Charge 2 stair count inaccurate

[Mkjms16]

I am a long time fan of Fitbit. I started with a flex, moved to a force (which I loved!), then got a Charge HR. Unfortunately I recently killed my HR during a fall on a trail run, so purchased a Charge 2. I have had many knee surgeries and have found that running 30+ stairs a day actually reduces my knee pain. The Force was great at stair counts and the HR had good and bad days. I was optimistic about the Charge 2. I received mine two days ago and had accurate counts while running stairs the first two days. This morning I ran 30 flights and got a count of 1. (Same stairway that I ran the previous two days). I experimented band loose and tight but no difference. Thoughts? Is there a hole to keep clean like on the HR? I've been using different fitbits to track stairs for almost three years so I know how they work, but am new to the Charge 2.

[MakMak]

Hi, @Mkjms16! I've been doing some experimentation with mine in the last week. I don't typically run stairs, but I am up and down flights all day. I already think that the Blaze doesn't do a great job on the stairs. It's especially a problem when you go up and down a flight, like you would with exercise. However, on a normal day when I'm just going up or down, not repeatedly doing it, I'll see something like 27 flights on Blaze and 24 on Charge 2, so not too bad of a difference.

[Babygiraffe]

I've tried wearing my HR and Charge 2 to compare, and yes, the Charge 2 misses a lot of stairs. This morning I've only got 3 flights on my Charge 2, with 11 flights on the HR.
Combine this with the almost undetectable silent alarms, and the often unresponsive tap screen, and I'm ready to return this Charge 2 and continue using my Charge HR till they fix the problems.

[Mikeylito]

I've been scanning the forum the last couple of days.

I've posted here because like others in this thread, the Charge 2 is logging stairs differently from the One I was using previously. It records much less flights than the One. Not 30 to 1 like the OP, but 7 to 2 is still pretty severe.

I've also noticed that there's another thread where users are complaining about Charge 2 OVER counting stairs.

Sounds like a firmware update is needed.

[mrsmac]

I wish I'didn't had access to these forus BEFORE buying the Charge 2. I was soooo excited, but so far am underwhelmed. it counts maybe 2/3 steps, does slightly better on stairs, alarm barely there, and doesn'the connect to my Galaxy A3 - my fault that one. should've checked, but just assumed - 2016 smartphone - connects to everything else. Silly me. Very disappointed.

[Mkjms16]

I have done some debugging since posting my first observations. I have found that the charge 2 will often miscount stairs after I have charged it. If you reset the charge 2 at the end of your charging, it will start to count correctly (or at least better). Without the reset, it will miss counting many of my stairs. I also have found that it has a hard time counting correctly on days there is high humidity or significant changes in barometric pressure (for instance when it is getting ready to rain). Perhaps the macro barometer change throws off it being able to correctly detect the change in going up a flight of stairs (the micro change)?

Overall I do like the charge 2. However I still miss the consistent accuracy I had with my Force.

By the way, I saw the same issue of needing to reset at the end of a charge cycle to get good counts with my charge hr.

[MarreFitbit]

Hello everyone @Mkjms16 @mrsmac @Mikeylito @Babygiraffe @MakMak, hope you're doing great! Your tracker detects floors using an altimeter, which is a sensor that calculates altitude change based on atmospheric pressure. Atmospheric pressure decreases with increasing elevation, so the tracker calculates elevation gain based on the reduction in atmospheric pressure. Your tracker registers a floor when it detects continuous motion combined with an elevation gain of about 10 feet. Because the tracker looks for continuous motion, pausing too long when going up a flight of stairs can cause the tracker to not count the floor. 

10 feet is an average between residential and commercial floor heights. If the floors you're climbing are shorter than 10 feet, you may find that the Fitbit tracker's floor count doesn't exactly match how many floors you've gone up. For example, if you climb 3 floors that are 8 feet tall (for a total gain of 24 feet), then the Fitbit tracker might only tell you 2 floors because it assumes that each floor is 10 feet tall.

Another cause of inaccurate floors is moisture. For example, the pathway to the altimeter on the back of your tracker can become clogged temporarily with sweat. We recommend that your tracker be worn loosely during exercise.

I was wondering, anyone have tried the restart that my friend @Mkjms16 tried after charging the Fitbit? It brought to my attention and wanted to know if someone else tried it too so I can further investigate this. 

