iPhone 6 barometer not working

Ok, thanks for the info. Mine magically started working again, so I don't know if the re-calibration was a coincidence.

No doubt, the Health app and possibly the HealthKit infrastructure is buggy. Let's hope they fix this soon.

I have found this as well. At work the fights-of-stairs counter seems pretty accurate. At home it is woefully inaccurate, perhaps off by 20:1 on count of # of flights counted. I think if you stop after only 10 feet or so, it forgets you were doing a flight but if I go up sets of 15' or more, it counts well.

I tried going up the stairs at home, then waiting an hour, then going back down, waiting an hour, then look. Didn't count. This is repeatable. I went up a ladder up the back of the house, 18' or so, and it counted that.

At work we have three stories. I tried starting at my floor, one above the parking lot level, then going down 1, up 2, down 1 without stopping at the top, look at data. It counted correctly. It does seem to take some time to conclude that I did the flight, 2 or 3 minutes?

I tried going up the elevator. It didn't seem to notice that.

It keeps track even when the App is open showing "All Data" for the flights counter. But it doesn't show up for a while.

I have a theory, and it is mine. That theory is that people who wrote this software live in Ranch style houses without basements or two story houses with very tall first floors. This is the way new housing is being built in Orlando. Then they all work in buildings with 15' flights of stairs. Do they have Ranch style houses in Silicon Valley? Perhaps they never noticed that this doesn't work because they none or non-typical flights of stairs at home? Laugh if you want, I've seen bugs caused by stupider reasons that this! See Mars Climate Orbiter which crashed because the coding for one function was done in Newtons instead of Pounds-force. Also see the Therac-25 radiation therapy machine which killed people it was being used to treat because the coders had expected ASCII-NUMBERS only for configuration and recorded two characters of data while only displaying one character if a ASCII-LETTER was typed. This resulted in large numbers being entered for radiation-level. (At least I think that's what the bug was)

ARGH. I actually went and looked up the Therac issue and my memory is not correct. Too many flights of stairs climbed today! hah. NM. Back to work.

The barometer seemed to work correctly over the week, but today it started screwing up again, which means 2 counts already missing. Any news from your devices? Some days it's really accurate, but on some it's just...well...useless? 66% data loss today so far...

your hypotheses are interesting. My hypothesis is that the barometric readings are more accurate if the phone is not in a pocket where heat and humidity differences might have slight effects on pressure over very small distances.

Check the following:

Do you have a case on or off when the barometer is not working?

Is the phone in your tight jeans?

Is there non Apple software on the phone?

All these issues affect performance.

Apple support seems very supportive around this issue. I got good service from them.

I found a reference that a 'flight' is considered to be 12'. Since most stairs are ~8", then you have to climb at least 18 steps to be considered a "flight" of stairs.

This is typically true for most commercial buildings; many, many homes, however, only have 12-14 stair-steps per floor, which is 10' or less -- so the Health app won't consistently register that as a 'flight' of stairs.

Ok, though things should work as people use them (cases, pockets, etc.), I walked up a steep 200 foot hill with the phone out of the case and in hand, and it registered 1 flight. Two days previous to that, I got credit for 9 flights for the same hill. (in case, in pocket)

Furthermore, I took a drive to the top of the local hills, about 1800 feet, and got credit for 4 flights for the drive. I then hiked down about 1000 feet and back up, getting credit for nothing.

Non-apple software on the phone?? Of course. Is there a phone that doesn't? Is there any particular app that gets in the way?

I do think that the "flights climbed" is the product of a random number generator.

standard flight is 10', the distance between two floors. I'm assuming that "flights" is not a literal flight of stairs, but a unit of vertical ascent. In that sense, it doesn't matter what it is, as long as it is consistent.

Talk with Apple Support and have them eliminate all the software issues. Once those are gone maybe they will look at hardware issues.

I found a simple way of testing iPhone 6 Plus's barometer. Barometers work on air pressure exerted on the phone. If you have a barometer app, activate it and place the phone in A CLAER AIR FILLED SEALED PLASTIC BAG. Squeeze the bag, thus increasing the air pressure on phone. If the barometer is working the increase or change in pressure should be reflected by a change in the reading on the phone. If the reading does not change that is evidence the barometer is not working. The test is not precise but is evidentiary.

I'm having a similar problem - dramatic under-counting of flights climbed, suddenly, when it was working well before. But as I will explain below, in my case I believe this to be a problem with the Health app rather than with the internal barometer in my iPhone 6 Plus.

I use the App "CycleMeter" for tracking my bike rides and hikes, and I know the elevations in my neighbourhood fairly well as a result. On a recent hike which took my up a total of 195 m, it read zero flights in the health app, but in CycleMeter, it correctly read 195 meters. This suggests that, at least in my case, it's not a problem with the barometer in my iPhone 6 Plus. It's a problem with the Health app, or with communication between the barometer and the Health app. Throughout, whether on this phone or my old iPhone 4S, the CycleMeter app has correctly read altitude changes fairly accurately.

All this points to a problem with the software in the Health app. My barometer is definitely working. I got Apple to issue me a new phone and had the same problems I hadwith my inital iPhone 6 plus. The odds of both phones having the same hardware problem are low.

If it is a manufacturing defect, probability of getting two defects is low. If it is a design defect, probability is high. You haven't ruled out hardware yet.

I think a design defect would generate more publicity. A Google search is not showing "many" complaints. There is of course the larger question of how would someone detect a design defect?