Sense is counting too many floors

[Deepvalley]

My new sence dosnt counting the right floors there are too much what can i do. sg Kurt

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[BlazeFS]

I'm really hoping some of us with the stairs issue get the update soon to see if it fixes it. If not, I suspect you are right about a hardware fault.

[Rich_Laue]

@Micsb fitbit like apple says 10 feet or 3 meters combined with the steps taken. We don't know what the step rule is. 

Fitbit should only add stairs when fitbit detects that the user is walking. Fitbit hasn't mentioned how many steps. 

Back in October, before the last firmware, steps where fairly accurate, we all know that this has been a problem with the release of last November's update. 

Yes, even apple watches have plenty of stair count complaints. A quick search will bring up many hits. 

Both units are trying to measure a change in air pressure that is less than the weight of 2 square inches of paper. It will be a while before anyone gets this perfect. 

With fitbit, the problem is in a bug that was introduced in the last firmware. 

One thing we do know, is that fitbit does not use the stair count for any other calculations. 

Fitbit does not use GPS for floor counts. 

If GPS is used during a walk, this requires locks on 4 satalites, the change in altitude will be displayed on the web based map. 

[Micsb]

updated: Floor is 3 meters, I swear my Sense  creditted floors every 2 meters on my trials yesterday. Have since restarted it and it is now every 3 meters. Made two more tests today.

@Rich_Laue I prefer Fitbits method of reporting height over Apple. Just pointing out that there is a major difference and some complaints are coming from users changing from other devices to Fitbit.

Apples stair unit is 3 meters over 16 steps. A slow incline will credit 0 stairs while a steep incline will credit stairs per 3 meter. I have tested this.

Fitbit Sense Floor unit is a uniform height standard across metric and imperial systems. Fitbit says it will count floors whenever activity is registered, might be 2 steps or 500 steps. After a run or walk exercise, the watch will show the gained height metets, divede this with 3 and it equals the floors gained.

This is great, multiply floors with 3 and i can see how many height meters i have travelled each day.

Regarding the over abundance of floors recorded  now, i accept the premise that wind and air movement are huge contributors, especially as Fitbit uses total accumulated height meters. One thing that has changed, now that i think about it, one month ago, sun and warmer temperatures. I replaced winter jacket and gloves with summer jacket or walking with short sleeves only. The winter jacket protected the watch from wind and reming this magnified the false height meters.

[Johann60]

Call them, they'll tell you it's because of the weather and the wind, lol or they'll tell you that they are aware of the problem but have no immediate solutions, in fact they have no solutions i think the problem will never be fixed !!

[down_and_out]

the reason I find it difficult to accept that the wind and air movement are huge factors is that neither exists in a sealed home (R2000) to any appreciable degree, nor has being outdoors at different temperatures and whether the sense is covered or not.   We have been getting extremes this winter and spring and there is little variation in the count Sense gives for stairs.  Arm swinging is the other excuse provided as is air pressure changes.  If either were the primary factors then users would experience variations as pressure changes rather than when a low or high pressure stalls overhead.

Waking up and sitting on the side of the bed in a pressure controlled house should result in a consistent number (+/- a small variation) and not the large number of stairs being recorded.   Walking up and down the driveway during the course of a day should not see huge variations.

[Shoshe933]

I’ve had my Sense about two months and the steps become widely inaccurate over the past 3-4 weeks.  It started out just fine.

[Rich_Laue]

@down_and_out yes weather, clouds, incoming storm can affect the stair count. Also most houses are not very well sealed. 

However this crazy floor count started back in November after people installed the last firmware. 

We are hoping that the firmware that is now being rolled out includes a fix. 

[down_and_out]

My house is sealed which removes issues like the A/C excuse, open window etc  And if outside air pressure changes were the cause there would be a noticeable relationship to the variations in stair count.  But if I go into the basement and back up more than once in the same hour the "count" should be reasonably close to 1 or 2 or 0 each time I go down and up.  But they weren't - which does argue for either a coding error or a hardware issue.

But Fitbit's list of possible causes does not stand up to scrutiny.

[MikaelHagen]

Very much doubt new firmware will fix it, at least my Fitbit says new
firmware (44.128.5.38) was installed a couple days ago and floor count
still crazy (93 so far not left apartment). Never get floor count when in
bed though as some other reported.

[Arecad]

You are not the first to report that floor count bug is not fixed in the most recent update that came out last week. Not a good sign at all that this bug has been around for months and it was completely ignored - that is, will never be fixed. This means likely it's faulty hardware and no software is going to fix it. I have said this before, if the floor count is faulty and cannot be fixed, please remove it completely in next firmware update and admit to the issue.

[Beezy1978]

I’m real mad about this. I’ve had a few issues with my Sense that I overlook, because I figured heck, covid, idk… they’ll get around to it… anyhow I paid full price for this AND got the warranty, and I’m not happy with how FitBit doesn’t even read my emails to them. I know this is true, because I had an issue with my female tracking. Over and over I told them my issues, over and over I got the same canned response.

