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Altimeter Fenix 5

This morning, as I always do, I drove 22 miles to work in the North west of England. According to several websites there is a difference in altitude between my start and finish points of circa 220 feet, the altimeter on my Fenix 5 shows no difference in altitude at any time in the last 4 hours. Is there a setting that I have wrong or is it a faulty unit?

I've had the watch less than a week so haven't noticed this before, so I don't know if this is the first occasion or whether or not the unit has been showing different altitudes previously.

Any assistance would be really appreciated.

0 rickj2903 over 8 years ago

I think it may be time for an email to Garmin Support

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

having issues here too with the altimeter. It goes from -300 to 2000 meters while sitting in the office. Mailed it to Garmin support

0 tosonny over 7 years ago

I recommend just one thing: RMA ...let you send a very new watch (as I have done ...and now everything works fine). I had a different issue and had contact to support and beta team for several months ...and has been told that it is a software issue and should wait for update and blabla. All rubbish ..change the watch.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Same issue here with fenix 5.
phoned garmin support who advised to hard reset the unit and update to the beta software which I did.
i forgot to back up my data, so I’ve lost all of that which is frustrating, and updated to 6.78(?), which seems to have stabilised the issue slightly, but not a full fix. I have requested my RMA number....
in the past few days, the unit has shown that I have climbed 100 floors and altitude fluctuates from -ve to +ve in the region of thousands of feet!!!
keeping an eye on this thread!

0 tgregers over 7 years ago

Got myself a Fenix 5, and had it just a week before I experienced the same type of problem as you describe. The altimeter counting pointlessly up and down even when the watch is lying still on a table, and the barometric pressure does not change so there seems to some kind of software problem. I returned it, and got myself a new one, which worked perfectly until I paired it up with my Garmin HRM-RUN hart rate sensor.Now the new one has the same problem. Anyone got any tip to how to cure this problem?

0 AllanOlesen67 over 7 years ago

The altimeter counting pointlessly up and down even when the watch is lying still on a table, and the barometric pressure does not change so there seems to some kind of software problem.

Are you saying that the barometric pressure shown on the watch is not changing?

Or are you saying that the barometric pressure at your location is not changing?

0 tgregers over 7 years ago

Are you saying that the barometric pressure shown on the watch is not changing?

Or are you saying that the barometric pressure at your location is not changing?

The pressure shown on the watch has not changed the last couple of hours, but the altimeter on the watch has changed approx. 5000m. I have a separate electronic barometer here that also shows no change in pressure the last hours, so there has to be something wrong with the altitude calculations in the watch…

0 AllanOlesen67 over 7 years ago

The pressure shown on the watch has not changed the last couple of hours, but the altimeter on the watch has changed approx. 5000m. I have a separate electronic barometer here that also shows no change in pressure the last hours, so there has to be something wrong with the altitude calculations in the watch…

Check the Ambient Pressure reading of your watch. That is the output from the pressure sensor. It is unfortunately not available in the built-in widgets, so you will have to add it as a data field to a screen in one of your activity apps.

The Ambient Pressure should follow the reading of your separate barometer (though perhaps with an offset if your separate barometer is altitude corrected). If they do not follow each other, you have a sensor error. If they do follow each other, you have a software error.

You cannot use Barometric Pressure for this, since the watch will calibrate the Barometric Pressure reading together with the altimeter.

0 tgregers over 7 years ago

Check the Ambient Pressure reading of your watch. That is the output from the pressure sensor. It is unfortunately not available in the built-in widgets, so you will have to add it as a data field to a screen in one of your activity apps.

The Ambient Pressure should follow the reading of your separate barometer (though perhaps with an offset if your separate barometer is altitude corrected). If they do not follow each other, you have a sensor error. If they do follow each other, you have a software error.

You cannot use Barometric Pressure for this, since the watch will calibrate the Barometric Pressure reading together with the altimeter.

I set up a screen with height, pressure and temperature (I think the pressure will vary if the temperature changes). Temperature shows steady while both pressure and height change. So then it is a software error, which will explain why the watch worked until I paired with the hart rate sensor. I off course tried to both turn the external sensor off and unpair it, but that didn’t help.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Hi all, I got my F5 almost a month ago and had all the issues you describe here. Floors climbed would not get counted most of the time and then auto update got my watch to v6.x (not beta) witch kind of made things worse. So i read that i should try a beta version and did all of them up to 7.0. None helped. In fact v7.0 beta made things even worse. While sitting in front of my desk at work i went form -17 000m up to 20 000 meters and this after GPS re calibration. So yesterday morning i did another beta upgrade to v7.02, power cycle after the upgrade and GPS re calibration. And now so far the watch has been rock steady. Showing correct elevation and pressure change with no weird spikes, counting climbed floors correctly as well :) Washing the watch in warm soapy water from time to time might help as well if your baro sensor holes are clogged from sweat, salt dirt...