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Elevation errors after update to 9.20 from 8.00

Former Member over 7 years ago

After updating from firmware 8.00 to 9.20 recently my watch seems to not record changes to elevation.
Specifically it doesn't seem to notice decent, but it does seem to notice ascent. Which means no matter what, my watch's elevation always seems to go up, and never go down.

This is regardless if I am doing an activity or not.

On 8.00 the automatic detection of ascent and decent worked fairly OK, both while doing activities and also outside of activities.
So this is a change (regression) after updating to 9.20.

0 renton82 over 7 years ago

It is not resolved with 5 Plus! I don't know if it resolved with 5X plus, but i think no... : https://forums.garmin.com/forum/on-t...uring-climbing

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Same problem here. Ascent cut by approximately half. Have sent an email to Garmin......

0 nullkru over 7 years ago

Did u hear something from them?

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

ok, so I also had this problem and reported it earlier in this thread. I reported the issue to the beta team and the product support team and was able to get an RMA.

backstory
The watch is only 2.5 months old, it worked fine for about a month then started under-reporting ascent. I tried downgrading to 8, tried upgrading to latest betas but I was still getting under-reporting by at least 50-75%.

Just got my RMA back yesterday and took it on a known mountain bike trail to compare with past rides and it under-reported today's ride by 66%. This tells me a couple things. 1) this issue is either systemic hardware (since both watches are doing it) or more likely 2) this is a software issue that is affecting all watches on 9.2 .

Either way, ascent is very important to me and this $600+ 5X sapphire is a giant paperweight. In fact during the RMA I was just using my Apple Watch and a 10$ iPhone app and it did just as well as my Garmin if not better.

0 radbiker over 7 years ago

ok, so I also had this problem and reported it earlier in this thread. I reported the issue to the beta team and the product support team and was able to get an RMA.

backstory
The watch is only 2.5 months old, it worked fine for about a month then started under-reporting ascent. I tried downgrading to 8, tried upgrading to latest betas but I was still getting under-reporting by at least 50-75%.

Just got my RMA back yesterday and took it on a known mountain bike trail to compare with past rides and it under-reported today's ride by 66%. This tells me a couple things. 1) this issue is either systemic hardware (since both watches are doing it) or more likely 2) this is a software issue that is affecting all watches on 9.2 .

Either way, ascent is very important to me and this $600+ 5X sapphire is a giant paperweight. In fact during the RMA I was just using my Apple Watch and a 10$ iPhone app and it did just as well as my Garmin if not better.

If it makes you feel any better they haven't responded to my request and their chat has been down all week. I'm going to try to call in next.

I mean at this point it's fraud seeing it's sold as an ABC watch and this is why people buy them. I just want an acknowledgement and eta on the fix.

0 ekutter-dnu over 7 years ago

I've been dealing with this on the FR935 in the following thread. Also got a replacement that didn't help. Started happening with the 935 upgrade to FW 9.1 in early June. Spoke with Garmin support today and they admitted there is a known problem and thought the fix might have made it into the latest fw, 9.7 on the 935, that just got released today. There seems to be three levels of indirection with support: the person you talk to when you call support, they talk to their help desk, their help desk talks to their technical team. So a lot of room for missed communication. But basically, if you are on the latest fw and still see this "smoothing" of elevation, send an e-mail to [email][email protected][/email].

https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/running/forerunner-935-aa/1368506-elevation-ascent-errors-on-long-rides-runs-elevation-slow-to-react

0 radbiker over 7 years ago

I've been dealing with this on the FR935 in the following thread. Also got a replacement that didn't help. Started happening with the 935 upgrade to FW 9.1 in early June. Spoke with Garmin support today and they admitted there is a known problem and thought the fix might have made it into the latest fw, 9.7 on the 935, that just got released today. There seems to be three levels of indirection with support: the person you talk to when you call support, they talk to their help desk, their help desk talks to their technical team. So a lot of room for missed communication. But basically, if you are on the latest fw and still see this "smoothing" of elevation, send an e-mail to [email][email protected][/email].

https://forums.garmin.com/forum/into-sports/running/forerunner-935-aa/1368506-elevation-ascent-errors-on-long-rides-runs-elevation-slow-to-react

Tested and confirmed no improvement in the 9.72 yesterday. Elevation still off around 40% for the workout. Also nothing in the release notes regarding elevation.

0 gunnar9090 over 7 years ago

I now have 9.2 on my 5x. Did a 51 mile ride yesterday and also used my edge 1000 and the elevation profiles looked good when I compared the two.
Garmin fenix 5x: 1972 feet
edge 1000: 2034 feet
close enough for me.

0 radbiker over 7 years ago

I now have 9.2 on my 5x. Did a 51 mile ride yesterday and also used my edge 1000 and the elevation profiles looked good when I compared the two.
Garmin fenix 5x: 1972 feet
edge 1000: 2034 feet
close enough for me.

What type of ride? I'm assuming that they modified the sampling frequency to help with battery life. If you're climbing 2k over 51 miles the 40f/m then the reading will report relatively good.

MTB or other quick elevation changes look like the issue. I will do the same climb over 12 miles at and have something like 160f/m. If the samplings aren't fast enough then it is missing the elevation changes.

One solution would be to make some apps force faster samplings like the MTB app or custom apps like MTB Pro. I've still noticed my elevations being off on faster road/gravel rides too where elevation changes are faster.

0 ltquovadis over 7 years ago

Experienced also huge differences on my (mtb) cycling tour in Austria. Daytrips with circa 2200 meter elevation recorded only 1600-1700 meters. Thought that it was the travel agency that provided me a wrong track or wrong information about the day trips, but correcting in Strava showed up the correct elevation..