Fenix 5 Altimeter readings are not constant

Former Member over 7 years ago

Hi Everyone, I've got the fenix 5 APAC wifi (gasp!) for about 2 weeks now. Everything is ok with the watch except I've noticed the altimeter is a little crazy when switched to auto calibration and GPS calibrated. The readings are very different from my actual surroundings.

However when I do a manual input of my altitude, this gets better but I do notice the reading does increase or decrease by a few meters even though im seated at my desk not moving much. I can't trust the auto calibrations as they interfere with floor climbing where I'm paranoid on checking whether my floor is recorded. But even with the manual input, I'm still paranoid but it seems even more consistent then the auto mode with a 80% chance that I'd get the floor climbed if I have the ABC widget on the screen and see a 3m increase in altitude.

Ok so my question is.. what is the best settings with regards to ABC widget to get the most consistent readings.

Currently I have mine at

ALTIMETER: Calibrate - (manual input), Auto Cal. - OFF, Elevation - Meters
BAROMETER: Plot- 6-Hour, Storm Alert- OFF, Watch Mode- Auto, Pressure- Hectopascals
Compass: All default with Mode: Auto

My firmware is updated at version 5.40 at the moment until Garmin decides to release the current firmware for APAC devices.

0 mcalista over 7 years ago

From a Garmin administrator on a similar topic:

Either from the ABC widget or from the Barometer widget, under Barometer settings you will see "Watch Mode." There's three options here: Auto, Altimeter, and Barometer. Altimeter will assume that changes in pressure measured by the barometer are because of altitude changes. Barometer will assume that changes are less related to altitude, and are because of weather changes. The Auto setting will do it's best to guess which changes are happening.

Thanks,
Mel
Garmin Outdoor SW Quality Team

0 Pexer_abc over 7 years ago

Hi!
I also have a similar question.
I was out running for a while this weekend and first want to cheer a bit about this device: It's simply great!
7hrs of gps tracking (normal), Navigation and there's still 67% battery left :)
This is exactly why i bought this device: Reliability.
As I was running with my friend who's got a Polar V800 I could also compare tracks and they are almost spot on when compared in MyGPSFiles
There was a small difference in distance of only 0,5% (!!!!)
Remarkable that these devices has become so exact!
Btw: I always go with GPS only (Glonass is off since it messed up my tracking)

My question:
The altitude of our start point was 11m according to map.
The V800 showed 17m and the F5 25m.
The F5 kept the extra appr. 10m during the entire run. So at points with 60m elevation the watch indicated about 70m.
The Polar was more true to mapdata over the entire run, but also did log some negative altitudes though, so it's not perfect either... :p

This is not a big deal, but it looks strange when running at sealevel :rolleyes:
This is actually the second time I noticed that the altimeter is off by appr +10m.

Is there someway to calibrate the altimeter and make it more consistent and in my case "lower the reference point" by 10m?
Will Settings->Sensors->Altimeter->Calibrate make the calibration "sticky" or only for the current run?
The "Auto calibrate" is also turned on, should it be so?

Hope You all are also enjoying Your F5 the way I am! :)