Garmin Fenix 5 elevation way off

Former Member
Former Member
I have had issues with the elevation readings all summer long. I consistently am missing at least 50%(and usually more) of my total elevation gain while cycling or mountain biking. I usually end up enabling the Elevation Correction. I have been in contact with support. On the first call, they told me to upgrade to the beta software and clean the sensor. I did both, and it still read erroneously. On the next call, I was instructed to default it back to factory settings and try again. After doing this, repairing all my sensors, etc, the elevation gain was still off by at least 50%. On the next call, they agreed to replace it under warranty. I recieved the new device, set it up, and it is doing the EXACT SAME THING. I now believe there is a software bug with 9.20. Does anyone else experience this? I can't believe I am the only one who has this issue, on 2 completely separate devices. Anyone from Garmin Support on here that can address this? This is a 600 dollar device and I believe it should work correctly. I hate having to use the USGS tables for elevation as they are highly inaccurate when mountain biking.
  • Thanks interesting comparaison indeed! Just one question Wander_ What was the firmware version on your F5X at the time of this comparaison? 9.2 or 10.5x? Thank you for your return.

    ps: i also just read that for elevation it might help to lock the barometer in altimeter mode, in the barometer option, under wacth mode > Altimeter , rather than being by default in auto, cause he will try to understan if changes in pressure occur cause of a storm coming or because you gain in altitude. This can mess up the elevation. So if you dont care about weather storm alert, put in on OFF and lock the barometer watch mode on altimeter.


    The sample elevation data was using 9.20.

    The F5X has now updated to 10.00. Sample dated looked at suggests no great improvement.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    Attached you see Data from a bike ride, comparing a Fenix2 to Fenix5 with FirmwareV9.20.
    The Fenix2 is totally correct. Real good working device. The Fenix5 Altimeter data is total useless.
    After downgrading to V6.0 the Fenix5 Altimeter works as it should. +-10hm compared to the F2.
    Does anybody know, if this issue is fixed in V10.0 ?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    AFAIK, it was fixed in 9.73 and up unless it regressed. I have had no time for further testing. Perhaps it is related to a lousy sensor device in some models. I managed to land a very old F5 that was on ver 2.0, it seems to work on elevation, but now I am worried about Ant+ problems. I love this thing for looks and ruggedness, but if fundamental stuff doesn't work... I guess I am picky when I drop a chunk of change in a premium device.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    I just hikes a loop and aside from a 30ft offset, was dead nuts to plotaroute.com apart from the value for total ascent. For elevation vs. Location, it was great. For total ascent valie, 200ft off at the end of a 2.6mile hike.
  • now i am on beta 10.52 and it's getting worse. i decided to wait and try the next official firmware. if the elevation problem will not be fixed by than, i have to assume that i have a faulty fenix 5 and i will contact garmin to exchange my fenix 5. the fenix is useless with this kind of results.

    today i did a flat cycling tour and here are the results for elevation gain:

    fenix 5: 61 m
    garmin connect online with correction: 135 m
    runtastic: 140 m
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 6 years ago
    now i am on beta 10.52 and it's getting worse. i decided to wait and try the next official firmware. if the elevation problem will not be fixed by than, i have to assume that i have a faulty fenix 5 and i will contact garmin to exchange my fenix 5. the fenix is useless with this kind of results.

    today i did a flat cycling tour and here are the results for elevation gain:

    fenix 5: 61 m
    garmin connect online with correction: 135 m
    runtastic: 140 m



    That is very strange. Mine started working nearly perfect after the beta SW upgrade. I would tend to believe you have a faulty device and/or the sensor needs to be cleaned. Just soak the watch in lukewarm water for 20 minutes to accomplish this. Also, try setting your barometer to Altimeter Only in the settings.
  • Hi!

