Altimeter Issues

Former Member
Former Member
Hello! I've been a long-time lurker and have learned a great deal from this group. I purchased a Fenix 5 Sapphire Edition just after Thanksgiving. I have come across some of the nuances of the device like the alarm override. However, my biggest concern is the altimeter. Following the version 7.0 update, my altimeter is way off. For example, my iPhone 7+ says 2800' elevation while my Fenix 5 is around 14,238'. I only noticed the problem after the version 7.0 update.

Early today I manually set the elevation at 2,600' at the time, and within a few hours the watch showed an elevation around 23,000'. I then chatted with customer support this morning and they suggested I make sure the sensor is clean, which I ran under water this evening. I still had the error, so I did a factory reset, removed the watch from Garmin Express, and the Garmin Connect app. I'm still having the same problems. The altimeter has varied in the range from 14,000' to as high as 23,000', while I've only been in ranges from 2,500 - 2,800.

I'm not a heavy outdoor, mountain hiking guy, but would like the altimeter to read correctly when I am out hiking. Any other suggestions to help correct the issue? I am still within the return period from REI.

Thanks,

James
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    The barometer on my F5 had small variations sometimes bigger but today dropped while at home from 1034 to 916 mB and would not go back. The elevation reading is -677 m. Also the GPS lock became extremely slow now around 7 min. My watch is fairly new (less than 1 month). Update: Did a manual calibrate.
    Maybe this is triggered by drops in barometric pressure caused by sudden weather changes responsible for a few mB variations and the watch somehow cannot handle this?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    I'm now on my 3rd Fenix because of the altimeter/barometer issue. 1st was faulty out of the box registering I was over 1000m from day one and the 2nd went wrong after 5 days reading heights of 20000m! Both also were showing some very random barometric pressure readings dropping as low as 235 millibars on barometric and 51 millibars on ambient! 3rd watch is currently fine so far, but I've only had it since Wednesday. I live at 11m above sea level as a reference