Altimeter Fenix 5

I'm convinced that static electricity has killed the LCD on two of my Fenix 5 watches at this point.

Nothing is perfect and I am pretty sure Garmin is putting out some effort to fix these problems. What would happen if Garmin had some transparency to known issues and to inform their customers on what is being done to remedy them? Would it be that bad? Instead, we are all trying to figure it out and guessing what the problem is, which could be completely off track because we're working in the dark.

Known issues (before 7.93 beta)

• Bluetooth connectivity issues with Huawei phones.
  
• potential issue causing the backlight to not turn on when pressing keys.
  
• some customers have noticed auto backlight gesture not recognized properly
  
• potential issue preventing alerts from being added.
  
• potential issue causing updates to the Lengths data field to be delayed during Pool Swim activities.
  
• potential issues with some baraometric sensors - working with supplier to figure out the root problem
  
• potential issue of damage to watch with excessive static discharge while connected to USB earth ground - looking into this issue
  

Do you think our loyalty or trust in Garmin would increase or decrease?

I guess I am having the same troubles. Fenix 5 altitude is drifting all over the place. I contacted support via chat and after all troubleshooting did not work, they told me to swap out the unit back at REI where I bought it. I did that and the new unit worked fine for 2 days. Now it is having the same trouble. I am currently sitting 3,000 feet underwater, apparently.

Anyway, Customer support chat asked me to install the latest beta software and see what happens.

A little rant: I was the unfortunate owner of a Fenix 2, which had a multitude of problems (terrible GPS accuracy, when the GPS would connect at all, frequent dropped GPS signal, even in the open, unit would shut down randomly and only power back on once connected to a charger, etc, but never the altimeter) It was so bad that I was rather relieved when it finally died for good. It took some convincing for me to buy another Fenix, but the reviews were all great and the feature set is just what I wanted, so I shelled out the money.

So I will try the beta and let you know how it goes. But if this does not get resolved, the watch is getting returned and I am looking for a different brand. It's too much money to pay for something that doesn't work. I am just glad it happened quickly, while there is no question that it is a warranty issue.

I guess I am having the same troubles. Fenix 5 altitude is drifting all over the place. I contacted support via chat and after all troubleshooting did not work, they told me to swap out the unit back at REI where I bought it. I did that and the new unit worked fine for 2 days. Now it is having the same trouble. I am currently sitting 3,000 feet underwater, apparently.

Anyway, Customer support chat asked me to install the latest beta software and see what happens.

A little rant: I was the unfortunate owner of a Fenix 2, which had a multitude of problems (terrible GPS accuracy, when the GPS would connect at all, frequent dropped GPS signal, even in the open, unit would shut down randomly and only power back on once connected to a charger, etc, but never the altimeter) It was so bad that I was rather relieved when it finally died for good. It took some convincing for me to buy another Fenix, but the reviews were all great and the feature set is just what I wanted, so I shelled out the money.

So I will try the beta and let you know how it goes. But if this does not get resolved, the watch is getting returned and I am looking for a different brand. It's too much money to pay for something that doesn't work. I am just glad it happened quickly, while there is no question that it is a warranty issue.

The latest Beta will not address this issue. I have a brand new Garmin Fenix 5 that I just received as a replacement for my original one having altitude issues. Yesterday and today I wore both - one on each wrist. Today the new one started to go crazy, a little while later the old one started to as well.

I think this rules out the following:
Changes in manufacturing to address this issue in hardware (First one had a serial number of 6xxx - it was produced in March 2017. The new one was from November 2017 (serial was 1003xxx) so it was over 90,000 units later.

Causes:
It was a very cold dry day today. Static electric is prevalent everywhere. My humble observation is that It somehow causes the ambient pressure sensor to glitch.

Another interesting observation:
On the new one, I shut it off and turned it back on - for a brief moment I observed a normal ambient pressure, then it started counting back up from where it had left off ....
This means the sensor glitch is not being handled correctly in software - ie: instant changes cause a large change to be shown, but retreats back to normal take a long time.

Shut the old one off and then turned it back on and also observed (using the Ambient Pressure ConnectIQ widget) that the Ambient pressure briefly showed correctly (around 1013 mbar) then jumped to where it was before shutting it down. This is after a soaking of warm water.

Watchfaces:
New one has a stock face, old one has a ConnectIQ face - so this rules out stock face being less susceptible to the issue.

Looks like both react the same way to the same conditions - so Garmin maybe should stop handing out new watches to fix this issue because they have not changed anything in manufacturing that would correct this.

Conditions:
Outside - 20's to 30's (F), very low humidity - glitch occurs inside of commercial building that is 72 F. Having two to compare and seeing both react indicates that Garmin may want to look into their software to see if they can catch this glitch and recover differently than how they do today.

Soaking:
I did soak the old F5 for about 15 minutes in warm water. When I took it out of the water it read 0' and the ambient matched the barometric pressure. Then it started to show ----- for temp, ambient and barometric pressure. Now it is recovering ....

Causes:
It was a very cold dry day today. Static electric is prevalent everywhere. My humble observation is that It somehow causes the ambient pressure sensor to glitch....

Conditions:
Outside - 20's to 30's (F), very low humidity - glitch occurs inside of commercial building that is 72 F. Having two to compare and seeing both react indicates that Garmin may want to look into their software to see if they can catch this glitch and recover differently than how they do today.

Thank you for your in depth observations/experimentation. I did some tests of my own and the only way I could reproduce the ambient pressure glitch consistently was while wearing long sleeved polyester fleeces. I live in Southern California where it has been warm and dry as per usual. After following this thread for a while and being on my third watch, I have come to the same conclusion as you regarding the static electricity glitching the sensor.

When I talk to Garmin they recommend RMA but I don't think that will solve the issue. Also, as you said, I doubt waiting for new beta firmware will also fix the problem magically. My guess is it's a design flaw, which I doubt can be fixed. But then again I'm not an engineer so what would I know?

I have tried the beta and it didn't resolve my altitude issues.

Hi, I have a Fenix 5 which is less than a week old with the same problems. Not impressed. Why can't Garmin at least release an update that allows us to use GPS data for elevation in the same way that the cheaper running watches do during an activity. At least we will have some kind of useable elevation information. Rather than the rubbish we are getting now. Surely it would be easy to add this option to such a capable watch.

I brought back my Fenix5 which had this issue and now i have a 935 and i do not have this issue.
I really think that the metal case is the real problem.
It is way too sensitive. A shame as it is a very nice watch.

I really think that the metal case is the real problem.

That would be a disaster for this device. What I still can't get my head around is that I didn't have this problem until December (had the watch since April/May). And the problem remains intermittent. I really hope Garmin gets this sorted out (with a SW fix).

My new replacement Fenix 5 altimeter is much worse than the one I just returned .... it has been going crazy for the past 2 days. I contacted Garmin support and will probably wait a few months before sending this one back - although it will be exchanged eventually. I have not heard of any changes to the Fenix 5 to address the issue so I have no reason to think the next one I receive will be any better. At least this one is a recent production one - the first one I bought in December 2017 was one of the original production ones (took a long time sitting on the charger for it to come alive - although both have great battery life). Garmin recommend exchanging that one for other reasons - not just the Barometer ...

Any word on if/when Garmin might be making production changes on the Fenix 5? Saw news of the FCC filing a month or so ago, but have heard nothing since .... another reason why I will wait a while - maybe they will issue a Fenix 5+ :)