Temperature sensor

Is the temperature sensor any more accurate than it was on the Fenix 3 HR? On the F3HR the sensor is too close to the skin and so it is useless if you wanted to know ambient temp. Only came good when doing an actual activity due to the airflow, but even then it took a good 5-15 minutes before it dropped from something body temp raised to something resembling the actual outdoor air temperature.

Makes the temperature widget kinda pointless. That's why I was wondering if they had improved it at all.
  • An internal sensor will always be impacted by skin temp, if you're wearing long sleeves, a jacket, etc. But the simple solution is getting a Tempe. It looks very similar to a garmin footpod, but there are ways that you can use it places other than your shoes. I read about someone that hat it clippened on the userside of the bill of their hat, but for me, I have it attached to a S-Biner #3 (a couple bucks at Home Depot), and can clip it whatever works best.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Why do people use this or find this metric important? I find it interesting what the environmental temperature was in relation to my performance, but I just look on the Connect map for my activity. I don't really use it for anything important.

    I would be much more interested in humidity - does the tempe do that? Why do you guys use the tempe?
  • I'm not an athlete. Far from it. I don't find any metrics captured by my F3HR (and soon F5+) important per se. But I do find data interesting. I love logging anything I can for looking back over either straight after an activity or looking at trends over long periods of time.
  • I very often use my watch strapped to a sea kayak or a bike. Here it shows the real temperature (which is not really my reason for having the watch in this position, but just an extra bonus). So the temperature sensor is usable for me.

    On top of that, the temperature sensor is possibly used for temperature correction of the raw measurement from the ambient pressure sensor. So the hardware may be there anyway, whether you want it or not.

  • “What is the temperature indicated by a thermometer?”
    This question is not a trap!
    Only one answer: “the temperature of the thermometer”! Not the temperature of the medium, air or water...
    We’ll just have to manage so that this temperature can also be that which is to be measured…

    Which means a white Garmin in the sun won't give you the same result as a black Garmin in the sun.
    Black objects are heated. You know how a black car can get hot compared to a white car.

    Water is a better conductor than air, so diving the watch in the liquid water will give you a better result.
    Industrial thermometer got probes and the temp measured is the temp of the prob.

    The Garmin's case is its own probe, how can it be accurate ?

    Better some thermal device are measuring the heat radiation of an object like infrared thermometers.
    Casio had made a watch with sensor back in 90's and it was fun to use when air hardening swords or knives blades on the anvil.
    (CASIO TSR-100 THERMO SCANNER).

    When I need to have some accuracy with my garmin.

    1- if i'm swimming, I keep it on my wrist as the water is a great thermal conductor.

    2- if i'm in a room, I rinse the garmin under the tap to get the level of the thermometer to 20° and then I put it on a table far from the sun for 15 minutes.

  • CBSalad I find the ambient temperature interesting just to see if there is any correlation with my performance. For swimming it is very important and the wrist based temperature is reasonably accurate in water - I do a lot of open water swimming where temperature is obviously very important particularly at the start and end of the season
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Do you know if they make a humidity sensor? I find that humidity and allergens can impact my running performance more than temperature.

    Anyone interested in helping to design an ANT+ sensor that does humidity? Not exactly sure how to do air quality. I don't think that would be possible on a device with the same form factor.
  • Do you know if they make a humidity sensor? I find that humidity and allergens can impact my running performance more than temperature.

    Anyone interested in helping to design an ANT+ sensor that does humidity? Not exactly sure how to do air quality. I don't think that would be possible on a device with the same form factor.


    I'm not a DEV, but you could prob do an app that pulled air quality. Pollen.com and I think breezometer have an API.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I just bought my first fenix and I bought the Tempe sensor to go with it in hopes of getting accurate air temperature for ski touring. It's an important metric that's related to avalanche conditions.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    That is really cool. So you can get ready with going outside. It is the same as an adventure when traveling. You can use parts like weight distribution hitch canada to be ready.