Still crying over the altimeter....

Former Member over 6 years ago

It must be sad for HW engineers who actually built a very sensitive and accurate pressure measuring HW unit: They can only witness their work getting ruined by SW engineers who still cannot manage to calculate and present the correct altitudes for the Garmin costumer.

It is evident that a pressure measuring HW unit is sensitive to the ambient temperature. Did the SW engineers consider using the built in thermometer for the adjustment of the pressure measuring HW unit? Still not after many SW upgrades...

It is evident that when in auto altimter/barometer mode the SW must immediately register when the bearer of the watch is moving and hence at once switch to altimeter mode. It still takes minutes to register the movement making the altimter reading useless in everyday use cases.

Many have complained over the altimter which is a basic functionality of the watch. Why not solve the problem? It's just SW.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

They might be able to improve it, but you are missing the fact, that air pressure can change rapidly - while you are moving or not. Only way to get an accurate measurement is to calibrate the barometer with the local pressure whenever it changes - like pilots do before a take-off or landing. You can even set the altitude using the GPS if you really need to mid-track.

Alternatively set the known elevation every time you reach a peak with a documented elevation.

If you just implemented the 'moving = elevation' model you suggest, you would see a huge decent value if a low pressure front moves in while you were doing circuits on a 400 meter track.

You have two factors changing - elevation and air pressure - at the same time. The watch can only guess which one - or both - to take into account.

For most users, I would think the elevation is more or less irrelevant - unless you are navigating a featureless terrain with no GPS coverage. Luckily, the Fenix 5x does have both GPS and maps unlike say a Suunto Core Black - so navigation by elevation should be the last resort.

There may be use cases I am not aware of where accurate altitude from the watch (rather than supplied by the GPS) is important - I have just not seen them yet.

Update: I did a walk this morning, arriving at work 5 hours ago. Assuming the GPS fix updated the altitude during the walk. Now, the watch shows 15 meters, a GPS reading from my phone shows 23 meters - a 7 meter drift over 5 hours is well within acceptable limits.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

I get variations of about a 1000 ft these days compared to when I got the watch 8 months ago when on my backpacking trips it was far more accurate. I was at 8600 ft on Mt. Baldy in Socal a few weeks ago and the watch said I was at 7600 ft. I recalibrated via GPS and when I made it to 9500 it was showing me under 8000 ft. Recalibrate again, I get to the peak of 10058 ft and it says I'm at 9800. 250ft is almost an acceptable margin of error but I like to track my elevation gain and loss over the course of a hike like that. It's one of the reasons I bought the watch, I'm really bummed about it. I need this problem solved or I'm going to start looking for something else and asking Garmin for my money back, these bugs they keep introducing (battery drain, etc) are not cool. I'm not interested in being their alpha or even their beta tester. I'm interested in having working software/hardware that does what it is advertised to do. This is an expensive bit of tech, their quality control is not appropriate to the cost.

0 nmyeti over 6 years ago

Start and stop on my trail run this morning was roughly 2-3 feet difference. We started at a friends driveway and ended at a slightly different spot up his driveway about an hour later. For me that accuracy is more than enough ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1390064.jpg

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Started at about 5600ft and ended this track at 8600 ft but the watch indicates about 7700ft.ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1390078.png

0 Fabrizio_T over 6 years ago

Version 9.2, and again wrong 40 meters on the altitude. I would like to take one of the engineers to a forest and try to make a mistake of 40 meters and maybe find a cliff.

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 6 years ago

Version 9.2, and again wrong 40 meters on the altitude...

Maybe try the 10.52 beta. Happily someone has already tested that this is fixed in the beta sw (not yet in the production releases it seems) https://forums.garmin.com/forum/on-the-trail/wrist-worn/fenix-5x/1366982-elevation-errors-after-update-to-9-20-from-8-00?p=1390029#post1390029