Versa counting too many floors.

[Acharpia]

Ever since I got my Versa it seems to be grossly over exaggerating my stair count. I had the Charge 2 before the Versa and it was fairly accurate with my stair count, but now it’s more than doubling the number of floors I climb in a day.

Is this a known issue? Has the way in which the Versa calculates stairs climbed change significantly over the Charge 2? I’ve now gone from averaging 15 floors a day to 34. 

Moderator Edit: Clarified Subject.

[Jchen10]

I returned mine☹️

Sent from my iPhone

[13maria]

I'm sure there are lots of us out there with this problem... and what
bothers me the most is the lack of response from Fitbit.

[Atanu]

Same issue here. I bought this new Versa last Friday (03.08.2018). On the very first day I found that my first floor climb was logged as 3. Rest of the day it was logging fine. So on first day,I climbed 14 floor, & my Versa shows 13. Day#02: Same, First climb as 3 count. Total climbed 14 in that day, Versa logged 16.

Day#03(Yesterday): I reverified with my Samsung Gear S3, which I was using before Versa & it was calculating each floor perfectly. I found I climbed total 15 Floor, Samsung Gear S3 shows 15, Versa showing 23.

And Finally today(Day#04), I climbed only 3 steps as of now & Versa showing 13 floors.

I was so excited to buy this watch.I hope this gets fixed in a patch

[SunsetRunner]

Stair climbing is definitely flawed. I hope they fix it soon.

Sent from my iPhone

Moderator edit: personal info removed

[SunsetRunner]

Hi, I have been testing 4 days straight and at the end day, I have accumulated 30+ floors when I have climbed 10 at most

Two other incidents that I would also like to share on top of that

1) I have been walking around my home which is single level. After 1/3 of the day pasted, I realised that it has captured 9 floors when I did not even climb a floor at all. 

2) Today is the worst, I am at work and needed to carry some load to the second floor from first floor. I repeated it around 4-5 times. Since I already knew of the inaccuracy , I was expecting that it might captured double which might result in 10 floors or more. To my astonishment, it have clocked in 62 floors. There's still half a day more to go and it's not windy btw. 

Is this a known bug? cos it certainly felt like one.

[Pulsar2]

Orlandro and others. I am amazed that too date no one from Fitbit has responded on this issue. I have sent the following to their Help contact address. It will be interesting to see what the response is: (if any!)

"The Fitbit forum is full of complaints about the Versa being hopelessly innaccurate at counting flights of stairs, with many returning their watch for a refund.
Read here: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Versa/Versa-counting-too-many-floors/m-p/2892298#M40761.
Other fitbit devices have been very good and accurate at this - but the Versa is hopeless. I think it is time for Fitbit to officially respond and say whether this is going to be fixed or not. So far there has been no response from Fitbit.
I would be very grateful to hear from somebody in Fitbit that knows what is going on with this issue."

If I get a response I'll post it here.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi all, this is the reply I gotten for Fitbit live chat

It's been a pleasure chatting with you today about the data inaccuracy issue of your Fitbit Versa. 

We also appreciate your cooperation in trying to troubleshoot this issue with us. We also apologize that our chat got disconnected. 

Since we just restarted your Versa, please monitor if the data inaccuracy issue of it will persists. 

Nonetheless, we recommend checking below and trying the tips and recommendations to improve the accuracy of your watch: 
For step accuracy tips please check How accurate are Fitbit devices? 

For floors accuracy, please be guided that our device uses both an accelerometer and altimeter to track floors, and registers a floor when detecting continuous motion combined with an elevation gain of about 10 feet.

Your device may give you credit for extra floors for a variety of reasons. Devices may track floors while doing everyday tasks such as opening doors, driving, or riding elevators or escalators, or from abrupt weather and atmospheric pressure changes Exposure to excess moisture can also result in extra floors. We recommend that you wear your device loosely during exercise. If you want to remove floors from your account, see: help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/1306.

For sleep inaccuracy, please make sure that the Versa is snug on your wrist or the lights shouldn't be visible while wearing it to sleep. Also, please try sleeping with the watch on your non-dominant hand.

Please monitor if the issue still persists after trying the tips above as well as the issue in calories burned inaccuracy for a swim activity. 

We hope this helps. Also, do not hesitate to let us know if you have other concerns. 

