Altimeter Auto Cal

Hi,

I have an issue with auto cal at the start of activities. I always wait for the full ring of green to tell me that I have a GPS lock before starting an activity, however for the last few runs the elevation shown has defaulted to 98m rather than the correct elevation (as if the GPS is saying it can't work out an accurate elevation so is giving a default number). This morning I did Parkrun in the UK and started the activity screen (but didn't actually start the activity) and left it on that screen for approximately 5-8 minutes (so should have had a good GPS lock) and when I checked the elevation reading the watch again said 98m. The correct elevation is 37m at that point. There were no buildings or trees obstructing the view of the sky and when I calibrated the altimeter using GPS it gave me the correct elevation of 37m.

Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.
Thanks

Top Replies

mcalista over 6 years ago +1

I think the watch stores the altitude from previously saved locations, and in this case may havestored an incorrect elevation. If your ParkRun starts from the same location every time, it may be worthwhile…

All Replies

0 mcalista over 6 years ago

I think the watch stores the altitude from previously saved locations, and in this case may havestored an incorrect elevation. If your ParkRun starts from the same location every time, it may be worthwhile calibrating the altimeter there, then saving the location. Hopefully then it will jump to the correct elevation in the future.

0 rickj2903 over 6 years ago

Thanks mcalista, I will give that a try.

0 RUI_LOPES over 5 years ago

Altimeter it's one of the worst sensors on GARMIN 5X, really disappointing.

I posted, long ago, with 100% irony, that I was living a really stressful live, because I was getting storm alerts twice a day. Living in southern Portugal, Algarve, at sea level, the altimeter of the 5X is a complete s**t.

I woke up everyday at different attitudes sometimes with more than 15 metres difference from the time I am going to bed.

My previous Fenix 3 use to be spot on everytime, why not using same software or trimming this to give the same behavior?

Storm alerts on Fenix 3 use to be accurate, with 5X just a good laugh.

Please Garmin, do your job, we try to do ours, buying from you.

Best regards to all

P. S. Just another thought... my wife runs with my retired Forerunner 630...and running together, the analysis of GPS tracking is much much better on her run than on mine...

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to RUI_LOPES

The Altimeter in my Fenix 5 (I'm on my third device) is accurate enough when it is not blocked up, that detects changes in air pressure. However, the Altimeter system is utterly unreliable and therefore next to useless without a working and well thought out calibration system. It is as if Garmin set out to build an Altimeter that would always be wrong making Stairs count, storm alerts, etc useless.

My 10 year old Garmin Edge500 works perfectly and puts the Fenix 5 to shame. Why can't the Fenix 5 adopt the Edge500 system and use stored known altitude values for locations (such as your home) when the GPS detects that it is at one of those locations. Just like Garmin have now added into the Fenix 5 Plus!