[Mikeylito]

Hello @MarreFitbit!

As a matter of fact, and I apologize for being negligent in reporting this, I tried @Mkjms16's reset solution almost immediately after reading it and IT DID apparently solve the problem of recording "floors" correctly as well as a problem the Charge 2 was having detecting my sleep patterns.  Since then, I've been resetting the Charge 2 as the last step before removing the charger.

I'm still using my One tracker in tandem with the Charge 2 as a backup, but I'm relying more and more on the Charge 2 and less on One.

If anybody else attemps this method, make sure you see the Fitbit logo on the Charge 2 when you reset.

That signals to me that I can remove it from the charger.

As a commentary, I don't think this should be necessary and I was really close to returning the Charge 2, but since I've incorporated the reset into my charging routine, I'm reasonably satisfied.

Tag: @mrsmac, @Babygiraffe, @MakMak

[SunsetRunner]

My Charge 2 kept track of my stairs at first (have 2 story house) but now it doesn't even register it.

[MarreFitbit]

Thanks for the update my friend @Mikeylito! Alright, would you mind following the steps that @Thray posted here about removing your tracker from your account and adding it again. Let's see if afterwards the restart is no longer needed. 

Thanks for stopping by, I'm glad to see a new face like you around @SunsetRunner!  Have you try restarting your Charge 2 already? Is this the first time it stopped recording your floors?

[jefftom1]

Is there a "change of altitude vs. time" (a.k.a. rate of climb) component to the stair count?  I've noticed that if I walk a route in one direction I get a different count than if I walked it in the opposite direction.  The only difference I see is that some of the inclines are steeper in one direction than the other.  I do not bother to set "Walk" exercise mode, which would allow me to see the total altitude change observed.

[mrsmac]

Thanks. I think mine was probably a mixture of unrealistic expectations and not being fully set up. It's good enough now


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[Rich_Laue]

Yes the change in altitude needs to be accomplished within x seconds, I don't know what x is. 

Also the tracker needs to see that you are walling. IE: no steps counted - no floors given

[Babygiraffe]

LOL we decided to test the feature to see if we could get stairs credit for ascending escalators.  In a shopping mall, at Christmas time. Escalators standing still, walking up escalators, elevators standing still, walking in place in an elevator, and simple stairs. We only got credit for actually walking up stairs. We got plenty of strange looks, and we didn't get much shopping done, but we had more fun than we've ever had in a mall at this time of year. 

Merry Christmas everybody! 

[Rich_Laue]

Try just standing on the escalator and move your arm slightly up/down if it thinks you walking you should get steps

[Babygiraffe]

Hi Rich,

I tried walking up the escalator, pumping our arms. And stomping around inside an elevator. Cheating doesn't work. The Fitbit did not believe me.

Here's a cheat that does work, but you didn't hear it from me 😉

If you need to quickly make up your 250 steps in an hour, or if you're a few hundred steps short of your daily target, grab a hula hoop and spin it for a couple of minutes. You build up steps quickly when hula hooping. 

Hula hooping is exercise... sort of 😉

[eohouston]

Hi Maria - Is the tracking then affected if you are in an elevator?

My Charge 2 recorded 35 sets of stairs today, but sadly, I didn't climb any today. I was just an and out of a high rise a lot! Maybe 35 sets of stairs will be my new life goal 🙂 

Erin 

[wmloving]

I recently lost my Charge 2 and purchased a Charge 3 as replacement. I have a standard "wake up" walk I do which is around 3000 steps and 9 flights of stairs on the Charge 2. I walked it for the first time this morning with my Charge 3 and it registered 20 flights for what the Charge 2 had been reading as 9. The stairs are in a parking garage and a clock tower on a nearby campus and all contain two sets of stairs (zig-zag) for each floor. Just from walking around and going up and down the stairs to my apartment it's already reading a record 36 flights.

[wmloving]

SOLVED: After speaking with FitBit tech support about the inaccurate Flights count (3-4X what it should be), they had me do two things. One is the reset which I had tried already, but the other was simply to "blow gently into the altitude sensor hole". Whichever one it was, and I think it was the latter, the Flight rate is now much closer to my old Charge 2 counts for the same route. It's still slightly higher (about 25-30%, or 12 flights instead of 9 on one route) but it's close enough and consistent enough that I consider it working properly now.