Stair Flights reported while on flat treadmill

[JThompson]

Possibly related to the other Surge elevation-related messages, but when I'm running on a treadmill, I'm getting credited with 40-80 flights of stairs climbed.
1) Shouldnt happen because I'm staying in one spot.
2) Shouldnt happen because The Surge has been told that I'm running on a treadmill.
The treadmill is set at 0 incline, so even there -were- logic to sense that I was having to step up a bit (and then slide back down) ... it shouldn't sense that happening.

[AlejandraFitbit]

Welcome to the Community @JThompson. It's weird to hear that your Surge is recording floors while you are on a treadmill. I recommend restarting your Surge by following @MeylinP's instructions. After the restart process please test your tracker. If it keeps registering floors, feel free to contact our support team since they have the proper tools to see this type of information.

Let me know the outcome. 

[JThompson]

I restarted per the instructions, and this evening, I ran on the treadmill again (and set that as my run type on the Surge).
According to it, I climbed about 60 flights of stairs in the next 45 minutes, all while on a treadmill indoors with no incline.
😞

[JThompson]

??? I did not click on anything that should have indicated "success." Don't know why the post is claiming that. 😕

[JThompson]

I don't know if this is significant, but I looked back through my history, and it looks like the problem started around 02-June. Before that, the flights climbed look reasonable, and I don't think they include erroneous treadmill running flights of stairs.

[AngelaMa]

Hello @JThompson, thanks for sharing the information. My advise is to reach out to our support team for assitance, let them know with details the issue you are experiencing with your floors so they can further investigate, they can take a look at your tracker's back-end information and provide you personalized assitance. 

Let me know how it goes! 

[megkds]

I just got back from a six mile run on a totally flat island but my surge added 70 flights (the biggest change in elevation i encountered was stepping onto the sidewalk again after a crosswalk...). It is also strange that Strava did not pick up those mystery flights even though strava got my data directly from fitbit (strava shows an increase or decrease of 0-1 feet per mile which sounds correct). I have restarted my Surge and hopefully don't see this again.

[JThompson]

I did reach out to the support team.  Sad to say, I was less than impressed with the assistance.

It looks like the problem is either sweat clogging/disrupting the pressure sensor, or (far less likely in my opinion) air pressure changes possibly caused by doors opening/closing.  I find that nearly impossible to believe.

The most reasonable/relevant "solutions" offered were :

1) to clean my watch off before, *during*, and after working out... which is not really fasible (the middle one... I already do clean it after workouts, and I'm reasonably sure that it's not dirty before them)

2) to manually remove the floors that shouldn't have been counted.  This strikes me as less than optimal

3) to just accept it as "okay" ... which also strikes me as less than optimal

In addition, it was suggested that I might need to turn the watch off when it generates the false floors... which indicates to me that they didn't read the detailed message, which included that the floors were recorded specifically during this exercise.  Turning my watch off during exercise is truly useless as a suggestion.

They then suggested I go back to the forums (specifically the enhancement/suggestion one) to suggest that since treadmill running is not supposed to count floors, actually turn off the floor-counting when in this exercise mode.

This sounds not like an enhancement, but a correction or bug-fix.  As such, I don't think it's appropriate to have it suggested in a forum, similar to requests for (e.g.) additional clock faces, and hope for enough popular support that it would be considered.

The experience with Fitbit support left me (far) less than impressed.

[JuanJoFitbit]

@megkds Thanks for joining us in this thread! I understand that your tracker added extra floors after your run activity.

I'd like to mention that your tracker registers a floor when it detects continuous motion combined with an elevation gain of about 10 feet. Your Surge may also give you credit for extra floors for a variety of reasons. There are some pressure changes unrelated to elevation gains, such as a gust of wind, weather change, or opening a door. If a weather front comes through, or you walk in a wind, you can get floors as well.

@JThompson It's great to see you in the Community! Thanks for trying the steps that our Support team shared with you. If you were holding on to the treadmill bars, there is a chance that your whole movement was not detected since your tracker uses changes in barometric pressure and forward movement to detect elevation and distance change, and therefore requires that you physically change elevation and movement in order to properly record floors and distance.

While our Support team mentioned, I'm sorry to hear that this happened to you since they also told you those tips in order to prevent this to happen.

If more questions arise, let me know my friends and I'll be around! 

[JThompson]

Hi JuanJo -

Once again... I am not complaining that my Surge is *failing* to report flights of stairs. I am complaining that it is recording extra flights... lots and lots of extra flights.

I am not holding on to the treadmill's rails (I'm running, and along with being incredibly inefficient, the treadmill complains mightily if you hang on (if it can tell) while running. But if I were somehow, and it was failing to record flights that it should not record... I'm on a treadmill, then that would be a good thing!

This is what is frustrating me every time I communicate with you folk. I am complaining about getting flights which I am not taking, and which per documentation and reasonable understanding the Surge should not recognize (I am on a treadmill... I am not chaning elevation), and over and over again, I see a response that says that maybe my movement wasn't detected, and it didn't properly record the change in elevation. Once again... There is no change in elevation! I am on a treadmill. It has no incline. I am not climbing a slope. I am not going up (or down) in elevation.

What I am asking, since the Surge is apparently getting confused by -something- in its pressure sensor, is that the software be updated so that if you say you're on a treadmill, it believes you, and turns off the flight recording.

Moderator Edit: Format

[AlejandraFitbit]

Thanks for the information @JThompson. I think that it time for you to contact our support team, since they have the proper tools to see the information that your tracker is registering. For a faster response you can contact them via phone or chat. 

Let me know the outcome.