Tracking the Floors You Climb

(c) BBC

Many Fitness Trackers attempt to detect and record the number of floors that you ascend during the day.  Its not really Floors as such just elevation or how high you have climbed.  Since it takes more effort to walk up than it does to walk on the level or walk down, its possible that your Tracker may indicate that you are burning more calories if you are "stepping" whilst going up.

There are a couple of things to be aware of though.  Since the Fitness Tracker is trying to track actual real increases in elevation, going to the gym and working out on a stepping machine may not trigger your tracker to show floors since no actual increase in your elevation has taken place.

Similarly, going up in an elevator or escalator may not show an increase in Floors, since no stepping is taking place, however, you could try stepping on the spot and seeing if that gets you Steps and Floors!

Fitness Trackers detect elevation by measuring air pressure (also known as Barometric Pressure) which decreases the higher you go.  by combining a decrease in air pressure with evidence of Steps the Tracker assumes you are going up and allocates Floors to your activity total.

On windy days, air pressure is changing around you and this can confuse your tracker as it "thinks" you are going up when you are not and your tracker may show impossibly high numbers of floors climbed.  Not much we can do about it but its best to be aware that this is a quirk of how they operate, its not a fault.

​

---