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Fenix 8 stairs count

Charles Hamel
8 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 8 months ago in reply to Charles Hamel

    "Credit is given for a consecutive increase of 10 feet (3 meters) in elevation with a grade of 10% or higher while walking."

    support.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Bitti

    Than that means that the stats I'm getting are wrong I guess! 

  • 0 8 months ago
    Charles Hamel said:
    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.
    Bitti said:
    "Credit is given for a consecutive increase of 10 feet (3 meters) in elevation with a grade of 10% or higher while walking."

    So, unless there are places in that walk where there is a complete 3m increase in elevation a floor count will not be registered. 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Dr Phil

    that's what I think it supposed to do but it register 11 floors. This morning I did the same walk and got 8 floors. I live on the first floor so it should be 1 floor. That's what my Apple Watch counted. 
    It's super flat around here, nothing steep, the elevation is super gradual.

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Charles Hamel

    It might be that the watch is sensing extra ascent, but maybe it's worth mentioning that the required "elevation increase with grade of 10 %" is not a steep uphill. It means that the ground goes up 10 cm for each meter, in degrees it is 5.7°. The Garmin "floors climbed" is actually "ascent gained measured in 'floors' (3m)".

    Another possibility for error according to Garmin is wind: "In windy environments, cover the watch with your sleeve or jacket as strong gusts can cause erratic readings."

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Charles Hamel

    Ah sorry I got lost in the translation where you said 11 stairs meaning 11 flights or 33m approximately of ascent but that was indoors wasn’t it? It looks to me like there are two issues being conflated. Indoors you’re saying it’s counting too many flights of stairs, ie 11 flights when you’re only going up two flights, and outside on a 5km walk with a total of 12m elevation gain but getting no stair count. Is that correct?

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Dr Phil

    It's recording "floors climbed" while working out (walking or running outside) when it should not. Again this morning I went for my 5k walk, 28 meters of positive elevation. When I came back, I saw 11 floors climbed. It's impossible, there is no steep hill around here. 28 meters of elevation over 5km it's nothing... 

    The stairs to get to my apartment are outside the building. I got outside early to put the trash out. I climbed again when I got back from my walk. So the correct amount of floors climbed is 2. If I looked at my Apple Watch Ultra, I see 2.

    It counted 9 floors that I didn't climb.

    The only thing I can see is that the watch is counting a floor for every 3 meters of elevation, no matter the inclination. 28/3=9,333... so rounding to 9

    But that makes no sense to me  

  • 0 21 days ago

    Same issue. Brand new Fenix 8 Solar, less than 3 weeks old, and may be 10 activities. Shower with it half the time, and rinse it under water after every run. The barometer doesn't need to be cleaned yet, and if it does, I should have bought different +$1,000 watch because that is garbage. Everything else has been phenomenal so far, but I ran the exact same run two days in a row. Day one, tracked me at 250 feet elevation gain (accurate based on an Apple Watch and Fitbit running with me, and my last watch that ran the same route +100 times). Day 2, same route, credited me with 1,250 feet of elevation. Today? I did nothing but work at my desk, take a very flat dog walk a few times, and by 6pm had somehow amassed 50 floors climbed. Again, impossible. I should have 10 floors at the very best...and that is being very generous considering my day.

    Again, this is a brand new watch, that's been in the shower and rinsed frequently. Is Garmin suggesting I need to find these little barometer holes and clean them every day? If so, I'll trade in this garbage for the next best +$1,000 watch that actually works.

    To Garmin, stop blaming your failings on your loyal fan base. This is a software glitch that needs to be addressed, and calling out a dirty barometer is a cop out.

    I would note as one last comment, that other than this elevation gain issue, the watch has been amazing so far. Only 3 weeks into it, but very good. Just a bummer it's missing so badly on one of the easier features...