You may reply to this email or contact us again via chat, just provide our case number 26215715 to the next agent.

Sincerely,

Arlyn R. and the Fitbit Team

--

[Pulsar2]

Olandro

That is interesting but doesn't address a key issue: Other Fitbit devices are reasonably accurate at counting stairs - even my old Fitbit One did this really well. I suspect they have fitted a more sensitive pressure sensor, but they haven't sorted out the software algorithms to filter out these fluctuations. With the Fitbit One I used to try and fool it when driving up a hill by waving it about to make it think I was walking/running up a hill - but never managed to fool it. With the Versa it even registers flights of stairs when driving.

Its disappointing that no one from Fitbit is responding to this forum or acknowledging there is an issue.

[Ladyash]

This is what I can't understand. My Blaze counted floors flawlessly. I would get a few extra floors here and there because I live on the 10th floor and take the elevator so it would count that as stairs, but I would check after taking the elevator and count stairs the rest of the day and it was spot on. I returned it because after 6 months the battery stopped functioning properly. I replaced it with the Versa and ever since I seem to clock in 100 stairs give or take on a daily basis. It's wildly inaccurate. I climb maybe 25 flights of stairs per day counting the subway and stairs at work so I can't figure out how my fitbit seems to think I climb over 100 flights per day. Even on the weekend when I didn't leave the house at all my fitbit seemed to think I magically climbed 37 floors. 

[ShaunMcGill]

The fault is bad enough, but the way Fitbit support is effectively trying to cover it up is not impressive at all. Puts me off the whole company. 

[SunsetRunner]

This is the latest update reply i gotten from Fitbit support.

Thanks for getting back to us and for sharing your honest feedback also on your time troubleshooting this with us.

Rest assured that, Fitbit has worked hard to make sure that our devices do not pick up false steps or activity recordings while driving a car or a motorcycle. However, bumpy trails or the vibrations while your hand is on the motor ride can sometimes cause your Fitbit to register extra steps and floors(due to the air that may pass on the altimeter on the Versa). As it may track floors while doing everyday tasks and atmospheric pressure changes.

Regardless of activity, we'd like to ask for your cooperation that you can negate steps and floors by logging a driving activity on your activity log. To do so:

1. Sign into your Dashboard and click the 'Log Activity' icon from the menu at the top of the screen.
2. Select the date or dates in question.
3. In the activity menu, type in "Driving" and enter the time and duration of time that you were driving.
4. Click "Log Activity." You will see the steps, calories burned, and other data decrease for the time period specified.

You can continue this process on all the dates in question to decrease your steps, calories burned, and other activity data. Also, your floor count does not get factored into calorie burn. 

Also, we appreciate your interest on the firmware updates. Rest assured that we are constantly working on latest feature enhancements and product improvements are made through updates to help people live healthier lives. We don’t have news to share at this time, updates are through the Fitbit app on your mobile, we recommend that you keep your tracker updated.

We hope this can be helpful, give it a try and keep us posted in case you need anything else.  All we want is to keep you on track to stay healthy and reach your wellness goals also for you to enjoy using your Fitbit.

Lastly, we'll take your feedback into account to continue improving our products and services.

Should any of the issues persist, don't hesitate to contact us.

Sincerely,

Kirk Neil S. and the Fitbit Team

I have tried to do that. To be honest, i don't even feel there's a need to do all these data entry. It really defeat the purpose of getting this watch in the first place.

But nevertheless, i given it a try. And this is what i found

- The extra calories generated by the floors has been 'removed'

- The Floors count still remains the same in thr dashboard

- The Steps seems to be similar (Can't confirm as i did not monitor it)

[tallgeoff]

You have done a lot of work and got a detailed response.
I didn't buy a Versa to go back and manually record activity to make the device accurate. It's auto features are what make fitness devices worth buying.
I also don't know of any other device that asks users to do this. Fitbit has a lemon in Versa. I barely use mine anyone beyond a watch and heart rate and sleep monitor. I laugh when I get my badges for my steps and calories. I should have returned mine. So sad.

Geoff

Moderator edit: personal info removed

[Pulsar2]

This is the latest response from the Fitbit support team. I had suggested that this needed to be escalated to the Technical development team, as their response that Versa would record stairs if in an elevator or in a car indicated there was a fault with their algorithms and that this isn't a problem with their other devices.