 In addition…

i was on Facebook the other Day. The Luce was advertised, but I didn’t want it because it didn’t have stairs. I commented and said do, and Fitbit replied, along me to reset my watch. I had to laugh.

 How, I asked, would resetting my Fitbit sense help the fact that the luxe doesn’t count stairs?? 😆

 so, i didn’t even notice my stair issue, because it worked PERFECTLY for the first but I had it (upon release). Looking at my history? It’s screwy as all git out! 😒

Im officially disappointed with FitBit.

 Anyone know if you can get a new released FitBit (say, the luxe) if you got the warranty? 
ty in advance for any input.

i like so much about my sense, but there’s too many issues snd I’m bitter I didn’t so much on it when it turned so cheap so quickly. Irks me.

 FitBit, fix the stairs. fix the female tracking so it doesn’t always tell me 0 days until my period… make it so my “workout” app on the watch actually DISPLAYS SOMETHING, also the hourly count- tap that one and it tells you to set up hourly step count. At least my Versa  displayed my recent workouts, this sense just tells me to open my phone app to see info about recent workouts. 
really??? Smh.

 Somebody let me know if you got something out okay? Im FitBit loyal, mostly because sleep tracking/stages, stress score… oh dear don’t get me started on stress score. Have to go to bed AFTER 8 pm to get a score, so DUMB. I used to got to bed at 7:30, i have the luxury of changing my bedtime to acomodaste this stupidity, but a lot of people can’t do that.

 Anyhow, here’s my grievances concerning the flawed stair count and all the other issues including erroneous heart rate accuracy during exercise. I work our way harder than the sense says.

 I’m pretty angry at this company.

[Beezy1978]

Great. So now my Fitbit will record my husband snoring. 🤦🏻‍:female_sign:

--------------

How did you get a new one???

 Please help!

[BrewCityRider]

Definitely a firmware issue and not hardware related because steps worked until last update. This means that Fitbit should be able to fix this issue, so there is still hope. Now I can't speak to whether or not they have the will to fix it due to a potential revamp under Google ownership. 

[Micsb]

Yay, I think i found the problem, or at least the cause of my extremely high number of floors and fixed it.

I cleaned the sensor, it mist have been clogged with dust and dead skin cells. Rinsed it under a flow of luke warm wather. Read this trick for similiar issues with the garmin altitude readings.

From last year: pretty accurate view 

 

 

Same route as above, the last month

and

 

And now, watch this after first attempt at cleaning the sensor. It also stopped logging huge number of floors while walking around outside

I noticed the pressure reding in the elevation app was way off at times, today it read 999 hpa instaed of the correct ~1016 here this morning.
After rinsing the sensor it read out 1016 and was rock solid unlike earlier where at was drifting up and down. 

 

[FatBasdard]

I've made my decision. Floor issues, coupled with a 3-day battery life with all extra functions off, including screenwake, nearly 4 hours to recharge to 100%, and a 'slow charge' warning message, and paying for premium on top? ... Nah, I'm done. Will sell it before its 'warranty' expires in October and move on to competitor device, which costs more, but at least has none of those issues and a support which stands behind its product. 

I've put my watch in a kilner jar, walked up the road and back, as flat as flatbread mind you, and it still reported a climb of 10 floors. 

[Micsb]

@FatBasdard I had actually planned to do something similar in order to rule out the wind.

Have you tried ti install the Altimeter-QNH app? I reads out the sensor on the adjust pressure panel in what seems to be realtime. My readings was frequently way off, at times whats compareable to 100 meter off the actual pressure. It would often drift upwards, slowly.

i compared it with the altimeter readout from iphone and weather forecast pressure maps. 

After rinsing it with water, its reading is spot on and no longer drifts up or down. I used the magnifier from iphone camera and could ser dust in the hole blocking it, not visible without light and magnification.

The hint about cleaning the altimeter sensor came from Garmin forum, and i assume all devices are prone to this problem, especially when worn on the arm 24 hours a day and being covered by sweat while exercising in warm environments.

Someone on the Garmin forum recommended to take frequent swims in a pool with the watch to keep the altimeter sensor clean 😂

[BlazeFS]

@Micsb, how do you know what the altimeter sensor is? 

[Micsb]

@BlazeFS It it the tiny round needle size hole on the same side as the speaker and microphone

[Johann60]

Bad news for the Sense and Versa 3, after receiving the last update, the floor count problem is still present and has not been repaired contrary to what the support had said, I already have 40 floors to my watch and I have only been awake for 1 hour, now we have confirmation that they do not know how to fix the problem and that they are telling us nonsense !!  What do you think and what can we do?

[BrewCityRider]

Just got the 44.128.5.38 firmware update last night. Checking stair count on my Sense this morning and purposely doing some flights, so far the count is accurate! Will continue to monitor and report updates.