Stairs while driving? And Sleeping?

[StaceyB93]

My FB One has just started counting flights of stairs when it never use to before. Unless I actually took the stairs!! I have not done anything different with it and it is not set to sensitive. I will wake up and find it has told me I have done 5 flights of stairs in my sleep. And today It counted over 10 flights going up an elevator - 3 floors standing still. What gives? Any suggestions? It's counting steps fine except the random flights. And logging it as an activity like driving does not negate the flights. I just tried that.

TIA!! 🙂

[LucyAP · Accepted solution]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community @StaceyB93! Your tracker detects floors using an altimeter, which is a sensor that calculates altitude based on atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation, so the tracker calculates elevation gain based on the reduction in atmospheric pressure.

There are a couple of reasons your One may give you extra steps: 

1. The unit is inside of a pocket - Changing pressure may simulate the change of elevation and be read as floors. Please confirm you are not wearing the unit inside of your pocket for your workouts.
2.  Airflow from an air conditioning - This could be creating changes in pressure that your tracker may interpret this as elevation change. It's recommended to move the tracker to a different area to check if this normalizes your readings. 

Also, occasionally your tracker may detect pressure changes unrelated to elevation gains, such as a gust of wind, weather change, or opening a door. Exposure to excess moisture can also result in extra floors being counted. This happens if the pathway to the altimeter on the back of your tracker becomes temporarily blocked with sweat or water. We recommend that your tracker be worn loosely during exercise.

In the meantime you can try, restarting your tracker to see if this may of help. You can follow the steps in this post by @Odyssey13.

Keep me posted! 😉 

[StaceyB93]

Thanks so much Lucy! It has been right as rain today.(Working correctly.) I have had it for a few years and they last few days was an abnormality. We also were on vacation to the Pocono Mountains - which is way higher in altitude than my usual neighborhood. Maybe that was a problem? Also, if I do a restart, will my day's step count be off or will it just pick up where I left off? I'm wondering if I have this problem in the future if I should do a restart early in the morning or at the end of the day. I don't want to lose steps!! LOL!

[LucyAP]

Thanks for your response @StaceyB93!  Maybe the change of atmospheric pressure was the reason your tracker behaved as you described.

Regarding your questions, restarting your tracker turns it off and on without deleting any activity data. If your tracker saves notifications, a restart deletes them. 

A restart can be helpful if you feel that your tracker is not working as it should. However, your tracker is designed to look for pressure changes based on elevation gains, pressure changes due to other causes—such as a gust of wind, a weather change, or opening a door—can occasionally cause your tracker to register an extra floor or two. In this case an early restart might not be of help. What I have done to avoid this is to cover my tracker with my sleeve so it doesn't sense the pressure change or I put it in my pocket while I travel. 

I hope this helps, keep me posted! 😉