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How is the altimeter?

tboooe
over 5 years ago

Can anyone comment on the accuracy of the altimeter?  On my 945 I notice that the altitude will creep steadily after I calibrate or after a run.  For example, right now my altitude reads 341ft, actual should be 299ft.  After my run yesterday the altimeter reading was 302ft so in the course of 24 hours it has drifted by almost 15%.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Again about altimeter: does continuous calibration during activity work? This stuff have never worked as it should in none of my previous Garmin watches...

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to renton82

    The continuous calibration works pretty well against the dem map that is part of the topoactive north america map on my watch. Can't speak to any of the other DEM maps. Was up to 13,102 recently and the watch read about 100 feet low at that point, which to me is acceptable. For you that may not be. I also can't say well it works at speed. I remember you had some issues when tracking on your bike. That may or may not still be an issue. 

    Re drift, that happens, but at least on GCM android the system will re-calibrate overnight against the position of the phone + the DEM map in the watch. That works pretty well for me most of the time, but my sleeping altitude is 5490 feet, so a few feet here or there is a pretty small percentage. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Yes, during an activity the altitude seems accurate enough.  I am seeing the drift after the activity ends.  can you please elaborate on the calibration with the Android GCM?  If this is working for me, I would assume that my altitude reading this morning would have close to 299ft instead of reading 341ft.  Is there a setting I need to enable for this calibration to happen?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tboooe

    Go to settings >Sensors and accessories > altimeter > Calibration > Not during activity> on. 

    If GCM has location permissions this will trigger a location ping every night and then this location is used to calibrate the altimeter against the DEM map on the watch. 

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to nmyeti

    thank you .  I just checked and this setting was already enabled in the watch.  I will doublecheck if the app has location permission.

    EDIT..the app has location permission but its not updating nightly as expected even though I can see that other data like sleep, heart rate is syncing.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tboooe

    Just got my F6 Pro yesterday and it seems the altimeter creeps just like my 945.  Just a few hours ago I manually set the altitude to 299ft.  Since then I have not moved much and now it reads 326ft.  

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tboooe

    27 feet after a couple of hours doesn't seem too bad, regular daily barometric pressure changes in your area could easily cause that. With auto-calibration turned on, it'll never be inaccurate by more than a few feet, except in weird circumstances like extended periods with no GPS signal, or being far above ground level (in a tall building, on a bridge, etc.)

    My altimeter seems flawless so far - after 4 days of using my watch, I've never seen it be wrong by more than about 10 feet.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to C.sco

    Thank you for the reply.  I do have  auto calibration turned on.  

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    I also noticed this.yesterday I calibrated manually  my 6s Pro. I used Google earth. My ground altitude is 54 m(177 feet) ASL.  I sleep on a 2nd floor. The next day, perhaps after 28 hours my ground altitude at the same spot was 77 meters F(252 feet) I think  this is a big gap. I'm based in Europe. I tried calibrating with all different methods, GPS gave me 59 meters.  DEM 44 meters. Google earth says 54. I just calibrated a few hours ago, I'm on a second floor now and it says 59 again.  I also have autocalibrate during activity - continuous and  not during activity - on. Is it normal it oscillates all the time?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Yes, because it's a barometric altimeter. It is influenced by the weather, air conditioning and other external factors. In my week and a half using the 6X Sapphire, I'm am very pleased with it. On my 5 and 5X Plus, the altimeter wasn't that great.