from your dashboard and not see it. I waffle back and forth - remove it, put it back. One of these days I will make up my mind.

[genome]

I walked the same route yesterday that I ran today.  According to the GPS, it was 5.17 miles.  And no, it wasn't windy either day.  Yesterday, while walking, I recorded one floor gain.  Today, while running the exact same route, I gained 17 floors.  Along this route, I pass over several drainage washes that are about a 30' slope down one side and 30' up the other side.  The actual elevation change is roughly 15'.  Otherwise, the route is slightly rolling but mostly flat.  

The Ionic uses changes in barometric pressure to identify elevation changes.   Rapidly falling pressure would indeed create wind but wind doesn't create rising or falling pressure.  I really don't think that it is possible for air pressure to rise or fall so much during the few seconds that it takes me to run up the side of a wash that it would affect the altimeter reading.

The biggest variable that notice is that I get credit for far more floors if I am running than I do if I am walking.  For me though, floor count is merely a curiosity, not something that I care much about.

[Andreas68]

The floor counter is a little random. I have an Ionic, and seemed to get very inconsistent floor counts - I work on the first floor of an office building but go down to the warehouse regularly during the day. I have discovered that if I walk up the stairs, steadily step by step, it records the floor accurately every time - but if I run up the stairs, two at a time, (which I normally do), it registers nothing. I generally go up and down about 15 times in a day - the other day I ran up every time and it registered 3! (Which was probably me going upstairs at home in the evening!) Rather bizarre, but otherwise very happy with the Ionic.

[Baltoscott]

@Andreas68 - maybe you should swing your wrist down by your ankles at the bottom and raise it over you head while doing a little jump at the top to credit for the full 10 ft.  😝

[Alicat2104]

Floors is pointless, it's affected by wind blowing and other weather conditions. I don't even track it.

A one hour walk on a windy day gave me over 100 floors 

[Baltoscott]

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@Alicat2104 wrote:

Floors is pointless, it's affected by wind blowing and other weather conditions. I don't even track it.

A one hour walk on a windy day gave me over 100 floors 

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I agree it is not super accurate, but the stat can be motivating for those of us trying to improve fitness throughout the day who have hills and floors to climb.  

Because I bike commute in a hilly area, I tend to get quite a bit of floor credit.  My daily average this month is 77 floors/day, as compared to 88 last month and 65 the month before.  Although I get better stats from my Garmin bike computer, I like the simple floor metric that Fitbit provides and my bike commutes are hillier than they used to be or need to be in part because I try to get more floors in my daily stats.  Chasing the floor stat is also part of the reason I always walk up to the 7th floor where I work in the morning, and make multiple round-about trips up and down the stairs throughout the day.

Elevators are for sissies 🙂 

[Dominique]

I find floors are pretty consistent for me, at least at this time of the year (summer, mostly high pression). Here are my steps for the past 30 days:

 And here are floors for the same period:

My "floors" come mostly from walking in hilly surroundings. Higher step days translate in higher floor counts, and inversely. Floors are not a major Fitbit metrics I monitor, but I wouldn’t dismiss them as entirely useless.

Oh, and I like to boast about my lifetime floor count:

It’s more than three times the highest badge Fitbit currently knows (Satellite = 35,000 floors).

[Andreas68]

Perfect advice - and I found that doing a handstand on the halfway landing meant the results were completely accurate............