I have had problems with my Garmin Vivoactive 3 with it not recording stairs climbed accurately, in fact it is useless at this and even locks itself out from counting stairs if you run up and down flights continually.The watch is less than 6 months old and Garmin and Decathlon have agreed it needs to be exchange, I was going to go back to Fitbit but the reliability of the GPS on Garmin suedes me to stay with Garmin, I am considering upgrading to a Garmin Fenix 5 GPS Watch, any comments would be greatly appreciate, especially with regard to flight of stairs count, this may seem strange but as part of my exercise regime I like to run up and down 100 flight of stairs or more in one session.
Mine has never been very good at counting floors. It is so poor in fact, that I never even look at the floor details anymore and I definitely couldn’t recommend it if this is important to you. There are lots of posts around the internet attesting to how poor it is in this area.
It’s not that important to me and I love everything else about the watch, but the altimiter does let it down. I even notice that if it doesn’t get a good fix for GPS auto calibration, the elevation on my runs can be way off.
That's very interesting thank you, it is worth while mentioning to you that I have done this to death with the Garmin helpdesk over the last few months and they are of the opinion it is down to the watch I have even in spite of all the bad comments on here, I have informed them that Fitbit records stairs very well but they just don't seem to be interested, I wouldn't be that bother if their Manual and Watch didn't make reference to it and have apps for it, but since they do it should work. As I have said I do use stairs in my routine which is why I would like a watch that records them reasonably accurately. Thanks you for your input it has been very useful.
It has been suggested that the flights of stairs here in the UK aren’t actually high enough to trigger a count from the altimeter, but how much truth there is in that I don’t know. Either way, I wouldn’t expect too much if you decide to go ahead. I too had a Fitbit many years ago and even back then, stair count seemed fairly accurate so I’m not sure why Garmin, especially at this price point, can’t match their performance. Fortunately it’s not a stat I’m too worried about or I’d definitely be returning it.
Skip workshybum - I'm in the UK and have had 935 and now Fenix 5+ - both count floors reasonably reliably albeit with a bit of a lag. In my house (a victorian semi) I usually have to go upstairs a couple of times for it to count 1 floor but at work 1 floor roughly correlates to 1 physical floor. I don't run up and down the stairs so I can't comment on whether that would impact the outcome but I don't see why it should - if anything the more rapid pressure change I would have thought might be easier for the watch to detect. Any reason that you are going to the Fenix rather than the 935 or one of the other Garmins ? If you want maps and music then yes go for the 5+ but if not the 935 performs well has excellent battery life and is much lighter and thinner.
1. You need to be swinging your arm for it to count floors - otherwise it assumes you are riding the elevator. 2. Check the altimeter/barometer settings. In altimeter mode, the watch assumes all air pressure changes are due to elevation changes (and will count floors), in barometer mode, it assumes all changes are due to changes in ambient air pressure (ie. no elevation changes, therefore no floors). In auto mode, it tries to guess what is going on, but sometime guesses wrong. If you want to count floors, choose altimeter mode.
In my house (a victorian semi) I usually have to go upstairs a couple of times for it to count 1 floor but at work 1 floor roughly correlates to 1 physical floor.
Yes similar here, I have much more reliable counts from office block environments, although I always seem to have many more flights up than flights down.
Workshybum, The issue of the height of the stairs isn't the problem I am certain of this as the stair count of Fitbit works extremely well I know this as a fact as I have had 3 Fitbits of from the simplest one to the more expensive ones, this week I had my Garmin and my Fitbit on and the Fitbit recorded the stairs accurately. I also know from other Fitbit users that they have not had any problems. On top of that the Garmin does count stairs but does so very erratically, It may count the first few flights of stairs then do nothing for hours. I have run up and down a double flight of stairs over a 100 times but the Garmin has only ever counted a maximum of 28 flights but has recorded the stairs I have gone down accurately.Thanks for your input it is always useful to have different insights.
mcalistaI the following is a post I had put elsewhere in the forum, just thought it would cover of the points made by you, thank you for your response it is most appreciated. :- I have reported this issue twice now, on the first occasion I was told to reboot the Garmin but it made no difference, this week I was sent a link to the Garmin website so I could ensure that my Garmin was completely up to date, which it was. I have updated this twice this week. The problem has actually got worse since I did this, I am lucky if it records two set of stairs a day, I have today climbed an elevation made up of stairs on a hill where I know I always seem to get a reasonable count of stairs and it worked fine, however if I go to my local gym and run up and down two flights of stairs it would only record a few of the stairs/ flights going up but most of the stairs/flights coming down, it is seriously annoying. I honestly don't think they know how to resolve the problem. I have a Vivoactive 3, bought in July, I am seriously thinking of taking it back to Decathlon before it is 6 months old. I changed to Garmin as the GPS connection on the Fitbit I had to my phone was rubbish, whereas with the Garmin the inbuilt GPS is excellent and very reliable, that said I want all the functions to work not just some. I very often do 60 plus flights of stairs at the gym which I want recording accurately. At best it will do a maximum of 28 and then freeze, I have tried all manner of different styles of stairclimbing but none make any difference, I am sure some of the others at the gym must have thought I had lost the plot if they viewed the different ways I was climbing the stairs just to see if any worked better than the others, I have gone one stair at a time, two stairs at a time, fast slow, waving my arms about , hold the banister, not holding the banister even bouncing up the stairs one at a time, it makes no difference. On top of this the face book tracking facility has been taken away, this may not be Garmin's fault but it is just another function that I had which now doesn't work. The Fitbit stair function works brilliantly, if I can find a Fitbit with a GPS that works as good as Garmin's, the Garmin is going back for a full refund. I have attempted to check my Barometer/Altimeter in settings but I cant see anyway to adjust them, any advise would be appreciated.
JSRUNNER thankyou for your reply, the only reason I was looking to upgrade to the Fenix 5 was because I was wrongly assuming that a higher spec watch might actually work better, which from the post on this section and indeed the post made under the heading of stair counts when you search this forum would suggest that Garmin have a major problem with all its models as far as the stair counting function goes. I will have a look at the fore runner 935 as you have suggested.
