Altimeter craziness!!

Polaris said:

My watch's altimeter shows like I am in the hell - 209 (minus two hundred zero nine)

Me too... I will bring the beer

lol

must be constantly calibrated.

This is a barometric altimeter. That's how they work.

really? so what's autocalibration for?

according to Garmin, the Fenix 6 does not need phone GPS at all for calibration. So it relies exclusively on its sensors, at least for altimeter/barometer/temperature. Weather info is different, that needs phone location services enabled to sync correct weather info.

From my experience, all troubles related to altimeter and floors counted started after i first manually calibrated altimeter (via GPS at the time). Out of the box, the 6X showed way off altitude but floors recording up/down was perfect, for at least a week

Once i calibrated manually the altimeter (had nothing better to do that day), issues started. After a manual calibration, values (altitude and floors) seem correct for max 2 days, then some kind of drift occurs and altitude goes way off and floors start behaving strange: climbed 2 during sleep, some down never recorded, etc...then i repeat calibration, 1-2 days ok then repeat.

Autocalibration is continuous during activity and ON not during activity. Barometer mode is auto

7187100 said:

according to Garmin, the Fenix 6 does not need phone GPS at all for calibration. So it relies exclusively on its sensors, at least for altimeter/barometer/temperature

Uhm, and how does the watch know the actual heigth outside an activity,  so when there's no GPS signal??

not necessarily. eTrex 30 had barometric but autocalibrated itself through GPS and worked like a charm. Only had to calibrate manually twice in ten years. 

I wonder why Garmin is not using the same algorithm on the Fenix.

Look here:
forums.garmin.com/.../dem-and-gps-altitude-calibration---look-at-the-differences