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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 Former Member over 7 years ago

Hi,

My F5 was doing the same bug, replace with a new one via RMA.

Contact Garmin support.

With the new one, no problem.

0 tgregers over 7 years ago

Also having issue of altimeter showing shifts of up to -12000m. Only started about a week ago (after a long-haul flight). Continues despite recalibrating a couple of times. Hope this will be resolved with the next SW release......

How long is "about a week"? Reason for asking is that although the altimeter in my watch has been crazy for 6 days, today it has been working perfectly the whole day. Talked to a guy who had had the same problem with his watch, also after pairing it with his heart rate sensor. The altimeter on his watch was crazy for some days before it stabilized itself and has been working perfect ever since. Hoping that will be the case for my watch also, and that it will be working from now on.

0 wahnamch over 7 years ago

How long is "about a week"?

Started last week on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.(not sure which day). Funnily enough, it has been fine since posting. Maybe that's the solution -- post about a bug and it gets fixed automatically ;)

0 nakan over 7 years ago

Is there any serial number correlation for the watches with altimeter / barometer problem? Maybe a bad sensor batch...

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Same altimeter problem here, my F5 has already been replaced... without effect. The 7.10 version is the worst for my altimeter, it goes completely crazy. I'm going to go back on 6.0 which was the best tested version for altimeter reliability. Garmin support said me they ahve no solution yet, they are working hard on it... awsome support...

0 jose.cboliveira over 7 years ago

Is there any serial number correlation for the watches with altimeter / barometer problem? Maybe a bad sensor batch...

As far I can tell the only correlation found is: Cold weather with very low dew point.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

As far I can tell the only correlation found is: Cold weather with very low dew point.

My observation as well... My watch magically stabilized after an upgrade to 7.02 beta. And was going fine for about 10 days and went crazy yesterday again - also upgraded automatically to v7.10 :). As far as i can observe even before the upgrade all issues with the altimeter were caused when chaining ambient conditions, i.e. leaving my home to go to work (heated room, cold outside, heated room). And the problem manifests as a " sticky " sensor. Ambient pressure will start to raise to full throttle / drop to some minimum or both one after the other (-20000m / + 20000m altutude), and it will stabilize after few hours if watch is kept in constant conditions... Did a hard reset yesterday and beta upgrade to v7.54. Waiting to see how long will it last now.

0 jose.cboliveira over 7 years ago

Another thing, after the initial warm water with soap bath treatment, found out that if the altitude starts to rise the only thing I have to do is put some water in the altimeter hole and clean it.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Same kind of problem with my F5. The watch has been replaced by Garmin. The new one worked perfectly for 1 week and then again the altimeter got crazy. I tried all of the recommended software tricks without success and finally read about the warm water + soap procedure. It definitly worked for me : altimeter has become stable and accurate again... In my opinion electrostatic issues are definitely the best explanation to this behavior.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Same kind of problem with my F5. The watch has been replaced by Garmin. The new one worked perfectly for 1 week and then again the altimeter got crazy. I tried all of the recommended software tricks without success and finally read about the warm water + soap procedure. It definitly worked for me : altimeter has become stable and accurate again... In my opinion electrostatic issues are definitely the best explanation to this behavior.

I don't believe in electrostic issue solved by warm water and soap. Electrostatic damages are irreversibles. I think warm water and soap trick is only for cleanning barometer sensor. In my case, Altimeter is crazy in few minutes in 7.0 or 7.10 but stable in 6.0. It has been verified twice by upgrade then downgrade software version of my F5. BUT, my F5 behavior is probably not representive of all F5. I think actual garmin software doesn't manage effeciently sensors dispersions and accuracies.

During my last call to Garmin support, they confirmed that they have no solution yet and if I return my F5 once again, they will replaced it but the problem will be the same. I think Garmin hotline support is going to be crazy regarding of altimeters calls...

(Sorry for my english :))