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Altitude gain on edge 800 whilst cycling inaccurate
Former Member
how is the altitude gained function calculated on my garmin edge 800.I have found that the device will read a different number of meters gained than appears in the computer screen when uploaded to garmin connect
It has a barometric altimeter. You go up, it adds that to the altitude gained. You go down, it doesn't. It's fairly accurate and very precise, but over the course of hours as the weather changes it can deviate from the correct altitude. You will often see profiles "tilt", and altitude gained is almost never the same as altitude lost on the Edge for a course that starts and ends at the same place. Barometric pressure isn't a perfect proxy for altitude, but is better than GPS altitude.
Garmin Connect has been screwed up lately, but when it works, I think it shows the same number as the Edge. The Edge puts what it thinks is the total altitude gain (in whole m) at the end of the .fit file it records. If you turn on altitude correction, though, then Garmin Connect recomputes the altitude gained from your track based on a numerical map of the topography along your track, and that can be different depending on the accuracy of the numerical map.
