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What's the secret to tracking stairs accurately?

8716614
over 4 years ago

I live in s townhouse and go up and down the stairs frequently every day, yet sometimes it only tracks 1 flight up or down. It's even stranger when it tracks only one way!

  • +1 over 4 years ago

    Some tips that helped me with the floors count accuracy considerably:

    1. The pressure sensor reading of the barometric altimeter is influenced by the temperature, so make sure to warm-up properly before you start, in order to keep the watch at higher temperature since the beginning of the activity. If you calibrate the altimeter, do it only after warming up.

    2. Never take stairs by two (or more), or do it consistently always

    3. Keep as regular pace as possible

    4. Do not hold on the railing, and especially not with the hand wearing the watch!

    5. Do not look at the watch during the climb, rather make sure that the hand continues with its natural movement, do not raise the hand during the climb

    6. Make sure the pressure sensor orifice is dry and clear of debris; when sweating a lot, dry the hand under the orifice (i.e. with a tshirt) so that the sweat does not clog it

    7. When you climb and descend just a few floors repeatedly (I do), then walk on the same floor before changing the direction, until the last floors are counted. Sometimes it takes up to ~30s. Sometimes I need to raise the hand on the upper floor, before the count increments (my floors may be perhaps a few cm below the limit of 3m, so the extra ~m when raising the hand, at the top, may trigger the change)

    8. If you own a device with GPS, consider doing your Floor Climb activities outdoors, while adjusting the activity settings (directly on the watch) and activating the GPS option. Once the activity synced, you can then open the activity page in Garmin Connect Web, and enable the option Elevation Correction. Although it will not change the number of floors climbed, or the Ascent, it will correct the Elevation Gain value.

    9. If you are still having problems, verify that you altimeter really works - open the ABC menu, scroll to the Altimeter screen and climb or descend a floor. If the elevation does not change, the pressure sensor may be locked in the barometric mode. Verify the sensor settings (also available in the ABC menu, or in the System settings). Use either the Auto mode, or set it to the mode "Altimeter only".
  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    Excellent information, well done!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    Thank you very much, I tried your method, considers the floors correctly!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to trux

    Don’t take this the wrong way. Where is the hole?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7277551
    7277551 said:
    Don’t take this the wrong way. Where is the hole?

    Depends on the device model, of course. Either you'll see it right away (most likely there won't be any other hole), or you find it in the user manual for your model, or you can google it out. Or you can ask on the forum, and wait whether a fellow user of the same model peeks in and answers. Google is usually the fastest solution.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to trux

    I'm pretty disappointed to read this! I do a stair climbing workout in a 10-story building. I will do as many as 15 laps in a session, which should give me 150 floors climbed. I never get that many! Today I did the workout by climbing 12 laps in this building. After the 6th lap I checked my floors climbed, and my watch reported 59 floors climbed. Pretty close to accurate, so I won't complain. I proceeded to do 6 more laps before calling it a day - and recorded exactly 59 floors climbed! My watch had simply stopped recording my floors climbed! I have had similar results during other workouts!

    My usual routine is to break up the workout into 3 lap sets. I do two ascents one step at a time. I do the 3rd lap 2 steps at a time. That's one set. I will then repeat that 4 or 5 times to complete the workout. The idea that I can't do the 3rd lap the way I do is absurd! If my Instinct is reading variations in barometric pressure as I climb the building I can't see what the number of stairs I take with each step would have to do with it! When I'm climbing a hill on my bicycle my Edge is capable of calculating feet climbed no matter what my cadence is, why can't my watch?

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to MichaelFinger
    MichaelFinger said:
    When I'm climbing a hill on my bicycle my Edge is capable of calculating feet climbed no matter what my cadence is, why can't my watch?

    There are many factors playing a role, and making the task of climbing floors much more challenging than just measuring the elevation when riding a bike or running outdoors. Basically, indoors, only the barometric pressure sensor can be used for detecting the altitude changes. GPS is not available to assist (like on devices with the continuous calibration mode). And the atmospheric pressure indoors, in enclosed space, can quickly change for a number of reasons - air condition, ventilation, heating, wind from open windows, or even by the opening or closing of doors, by changes of temperature, or by temperature differences over the space, etc. You may be also taking an elevator, escalator, driving a car, etc - the watch must filter out those cases too.

    The watch has to distinguish for example also when you really climb the floors, and do not take the lift. And since you are indoors, without GPS, it cannot detect whether you are really changing the position (elevation) or whether it is the ambient atmospheric pressure that changes. There are many similar problem situations and other factors involved.

    For these reasons the watch is trying to detect whether you really climb floors, with the help of the other sensors (accelerometer, gyroscope /if available/, compass, and likely also the HRM) trying to recognize the motion patterns used when climbing or descending stair scales. And that's definitely not a trivial task. It also requires quite some computing, so you often see the floors counter registering them with a rather long delay. A learning algorithm, analyzing your climbs over the time and adapting the detection, may be also involved.