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Fenix 8 stairs count

Charles Hamel
7 months ago

I have been using the Fenix 8 for about 8 days. First Garmin watch, really like the experience overall.

The stairs count seems to be completely off. For example today, Saturday October 5th, the watch counted 11 stairs climbed. I live on the first floor and climb the stairs twice. I have the original Apple Watch on my other wrist and register 2 floors, same for my iPhone in my pocket. I went for a 5km walk on a mostly flat road (about 12 meters elevation which is 4 floors). But the inclination was never close to climbing a flight of stairs.

Most days, it register around 50% more than my other watch and my personal count.

I tried to do the clean-up and manual calibration on this page on Thursday : support.garmin.com/.../

It didn't change anything. Last night (Friday October 4th) I reset the watch, erase everything to the original settings. I did the software upgrade to 11.86 and clean-up the watch. I went outside to a clear space and started a walk workout and waited about 2 minutes so it could calibrate.

But like I said at the beginning, it doesn't seem to change anything. Is it possible that the altimeter is defective? I know it could happen, I had that problem a few years ago with a watch from another company. 

Anyone has that same kind of problem?

  • 0 7 months ago

    maybe its counting the phone stairs too?

  • 0 7 months ago

    So I just got the Fenix 8 and the step widget on the watch face when under 10,000 steps reads as 2.3k or 5.8k, but once you get over 10,000 steps it’s stays at 10k until you’ve reach 11k! It’s incredibly annoying to have to click into the widget to see your total steps. Is there a way to change this? 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to hacobfa1

    I'm new to Garmin so I don't really know but did you look at other watch face? 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to hacobfa1

    At least on my Forerunner 965, some watch faces show steps over 10000 as 10.0k, some as 10000. So as suggested above, maybe try another watch face.

  • 0 7 months ago

    Altimeter doesn't count the stairs. Barometer measures the barometric pressure change and altimeter takes this data and tries to decide if it should increase the elevation or keep it stable. While climbing up air pressure decreases and watch should increase the elevation. And elevation increase will result in stair count increase, too. However, during a stormy time, weather pressure may decrease and the altimeter algorithm needs to keep the elevation same as you're not going up actually. The algorithm should decide between when to change elevation and when to keep it fixed.
    It apparently gives a wrong decision and it's a software issue. Storm conditions may cause such issues.

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to sis651

    After some reading, I do understand how the software works to estimate stairs climb. What I don't get is how Apple can be very good to count and Garmin being way way off. 

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to Charles Hamel

    Who knows Apple. It may be listening sounds, tracking wireless signal levels, using phone connection to decide how to calibrate it etc. Otherwise how it is consuming that battery in a few days... :D 

  • 0 7 months ago

    When you were walking outside, were you using the Walking Activity? I don't think Garmin is going to give you credit for stairs climbed if you were using the walking activity because you get credit for elevation gain in the activity.

    I stand corrected, my 945 gives me credit of steps and distance walked when in a Walking Activity. So, I assume, you will get credit for both elevation gain and stairs.

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to kstate1980

    Exactly, in an activity or not it'll account for stairs climbed. However, in activity mode it may account pressure change more to elevation change then barometric change.

  • 0 7 months ago in reply to kstate1980

    Yes I was using the walking activity. Again this morning I did the same 5k walk with both watches. The Fenix counted 9 stairs and the Ultra counted 1 (which is right, I did climb 1 floor to get to my apartment).
    I looked in the stats for both watches. The total elevation gain for the Fenix was 28 meters and 26 for the Ultra. Garmin says that one flight of stairs is 3m, so it makes sense that it gives me 9 stairs. 
    But honestly, 28 meters of elevation for a 5km distance isn't even close to the effort needed to climb 9 flights of stairs.
    Living in the city and using the subway, I do go up and down stairs during every day. It's a stats I like to track. I guess I will have to re-ajust my mindset around that stat.