-488m after swimming... calibrating the alti without shortcuts

Former Member
Former Member
As with every morning... stop outside, calibrate to 48m.
If I was transitioning I'd have to do it while inside the Tri app.

10 keypresses (yes, wear those buttons, Garmin Tech Support will be happy!), 2 minutes lost... for a watch that cost 800€ and that has shortcuts among its features. I find this totally absurd.

Before someone starts lecturing on how handy the GPS autocalibration feature is, keep in mind what it is to be in a dense urban area. It simply is not an option.

Please Garmin add a shortcut feature that makes sense: pre-set altitude inputting. WE HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY.
  • I've reported this thing to beta team al least 1 month ago, every time i go outside swimming pool and i save activity, altimeter goes to crazy altitudes (and the barometer too), i haven't ever noticed this thing on my previous fenix 3
  • Same thing for Fenix 5, altimeter goes very wrong after swims ...
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    The DEVs are aware of the problem but still this is not judged a priority.

    How long before my buttons are screwed because I'm in need of calibrating every morning after swimming?
    What happens if I am doing a race... I'm supposed to calibrate for two minutes while I'm taking off the suit, cap and goggles and prepping the bike at the same time? And if I make a mistake?
    A whole log ruined?

    Sadly, I guess Garmin will do something about this problem when they start taking RMAs for button failures. It's rather obvious it's only a matter of time.
  • The DEVs are aware of the problem but still this is not judged a priority.

    How long before my buttons are screwed because I'm in need of calibrating every morning after swimming?
    What happens if I am doing a race... I'm supposed to calibrate for two minutes while I'm taking off the suit, cap and goggles and prepping the bike at the same time? And if I make a mistake?
    A whole log ruined?

    Sadly, I guess Garmin will do something about this problem when they start taking RMAs for button failures. It's rather obvious it's only a matter of time.


    That's Garmin attitude; they're very slow. But buttons should be durable enough. I've used my Fenix3 for more than a year, played a lot with it, there is no issues with the buttons yet. :)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    It's different, I second what Renton82 said: the F3 never had these huge discrepancies when the baro was underwater for a while. Also, the 5x settings menu is slightly more complex and with several options the F3 doesn't have. It means more buttons need to be pressed.

    This morning I got out of the pool and sat on my scooter to calibrate the altimeter outside as every day, starting from -648m.

    Long press Down = config
    1 press up = settings
    start
    3 down presses = sensors
    start
    3 down presses = altimeter
    start
    start = calibrate
    start = enter current elevation?
    set elevation, start
    start (to skip the thousands)
    set elevation hundreds, tens and units
    start (elev set)
    start (confirm)
    calibration complete (start again)

    The decision to leave this procedure entirely manual is plainly wrong, period.
    This is a DAILY procedure for tens of thousands of people and many perform it multiple times a day.

    Garmin will pay in RMAs the costs of this decision but does it really have to happen?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    I've got the same issue and am taking a different approach... hit them where it hurts, aka 1 star reviews on Amazon and a big tantrum review saying how annoying this is on a ?500 watch and how awful Garmin support is. Tech support may not care, but Garmin Marketing as an internal department may have something to say about their products getting slated on the worlds biggest retailer.

    YES, I know there is only a slim chance of this ploy working, but tech support sure as hell aren't listening, so cuting and pasting the same negative review all over Amazon is no trouble to me... especially if it wakes up just one internal exec at Garmin and concequently lights a fire under someone.

    I suggest the more people who do this the more chance it has of working.
  • if you're worried about keypresses, have the Altimeter widget first (or last) in your widget loop.

    Hit down (or up) and press start to get to the calibration screen.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    if you're worried about keypresses, have the Altimeter widget first (or last) in your widget loop.

    Hit down (or up) and press start to get to the calibration screen.


    I'm not worried about keypresses, it's Garmin that should be worried about losing lots of money to broken buttons if they don't add a quick shortcut to immediately input a pre-set altitude.
    Have you counted how many times you have got to hit "back" to go back to the watch face? I'm not saying it's not handy because it is, in fact it's the very first thing I did after installing .21b but one thing is if you have to calibrate from watch face to watch face and another when the Tri app is running and you're transitioning. In this case you may find yourself calibrating from -hundreds to 1 or 2 meters and this during the transition. If you make a mistake here you screw the entire race log. I expect Garmin to build a configuration tweak to INSTANTLY set the altimeter to a pre-set value and nothing could be easier considering the hardware of the F5x.
  • Hello, problem is fixed with the 5.10FW.
    Regards