Altimeter Fenix 5

If you read my recent posts, you will see I am experiencing the same issue. After doing 3 x GPS based calibrations last night, the altimeter has finally changed (it had locked up). My watch screen is set on Auto and it all seems to be fine at the moment, but I will know more after I go for a run this morning.

Ok, this is strange. The exact thing is happening to me, my altimeter is locked. Everything was working great before, what happened? I did what you did trying to calibrate a bunch of times with no luck.
I know it's not the watch since it worked fine before, something is wrong with the widget. I tried deleting the widget and adding it back with no luck.

First thing to check is that your sensor is not set to 'Barometer' mode, where it attributes all pressure change to a change in barometric pressure, so it locks the altitude (see here http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/fenix5/EN-US/GUID-CDC9DDEE-C576-4E1D-B007-BC737686793A.html ).

If your Barmeter settings are on 'Auto', the watch relies on sensing movement to switch from Barmoter mode to Altimeter mode (and back again when you're not moving), so check that you are getting steps counted with activity tracking turned on (if step counting isn't working, then you might have a faulty accelerometer - contact Garmin Support).

That aside, if you set the Barometer to 'Altitude' then it will always attribute pressure change to a change in altitude; so if the watch is not detecting elevation changes in this mode, then there may be something up with the sensor. At which point you might want to check the sensor holes on the right hand side of the watch are clear, instructions to clean are here https://support.garmin.com/faqSearch/en-GB/faq/content/LJ6vYF2phv7JUAOlsRRjC8 . If you still experience problems then contact Garmin Support in your country.

Thanks for the responses, initially by amending the setting to altimeter the altimeter started working but the barometer stopped (understandably having read the instructions that you kindly provided) I then set it to Auto and recalibrated the altimeter using GPS and it looks like both the altimeter and barometer are locked up as neither have moved for the last hour.

When I recalibrated it I got the GPS fix and waited until the counter stopped moving then pressed the start button (is that right?)

As I said as far as I can see both the altimeter and barometer haven't moved for an hour or so since doing this. I have watch mode set to auto and "auto cal" set to off in the altimeter. The unit is counting steps.

Thanks again for your advice/assistance it's greatly appreciated.

Can I just say that apart from this bit of an issue I absolutely love the watch and the info it gives.

After setting it to auto, did you try calibrating it again? Of course, unless you move, the altimeter won't change, so maybe it has not changed because it is already correct. If you have been changing elevation during this period, then please ignore me. After doing this myself, it is all working fine again. I believe it may have been caused by me starting to do a GPS calibration and cancelling out before it got a lock.

After setting it to auto, did you try calibrating it again? Of course, unless you move, the altimeter won't change, so maybe it has not changed because it is already correct. If you have been changing elevation during this period, then please ignore me. After doing this myself, it is all working fine again. I believe it may have been caused by me starting to do a GPS calibration and cancelling out before it got a lock.

I think you could be right, whilst air pressure hasn't altered (barometric pressure) much, I have a weather station unit in the house which is showing the same (i.e. minimal variation over a few hours) so seems to support what the watch is displaying and the altimeter graph does seem to be showing variation as the line isn't exactly straight, so I think the unit may be working again.

I think this had something to do with the storm alert I got just before the problem. I noticed someone mentioned this as well.

This morning I woke up and my altimeter reading had changed from 92 to 324. I'm beginning to think that I may have a faulty unit

The pressure sensor on my 5x is definitely not working right. I posted some picture in some thread showing the 5x compared to an F3. The F3 is consistent and matches my weather station. The 5x is erratic.