Altimeter

Hello guys to begin with, I own garmin instinct for almost a year and due to the fact I live in pretty flat area and I wasn't aware how problematic the altimeter really is. I've read some posts about obviously damaged barometer and I think mine is 'fine', but last weekend I went for some hiking in the mountains and record some of my routes. The GPS itself works pretty good in terms of accuracy, but altimeter showed really crap readings. I've tried recording activities in all modes. Both Auto and altimeter show differences in heights but they are quite different from map and barometer mode is stable, like too stable, today I went for cycling and on 40km trip it showed no change at all.
You guys have any thoughts what else I can do besides accepting the fact it's a gadget, not real tool?

Yes I'm aware that barometer port might get clogged with sweat etc and it needs calibrating, but in my experience it seems I have to do it every couple minutes.

Besides that, I can't calibrate it with using DEM. Instinct gets a GPS fix, then it tries to get DEM, but after ~1minute it shows that it is not avaliable. Garmin is 17.00 and it is connected with Garmin Connect.

Top Replies

trux over 3 years ago +1

2942716 said:
barometer mode is stable, like too stable, today I went for cycling and on 40km trip it showed no change at all.

Well, if you put it into the barometer mode, then the elevation will be indeed…

All Replies

0 trux over 3 years ago

2942716 said:
barometer mode is stable, like too stable, today I went for cycling and on 40km trip it showed no change at all.

Well, if you put it into the barometer mode, then the elevation will be indeed stable. That's exactly the purpose of the barometer mode - all pressure changes are being considered changes of the barometric pressure, and not the effect of the altitude.

2942716 said:
You guys have any thoughts what else I can do besides accepting the fact it's a gadget, not real tool?

I do not know why you think it is a gadget, I own both Instinct, and Instinct 2, and once I learned how to use it, protecting the orifice from wind gusts, dirt, moisture/sweat, and wrist pressure, the elevation reading is mostly very similar to the geographic results. On runs of 10-15km, the difference in total elevation gain is below 10%, which I consider pretty good. On longer cycling activities it may be slightly worse, especially when I do not wear sleeves, and forget to protect the sensor opening with a band, but that's quite comprehensible.

0 2942716 over 3 years ago in reply to trux

Any tips then, because most of my hiking routes were rather easy and elevation wasn't drastic, yet in the activity it looked like very steep climb. I always start with manual calibration(most of the time I take my height from physical map/not gps etc), set it in altimeter mode, and go for a hike. As I reach certain points, like mountain shelters/peaks I check my current height and most of the time they are inaccurate, difference from physical map and Instinct reading are even 100m. I've tried wearing it like a regular watch on a skin, I've tried putting rashguard underneath or even strapped it to my backpack, but still not much of a difference.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on Instinct, it's a nice watch and even though I'm not happy with altimeter(hope I'm just not using it correctly) I like it very much.