Frozen floor count

[Moving-to-Atlas]

[Edited for typos]

I have the Surge with firmware version: 16.34.5.14

I know that the floor count can get off based on various things but this report is how I can cause the Surge to stop counting after 7 floors every time. I have duplicated this 3 times now. Lost 4 floors the first time, and 5 floors on two other occasions. The last time was last night. I'm walking the exact same course every day and the Surge is almost always exact. 

The way I can stop it from counting is to swipe over to display the floor count as I walk (obviously this is not a GPS walk mode as floors is the one metric you can't look at directly on the watch in that mode).

If you drop your wrist down but turn it back up within a second or two it doesn't revert back to displaying the clock but stays in the floor count mode. This way you can get a good idea of just about when you move up in floor count. You just need to keep flipping the wrist back up frequent enough to keep the display on the floor count. The problem that I have seen 3 times now is that doing this will cause the floor count to freeze. This is not a display problem as the floors are not being counting. Even if you stop flipping your wrist up to see the floor count, it will not start counting floors again. I have only got it back by walking back down the road and starting over. To work around this bug, I now pair the Surge with my phone and watch the floor count increment on the fitbit app on the phone (and this is the only way to see floor count while in GPS mode anyway).

I will the returning my Surge. Not because of this issue but because outside of GPS mode I don't find it very accurate on steps no matter how I set it up. I have my stride set, I have tried toggling to non-dominant arm, etc. Its either way over on step count (like counting steps as I work seated at my desk) or doesn't pick up any steps if I take less than 10 regardless of how I swing my arms). Lastly even keeping the band and arm dry, swapping arms and trying to only put it on tight enough to get the pulse detected correctly, etc. the band is causing a rash to break out on my arms.

Moderator edit: edited title for clarity

[SunsetRunner]

Awesome bug catching @Moving-to-Atlas

Wishing a wonderful day

[ErickFitbit]

@Moving-to-Atlas After finding this bug with your Surge, did you ever attempt a restart of the Surge and then see if you could reproduce it after a restart? A restart is also a good troubleshoot to try when experiencing step accuracy questions.

I also recommend checking out out our product wear and care tips. If that doesn't resolve the discomfort I suggest reaching out to our Support Team, I am confident that they will be able to help out.

[Moving-to-Atlas]

[Edited for typos]

Of course I restarted it!

The first time to get it to work again it was required. I explained how I got it working again in my comment for the other times... but it had been restarted between two of them. And I've read all the "irritation" comments and the "product wear and care tips" page. I keep it clean, dry, and only tight enough to get an  HR reading. And I've moved it from 1" to 2" to 3" up, and on both arms, and no longer wear it to sleep. I still have red bands of irritation up both arms. As of today I'm only wearing it when I go on walks. Then taking it off.

Going to get with the person that bought it for me for Christmas and have them return it. It's pretty useless at this point.

[Moving-to-Atlas]

OK I just duplicated it 3 more times in one walk. The Surge has been off my wrist since I took it off last night (actually this morning around 1am). 

A little more info.... I walk an old, 2 lane highway route that has been pretty much abandoned by all but the locals as there is a new 4 lane route that replaced it. So except for the occasional car from the neighborhood, there isn't much traffic. The part of the road I walk on was chosen due to the elevations. Its not perfectly straight but imagine a "V" shaped route. At the bottom is a bridge over a wide creek, Up the longer leg of this route is ~0.47 miles and climbs 11 floors. Going the other direction is ~0.22 miles that climbs 4 floors. The road continues beyond on both ends but it flattens out and give me no more floors so I concentrate my walking to this defined area. I always (except when I hit this bug) get the 11 miles on one side and 4 on the other. In the past I paired the Surge with my phone and and while walking in GPS mode on the Surge, I "marked" off where the floor changes occur. It is always within a few feet every time.

OK so for this walk I started with 7 floors on the Surge from my last walk from last night which crossed over midnight. I walked down to the bridge and while there switched to looking at the floors and took off up the side that normally gives 11 floors. With every swing of my arm I looked at the Surge and as the backlight came on I took note of the floor count and then dropped it back down for the next swing. After hitting 9 floors (so after 2 floors) it locked at showing only 9. Once I got past what would should have been 4 floors up (so the Surge should have been showing 11 floors), I stopped looking at it and manually took it off floor display by hitting the "home" button twice all while still walking. After what would usually be another 2 floors up I found the floor count started again. There was no need to reset it, or walk down floors... I just needed to take it off showing the floors and keep walking and it eventually started counting again. I recreated the issue one more time gwhile still going up that side of the route. I then walked half way down and turned around and duplicated it for a third time. This last time I just swiped it off floors to the clock view. From then on I walked both legs of this route and got the 11 floors on one side and 4 on the others.

So this bug is easily reproduced.

My setting today are:

Quick View Gesture: On
Heart Rate: On
Dominant Hand: Non Dominant

Although in the past when I first had the problem I had the Surge on the arm of my dominant hand, so this last setting was "Dominant" last time I did this test.