    I have noticed that I have less elev. gain then my friend has.. we did same trail (MTB)
    I have F5 (without X) but he has F3
    See example.
    https://photos.app.goo.gl/WZToURV9R5VF5FNd8
    OK, he did quicker, but path was same.
    Also I noticed that sometime my altimeter show -8m below sea level, and when I do calibration with GPS it come back to normal ~ 6m.
    Also it was stucked in -22m for all day. I ahve lattest firmware 9.2.
    Now Im scrooling history, but I think it is not firmware issue, could it be sensor fault? Why not firmware, as in previos workouts I have same altitude @ start and finish. Now I have some random, eample, I started @ 20m but finished @ -6m. Outside temp ~ 24C.
    se example, why at start I have ~ 20m, but at finish I have ended below sea level!? Same house, same address
    https://photos.app.goo.gl/PggncsEjbiRW2h7fA
    Troubleshooting -> I tried to clean watch, left it in worm soap watter for ~ 15min. And power off/power on. No luck.
    Any ideas?

    Thanks in advance!

    +ok, seems this is fw issue. Will try to install beta or above suggested v6. strange, how they managed to thinks that worked well in older vesrion??
  • ok, here we go again. in my last tests my watch mode in the barometer settings was set to "elevation". to give another setting a try i set it to "auto" today and took another mtb ride.

    here are the results for elevation:

    fenix 5: 427 m
    garmin connect online with correction: 522 m
    runtasic: 588 m
    strava: 595 m
    mygpsfiles.com: 552 m

    and again i come the conclusion, that the elevation sensor (elevation software) is totally and another random value on the fenix - simply useless. why does garmin not use the gps data to calculate the elevation and just disable the elevation sensor? this would be an easy way to get better results. when i bought the fenix, i thought that an elevation sensor would give me more realistic results for mountainbiking because of the many small up and downs.


    (here is a bonus tip for all the people, who did not reach their daily step goal but have some time left: don't go out and walk, just cook a chili! if you take your time to make a good one, you will be rewarded with 2000 steps :-)
  • ...why does garmin not use the gps data to calculate the elevation and just disable the elevation sensor?


    If you take a look at the raw elevation data from a watch without a barometer, it is extremely noisy. That is because GPS is approximately 5 times less accurate for vertical location than it is for horizontal location. That is why Garmin Connect automatically applies Elevation Corrections for devices without a barometer. I remember a while back someone commented how good the elevation plot was on their Forerunner 735 (with no barometer) compared to their Fenix 3 (with barometer); that was until the original fit files were extracted and put in to mygpsfiles.com and the raw GPS elevation plot could be seen. There simply is no comparison; the GPS elevation is just very “noisy” whereas the barometric elevation plot is smooth and pics up the small intiricacies of even just a 1 metre difference.

    If your device is stil not producing the precise plot that a barometric sensor should be after the 10.52 beta update, then it might be worth finding a friend with a working bike GPS with barometer and compare with them. That will quickly show if you have a hardware issue or not.
  • Hi there,

    I'm following this topic for a while now and at this point I also want to share my experience.
    I have my F5 now for almost a year and did log more than 65.000 vertical meters of sports, from hiking to mountain biking, road biking and mountaineering.
    I also noticed the inaccuracy of the altimeter in the last few months.
    My standard setting is always auto in reference to the 'fixed' baro-altimeter option.
    Some time ago the altimeter was working quite well. I know that garmin does no gps recalibration during an activity (for whatever reason?!) so due to weather changes there were some comprehensible divergences.
    But since the last few months the altimeter is always about 50 vertical meters behind the real value. I always let me show from my watch the gps height and the barometric height and experienced that the 'shift' always takes place at the beginning (in the first hour ca.) of an activity. Afterwards the barometric height follows the gps height with the said gap of 50m.

    I'm on Beta 10.52 for a while now and nothing changed to the Firmware before so I cannot confirm that this bug is fixed.
    My disappointment and anger is really great now. I just cannot understand why such a core feature is not working on a 500$ GPS-watch.
    Instead they are working on step counting stair counting, sleep tracking an all this senseless things.

    I hope they will fix that problem because that's why i bought this very expensive watch.
    If I would just want step counting, sleep tracking etc. I also could have bought a much cheaper wristband.