Too many floors recorded

[Thammer]

My fitbit charge 2 is recording more stairs than I'm doing . I've read all the suggestions but most of the issues are about not enough stairs getting recorded. Thanks 

Moderator edit: subject updated for clarity

[pjfarr]

If this is the case—other types of movement being logged wrongly as stair climbing—it would be helpful to be able to delete the incorrect counts from the activity log. For those who accuracy is very important to (like me ) this would be a welcome option.

Question: When stairs are recorded are the calories burned adjusted accordingly (since climbing stairs would burn more calories than just normal walking)? If so, it's concerning that when floors are wrongly detected it would affect the day's calorie count and a user will think they've burned more calories than they actually did.

[SunsetRunner]

I am also having stairs that I didn't climb, recorded.  This just started last week.  Only 5 to 10, usually at the gym, but the gym is flat and this never happened before.

[apldcb]

I have been a loyal Fitbit customer for several years(Charge, Charge HR, and now Charge 2).

I'm a teacher and teach in a 2 story building.  My classroom is located on the 2nd floor, so I always enjoy seeing an accurate "floors climbed" reading.

I just got my Charge 2 at the beginning of July 2017, and it is registering  an UNBELIEVABLY impossible number of floors climbed.  I definitely want to get this fixed before going back to work.  

I was just looking up how to adjust sensitivity possibly, but noticed other people having the "floors climbed" too.

Please help me fix this issue!

[WavyDavey]

I believe the fitbit tracker uses an altimeter to determine floors by barometric pressure. It's been known to generate extra floors when there are air currents. It also has to make an assumption about how many feet a floor is, so it's possible that the actual distance between your floors differ, which could also throw off the numbers.

There's no way to edit floors, and I don't actually see the need, as the Charge 2 will still know you were active and adjust calories burned accordingly. I do know there are no settings in the app to adjust the floors.

You could try putting the tracker in your pocket while doing stairs. It might protect it if air currents are involved.

Someone else probably has a better answer, as I don't use the floors tracking.

[Rich_Laue]

@WavyDavey, you did a pretty good job.

An storm that approaches to fast, causing a dop in the atmospheric pressure, along with the wind could also give floors.

How can wind add floors? Lets look at the back of a tractor trailer that has been on the road for a while. Why are the back doors so dirty?  Remember the phrase "nature abords a vacuum"? This is our clue.

As a truck moves through the air, it creates a hole in the atmosphere behind the truck.  Since nature does not like holes, the air trys to fill it bringing in the dirt that gets kicked up by the vehicles.

On the front of the truck there is an increase of pressure caused by the truck pushing against this same air.

So what does this all have to do with my Fitbit and wind?

Instead of the arm moving through the air, the air is moving past the arm.

When the wind is blowing against the tracker, there is an increase of atmospheric pressure. Then when the wind blows against the arm, and the arm shields the tracker from the wind, there is a decrease in pressure. 

Yes it is the same thing going to the truck, but with a lot less force. Lets think about this, how much lighter does the air feel when you climb up 10 feet? The difference is a lot less then 1/64 piece of an 8X11 sheet of paper!

[Justjenagain]

Ok this makes a lot of sense to me... yesterday the wind started blowing like madness, and there’s a storm coming and my floors count is crazy high! 

[apldcb]

I understand...I wish this could get fixed...it's too sensitive!!


I've had other Fitbits (Charge, Charge HR, and now the Charge 2)..my 1st 2 were fairly accurate!

[apldcb]

I understand...I wish this could get fixed...it's too sensitive!!

I've had other Fitbits (Charge, Charge HR, and now the Charge 2)..my 1st 2 were fairly accurate!

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@Justjenagainwrote:

Ok this makes a lot of sense to me... yesterday the wind started blowing like madness, and there’s a storm coming and my floors count is crazy high! 

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[Rich_Laue]

The problem is not that it is to sensative but that with the atmosphere about 480,000 meters high a change of 3 meters is very small. Much smaller then say a strong wind that could pull out out of a building as I passes over. 

[garbuck]

The wind does not have to blow against the tracker. I racked up a way too high floor count this past afternoon walking around indoors with the windows closed on a single floor listening to a podcast on Bluetooth headphones. The wind outside was gusting like crazy, and the barometer was steadily climbing. Normally, my Blaze would have counted no floors. But it counted 59!

Now, increasing barometric pressure indicates decreasing altitude. During the hour I was walking, the pressure rose by about 0.03 inches of mercury. That corresponds to about three floors down. IOW, the barometric change over the hour accounts for no floors, and, even if the barometer had fallen 0.03 inches, it would only have accounted for three floors.

So, why the 59 floors? I suspect the wind gusts must be causing short-term pressure fluctuations large enough to simulate at least one floor of elevation up or down. Whenever the noisy readings from the altimeter fluctuated downward by at least a floor, and I was walking, the tracker counted a floor.

That apparently occurred about once a minute during my indoor walk. It would be interesting if the tracker were to count floors descended separately. That number must have been similar.

[Rich_Laue]

Actually @garbuck  as a persons altitude got up, there is less air above them, with less air there will be less pressure, not more.

Fitbit is looking for a decrease in air pressure, not an increase.

So what is going on, I can only guess, you say it was very windy. How air tight is the house?

When wind blowing against something, there will always be a windward side where there will be a higher air pressure. This can be experience by simply blowing on your hand. 

The lee-ward will be in an area of low pressure  because the air is being pushed around the object. Nature hates a vacuum and this is why the back of some truck trailers are dirty.

Now unless your house is air tight the wind may be causing changes in the air pressure.

[moome]

Must have climbed the stairs about 3 times today. We had a storm earlier today and I was on the balcony tying my outdoor table to the railing. Now my Fitbit reads 47!

[Rich_Laue]

Doesn't surprise me. Low atmospheric pressure comes with storms. 

[mikes62chevy]

At work I sometimes wear heavy steel toe shoes and they register extra floors. Never happens with basketball or running shoes