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When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.
Hi. I have an Apple Watch 7 and it does not record flights climbed. It does record steps and altitude gained when I run but not flights of stairs. I am in a three floor house so it should be recording them. Looking back in my history on health it recorded them until 9 January 2023 and then stopped! I have changed phones since then and reset my watch and updated all my updates. Any ideas?
The altimeter is behind a very small hole in the watch case. It’s possible it’s partially blocked or clogged. Apple Support may know how to clean it. The altimeter readings are visible in the compass app, which is why I suggested viewing the compass app and watching for changes in altitude.
A new watch is more fun though.
Weird though because all the other exercise elements work. And it measures altitude gained and that works. Just not flights which should be a simple mathematical figure based on altitude gained divided by X.
The stairs measurement is calculated using the barometer in the watch. Indoors in some controlled environments, the pressure change may not be measurable. Arm movement also helps the watch detect the flights of stairs. The minimum that can be detected is about 10 ft (3m) or approximately 16 steps.
It’s not that. It used to work and now it doesn’t. Also it measures altitude correctly on runs and walks. In theory if I climb 10ft it should register as one flight but it does not. I climb 2 flights at once to get upstairs 10 times a day but my watch never registers it even if I run up the stairs.
Altitude on runs and walks also uses GPS, which climbing flights of stairs does not. Indoors is sometimes inaccurate because of the controlled environment the barometric pressure does not change enough indoors to reflect the necessary 10 ft in change. For example, you climb 2 flights of stairs (20 feet), but Apple Watch only counted 1 flight. The barometer only measured a pressure change equivalent 1 flight or 10 feet.
Another factor is said to be speed and distance over the change in elevation. Thus hiking a trail probably won’t be counted as a flight(s) of stairs because the gain of 10 feet is over too long a distance. Going too slow, also negates the effect of climbing stairs and won’t be counted.
Ok, so I did a test today. I got three Apple watches and went from the bottom of the stairs to the top of the stairs.
mine read 120 ft at bottom and 120 ft at top. The other two were 122 / 139 and 123/140.
so mine clearly isn’t working. That said I have seen it on 130 recently. I’m guessing the fact that my runs all include gradient may be due to me carrying the phone not just wearing the watch. Looks like I need a new watch on Black Friday :)
yep, but is used to work and suddenly stopped. Also, it never records any flights at all whether I run or walk up stairs and however many flights there are.
Hasn't worked for years.
Some say if theres less than 16 stairs per flight they're not recognised
When you load the compass app and walk up stairs, does it measure a change in altitude?
Apple Watch 7 flights climbed not recording
