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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

I returned it decided after some back and forth to give it one more chance and got another one from the same batch SN starting with 539. I'll try resist upgrading the software for a while to see how it goes hoping the factory software was better tested.
I totally agree: at this price reliability is expected.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

A change from 1030 to 320 millibars is a very clear sign of a sensor error. And the change is so large that it can't even be explained with a plugged air opening to the sensor.

On my F5, i have had periods of stability/reliability when the ambient pressure readings are normal and pressure changes are in few mb max and altitude is reported more or less correctly / floors climbed as well. And for some reason after a week or few days ambient pressure will go off dropping then rising (couple of hundred mb) and it will stabilize after few hours and work normal for some period again. So AllanOlesen67 would you call this a bad sensor or bad sensor management (software problem) issue? A bad sensor should be misbehaving all the time?!?

From what i read here, i am not sure if i should bother replacing my unit or not since ti issue reapires in replaced units as well

0 AllanOlesen67 over 7 years ago

So AllanOlesen67 would you call this a bad sensor or bad sensor management (software problem) issue? A bad sensor should be misbehaving all the time?!?

I have no idea how you reach this conclusion. Intermittent errors in hardware are at least as common as intermittent errors in software.

Some users have reported that their altimeter error depends a lot on their clothing. If they wear clothes which generate static electricity, the altimeter goes nuts. If they submerge the watch in soapy water for 30 minutes, the problem goes away for some days. Seems like hardware error to me.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I have no idea how you reach this conclusion. Intermittent errors in hardware are at least as common as intermittent errors in software.

Some users have reported that their altimeter error depends a lot on their clothing. If they wear clothes which generate static electricity, the altimeter goes nuts. If they submerge the watch in soapy water for 30 minutes, the problem goes away for some days. Seems like hardware error to me.

Tnx for the diagnosis :) I will replace mine just for peace of mind and hope the new one behaves. The baro sensor is a tiny solid peace of kit and not much can go wrong with it or at least that is how i thought of it... it either works or not. The confusing bit is people reporting the same issue with replaced units ( ITSteave had 3 units with the same issue ) and garmin support telling people it is a sw issue. To me this starts to look like a flowed design of the watch or low quality sensors susceptible to static electricity.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

On my F5, i have had periods of stability/reliability when the ambient pressure readings are normal and pressure changes are in few mb max and altitude is reported more or less correctly / floors climbed as well. And for some reason after a week or few days ambient pressure will go off dropping then rising (couple of hundred mb) and it will stabilize after few hours and work normal for some period again. So AllanOlesen67 would you call this a bad sensor or bad sensor management (software problem) issue? A bad sensor should be misbehaving all the time?!?

From what i read here, i am not sure if i should bother replacing my unit or not since ti issue reapires in replaced units as well

i have had very similar problems with my F5. Periods of stability/reliability and then ambient pressure will fluctuate(100 or so mbar) and eventually go back to normal. I have noticed that the ambient pressure on mine does tend to fluctuate more when wearing fleece or under a fleece blanket but not always. But the pressure also sometimes fluctuates when on my bare wrist.

I also noticed when doing an activity that starts and stops at the same point, the end elevation is always lower, sometimes significantly.

I've done the soapy bath, washing in the shower and that sometimes helps but not always. I've come to the conclusion that it is hardware error and I'm bummed I have to replace it as it took me forever to get a screen protector perfectly placed on it. Luckily I'm within the return window at REI still.

Some users have reported that their altimeter error depends a lot on their clothing. If they wear clothes which generate static electricity, the altimeter goes nuts. If they submerge the watch in soapy water for 30 minutes, the problem goes away for some days. Seems like hardware error to me.

Thanks AllanOlesen67 for your succinct, well explained posts on this thread. They helped a lot in diagnosing the issues with my watch and understanding how the altimeter/barometer work in general!

0 mherald81 over 7 years ago

I recently got a replacement Fenix 5X from Garmin for another unrelated issue. The Fenix 5X that I sent them had no altimeter issues that I've noticed and was running the latest firmware. I noticed altimeter issues with my replacement device as soon as I started using it. The readings just keep bouncing all over the place without moving. Funny thing is that I recently got a vivoactive 3 a few weeks ago and it too is also experiencing altimeter issues.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

In my opinion the elevation computation should not be a very complicated implementation. In a simple form can be a function of the barometric pressure (or ambient pressure, whatever is the output of the sensor). F5 was released about a year ago, F3 has altimeter as well so in theory the routine computing the elevation should be polished already - I'd be tempted to believe.

But to keep the variable changes in check I will not update the SW on the new F5 and see what happens with factory SW. Is this the right way to prevent SW update when connecting to Garmin Express? I set the Auto Update to "Disabled" on the watch, and in Express I set the Settings/Update Schedule to "Never"? Thanks!

0 AllanOlesen67 over 7 years ago

In my opinion the elevation computation should not be a very complicated implementation. In a simple form can be a function of the barometric pressure (or ambient pressure, whatever is the output of the sensor).

Two things:
1. It is simple - if you are willing to manually input the current air pressure at mean sea level, every time you want to use the altimeter. If you are not willing to do that, it stops being simple.

2. It worries me that you think there could be a choice between outputting ambient pressure and barometric pressure from a sensor. My explanations must have failed.

0 SebLeclercq over 7 years ago

Hi,
I join the club with a crazy altimeter and barometer.
I have this watch since 3 weeks and no problem until few days. I grow up 3500m and down under the sea level...the barometer move from 900hpa to 1200... I try hot and soap water, reset, recalibrate... And nothing happen...
I'm very angry, I write to Garmin, I hope they read this post and solve this issue...

0 zach471 over 7 years ago

Yeah, same issue here. Got mine for Christmas. I went on a walk and my altimeter took me to 22,000 feet -- in North Carolina. It's typically off thousands of feet within minutes of calibration. It worked for a few days, I'm sure of it. Then two days ago it went haywire. I tried a hard reset, no luck.