Sick and tired of altimeter drift and floors count messed up...fixes?

Assuming the floor height is the same as 3 weeks ago when the watch counted 100% accurately floors up / down, i'd say it's something in the watch internals that kicks off when you DO manually calibrate for the first time.

All smartwatches in the world who claim to count floors, assume 1 floor = approx. 3m of elevation (10ft). So nothing extraordinary that Garmin does, which others don't.

What is your explanation to why it counted perfectly out of the box, for days in a row, (even though the altitude was WAY off, like 2-300m) then started to have problems only after first calibration (when it got the altitude right, but everything else if off).

I struggle to comprehend what you're actually saying here...what's been said "again and again and again"? That's nomal behavior and nothing to fix? lol?

Either the calibration is messing something up when it's being manually tampered with, or the autocalibration doesn't work properly. How can you sit in the exact same spot couple of days apart and have a 30m height difference? What is this, a $1000 toy?!

Guess I'm one of the very lucky one. Mine is not a toy and I use it everyday.
But my Fenix 6 doesn't have any of the flaws you are describing.

If you bought it on the Internet you can have certainly your money back.
So why not selling it ? And buy something else ? Something you will understand perhaps ?

What he is saying is that it can work for days, indeed. Then suddenly, you have some weather change, the air pressure is changing, and the watch has to figure out if 

1. the pressure is changing because you are moving up or down
2. the pressure is changing because the weather is changing

If you are moving, especially indoors, the watch has zero means to know if it's 1 or 2. It can be both at the same time. So very logically, ALL barometric altimeters need recalibration from time to time. Garmin is trying to be clever, by making the watch auto calibrate from time to time. But will it be reliable ? No, because it should do it when it's outside, under perfect GPS conditions, and you are not moving. Difficult to guess ! So it's trying to autocalibrate, but I don't see how it could be perfectly reliable. So the altitude will be wrong, and will auto adjust. Not every 5 minutes, it's impossible. Currently, i'm at work, and it's wrong by 30m (200m instead of 170m). It happens, and NO watch will be 100% reliable for altitude all the time. Maybe Suunto or Polar or whoever can be more clever, and autocalibrate better. But it happens that it's wrong. Once you understand the logic behind, you can be more forgiving. Because it was fine yesterday won't make it fine today necessarily. 

For the floor, yes, a floor is 3m, ok. But then, same logic, how can the watch see what is the difference between an elevator, stairs, and mechanical stairs? In all cases, you are going up. Should it count 1 floor ? Someone explained that it's using a mix of barometric info + accelerometer to guess if you are really going upstairs or not. I'm pretty sure it's not 100% reliable, for the same reason as said above. It's using the barometric info, which are, by nature, not 100% reliable. So it will also be the kind of indicator that can't be 100% reliable. I look at it, it's sometimes a bit wrong, and I don't complain about that. It still gives me an idea of what I'm doing, even if it's not perfect. 

I'm happy with my altimeter.

I have all the auto-calibration settings turned on - constant during activity, and on outside of activity. The only time I've had an issue is when I've slept in a hotel (ie, at a floor well above ground level). Otherwise, it's very good. The ABC widget always shows elevation that corresponds with the signs I pass on the road that show the elevation, within 20 feet or so.

I live 250ft ASL, and every morning my watch shows me around 230-270ft. That's good enough for me. I work at about 10ft ASL, and again, my elevation at work always shows about -10ft to 30ft. So basically, with all the auto-calibrations turned on, my elevation is never wrong by more than about 20ft in either direction.

The 5k I run near my house has only very mild rolling hills, about 35ft of elevation gain and loss. Watch always shows elevation gain and loss within only a couple feet of that.

For a freakin' wristwatch, that's pretty impressive I think.

just an update on the topic. After analysing the logs and data, Garmin said unfortunately i have to send it to them for RMA....
Unfortunately for them, fortunately for me.

NemoSandman you might want to explain some things to Garmin, maybe they don't understand either?

7187100 said:

Garmin said unfortunately i have to send it to them for RMA....

Garmin has a tendency to RMA watches based on complaints.  They don't have your watch in hand to test it.  After spending years on this forum, it's obvious a RMA doesn't necessarily mean a defective watch.

7187100 said:

NemoSandman you might want to explain some things to Garmin, maybe they don't understand either?

I think Garmin get's it, but by reading your post I can see that you clearly don't understand how a barometric altimeter works or why you're seeing a 50M change a "day or so later" after calibrating just the elevation.  Do some research on how elevation, barometric pressure and ambient pressure all work together and it might make sense to you.