Response:

Thank you for your suggestion/feedback and this highly noted and will be escalated to our technical team.

In the meantime, we're constantly striving to improve Fitbit products and services, and we very much appreciate all of the input we receive from our customers. The best place to make your voice heard is the Ideas board on our community (https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Requests/idb-p/features), which our product development teams consult regularly to ensure we're delivering on what our customers need and want. Please take a moment to visit and give us your feedback.

If you find that a similar suggestion has already been made by another member of the community, you can vote for their idea and add your comments. Our product team looks forward to reading and incorporating your suggestions into future versions of Fitbit trackers and apps.

Looking forward to your feedback and do appreciate you for participating in our community.

Let us know if you have further questions. Hoping for your kind understanding with regard to this matter.

Sincerely,

Ronaldo P. and the Fitbit Team

[SunsetRunner]

I’ve had the Versa for a week and a half, and I have noticed that it records stairs climbed while I’m driving. I wore the Charge 2 for 6 months, and I only had this issue once while driving through the mountains. 

I absolutely LOVE the look of the Versa, but with the HR inaccuracy (my resting HR has gone up 10 BPM; it immediately dropped 2 beats when I switched back to my Charge 2 for 10 minutes) and step count lag, I’m starting to lean towards returning it.

[13maria]

it is a bug, but FitBit is not acknowleging the issue or duing anything about it...

[Gjjen]

They told me that tech support was the only was to get resolution. Tech support told me the device  can be unreliable outdoors. It frequently under counts going up mountains as well as over counts on small climbs. I think we are seeing the impact of enclosing the altimeter to make the device waterproof since we know Fitbit has had accuracy with other devices. I agree with everyone who is disappointed in the company response.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi everyone, 

Here's another update. 

I was so frustrated with the issues , that after spending so much time and effort to contact the support team, to perform all the numerous troubleshootings, to try out different walkaround and temp fix, to do manual data entry, i decided to go for a factory reset as per the support team 'Last resort' solution.

Did it fix my issues?

- My sleep tracking seems to track better now

- The steps count doesn't seems to have and difference

- The floor count still persist

But new issues surfaced

It started my new day (after 12am) with 5km of distance logged, when its supposed to be empty.

So i followed Kirk (from the support team) instructions to manually log the data, as i do not want the extra calories burnt and distance covered into my fresh day.

I contact the support again the following day to inform about this new issue.

You see the first bar on the extreme left with 733m, thats the one that log the 5km into my total distance, yet it does't reflect on the distance breakdown page.

And on another interface, you can clearly see the difference of total distance not tallying ( 7.25km vs 11.85km)

Guess their reply?

Thanks for getting back to us and for providing us with your information. 

Upon rechecking your account, we've confirmed that you have manually logged Driving activity last August 15, 2018. This is the reason why noticed  5 km. added to your data. 

Just to set your expectation, all steps, calories, and active minutes recorded by your tracker are overridden for the duration of a manually logged activity by the activity's entered values. This ensures that your steps are not counted twice as long as the manually logged activity has the correct start time and duration. 

Having that said, we recommend to delete the manual log activity(Driving) last August 15th to see your actual distance. To do so, 

1. Log into your fitbit.com dashboard.
2. At the top of the page click Log > Activities.
3. You'll see your activity last August 15th > Driving > View Details > You should see the trash icon. 
4. Kindly delete the manual logged activities to see your actual data. 

So i done another factory reset.

The 5km distance is still there after the reset.

I suddenly have another common Versa problem, the sync issue. The watch after the factory reset and the initial setup cannot sync with the watch

Bottom line

If you like data entry, have a passion to solve mystery issues and troubleshooting, loves communicating to new people (the support team) and starting new adventure (Factory resetting), then Fitbit Versa is the perfect companion 

[tallgeoff]

Very well said. I'm looking into a new fitness tracker and writing off my $200 investment.

Geoff

Moderator edit: personal info removed

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you all kind people.

I'm a happy man again. I have returned my Fitbit Versa.

Onto the next smart watch....

[Superrae]

I am having the same issue.  I haven't gone up any stairs today but it shows I have gone up 26...I just got it 2 days ago.