Acknowledged
10 days ago
CIQQA-3459

bug: no way to set elevation unit on vivoactive 5

This probably should also be reported in the vivoactive 5 forum, but since that's not monitored by Garmin employees, I'll try here.

A user of one of my apps reported that they can't change the elevation unit from feet to meters. I told them to do it in the system settings (my app uses DeviceSettings.elevationUnits). But it turns out that Garmin left that possibility out from vivoactive 5.

The only settings (both on-watch and via Garmin Connect) are:
distance, weight, height, temperature, pressure.

Note, it's not a mistake, it's height, with cm or inches, and not elevation or altitude that's supposed to be meters or feet.

This is vivoactive 5 with FW version 14.15

Yes, there's no barometer in va5, but it doesn't matter, because the watch displays the correct elevation based on GPS, just in feet.

See also: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/healthandwellness/f/vivoactive-5-series/418980/bug-no-way-to-set-elevation-unit-on-vivoactive-5

flocsy🤠
Parents
  • 3 days ago

    > which means that the elevation displayed in GC disregards the values the watch "gives" to CIQ apps.

    Yeah this is exactly what was already said:

    "This is why when an activity is synced to GC on a device without a baro, elevation correction is applied by default."

    > because the watch displays the correct elevation based on GPS, just in feet.

    > > Note: 24m ~ 78ft, so the difference in not caused by wrong unit!

    After reading your comment,  I think I finally understand what you meant by: "because the watch displays the correct elevation based on GPS, just in feet"

    1) DeviceSettings.elevationUnits was always metres

    2) you originally thought that the device was returning the *real* elevation in feet, despite 1), due to the fact that your true elevation was 23m, but the altitude field in ActivityInfo seemed to be returning 23m in feet (~76)

    First of all, that was not at all clear from your original post.

    What you should have said was that ActivityInfo.altitude has the correct elevation, just in feet, even though the documentation says it's in meters and DeviceSettings.elevationUnits is in metres.

    Second of all, you should know by now that the values of fields in ActivityInfo are never affected by the display units of the watch. So actually, the value of DeviceSettings.elevationUnits is irrelevant here.

    For example, ActivityInfo.currentSpeed is always in m/s, regardless of the display units for pace/speed.

    I will also say that it's irrelevant whether ActivityInfo.altitude returns the "real" elevation or not, in some isolated cases.

    What's important is that, for devices without a baro, GPS elevation is known to be unreliable, which is why Garmin hides all the elevation data on the watch itself and applies auto-correction in Connect.

    It's that simple fact which explains why there is "no way to set elevation unit on vivoactive 5".

    We already tried to explain that to you, but I don't think you listened.

    Idk, I feel like this entire bug report is based on 1 or 2 weird assumptions.

Comment
  • 3 days ago

    > which means that the elevation displayed in GC disregards the values the watch "gives" to CIQ apps.

    Yeah this is exactly what was already said:

    "This is why when an activity is synced to GC on a device without a baro, elevation correction is applied by default."

    > because the watch displays the correct elevation based on GPS, just in feet.

    > > Note: 24m ~ 78ft, so the difference in not caused by wrong unit!

    After reading your comment,  I think I finally understand what you meant by: "because the watch displays the correct elevation based on GPS, just in feet"

    1) DeviceSettings.elevationUnits was always metres

    2) you originally thought that the device was returning the *real* elevation in feet, despite 1), due to the fact that your true elevation was 23m, but the altitude field in ActivityInfo seemed to be returning 23m in feet (~76)

    First of all, that was not at all clear from your original post.

    What you should have said was that ActivityInfo.altitude has the correct elevation, just in feet, even though the documentation says it's in meters and DeviceSettings.elevationUnits is in metres.

    Second of all, you should know by now that the values of fields in ActivityInfo are never affected by the display units of the watch. So actually, the value of DeviceSettings.elevationUnits is irrelevant here.

    For example, ActivityInfo.currentSpeed is always in m/s, regardless of the display units for pace/speed.

    I will also say that it's irrelevant whether ActivityInfo.altitude returns the "real" elevation or not, in some isolated cases.

    What's important is that, for devices without a baro, GPS elevation is known to be unreliable, which is why Garmin hides all the elevation data on the watch itself and applies auto-correction in Connect.

    It's that simple fact which explains why there is "no way to set elevation unit on vivoactive 5".

    We already tried to explain that to you, but I don't think you listened.

    Idk, I feel like this entire bug report is based on 1 or 2 weird assumptions.

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