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Anyone knows if there are plans to improve altimeter automatic calibration algorithm soon?

Johanneskarlsen
over 4 years ago

When manually calibrating altimeter using GPS it normally suggest a pretty accurate height the first seconds, however, when I start an activity with the barometer set on automatic the calibration is often far off. In my opinion manual and automatic calibration via GPS should yield the same results. A bit more sophisticad case logic in the automatic algorithm perhaps? :)

Further, I've currently been "54 m under water" for quite a while, including sleep at 14 m below sea level last night. A bit weird as I calibrated my watch inserting the correct height manually yesterday evening. Perhaps the above mentioned fix could solve some "underwater-problems" as well?

I have formerly had issues when my watch was stuck at 256 m below sea level after driving through a underwater tunnel. The solution then was to perform a hard reset, customer service also told me that an update for the altimeter algorithm was in beta testing.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I would love to see some improvements in this regard too. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I am also yes. For me, auto calibration does not work at all. Very often the altimeter is wrong by more than 100 meters. This is totally unacceptable!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Agree. Most of the time I have accurate altitude but sometimes it just goes wrong in a way that I can't explain.

    First of all I would appreciate a detailed explanation of the different settings and how they interact with each other. So far I'm aware of the following:

      • Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Altimeter->Calibrate: Yes, Use DEM, Use GPS
        This is probably the easy one. Performs a one time calibration, either by manually entering altitude, using the elevation profile from the base map in combination with GPS (for current position) or by using the GPS and GPS altitude.

      • Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Altimeter->Auto Cal.->During Activity:Continuous, At start, Off
        Sounds like an easy one but does it use DEM or GPS? How often is continuous? In combination with different watch modes? If continuous really is continous and the GPS altitude is used, what's the reason for a barometric altitude sensor?

      • Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Altimeter->Auto Cal.->Not During Activity:On, Off
        Read from posts that is uses Garmin Connect Mobile to get the phone position during night and calibrates using DEM info but can't find it in the manual.

    • Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Barometer->Calibrate: Yes, Use DEM, Use GPS
      Same as altimeter calibration

    • Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Barometer->Watch Mode: Auto, Altimeter, Barometer
      So far the only use case I found is if you are on the sea and want's accurate air pressure. For all other outdoor activities I guess you never know if it is the altitude that is changing or the air pressure? Might be outdoor sports when you are on the same spot but do you really care about the air pressure? 
      Why can't this be changed as a app setting as well as a system setting to override default with something specific for an activity?

    On the older Fenix models (without maps) the altimeter was calibrated against stored positions during activities which I found really good. I don't think that is available on F6. The good thing about that was that I could wait for a really good GPS fix and wait for the GPS altitude to become correct before saving the position.

  • +1 over 4 years ago in reply to TobiasLj
    TobiasLj said:
    Settings->Sensors & Accessories->Altimeter->Auto Cal.->Not During Activity:On, Off
    Read from posts that is uses Garmin Connect Mobile to get the phone position during night and calibrates using DEM info but can't find it in the manual

    This is from the Support website. I have no idea why this information isn't in the manual. 

    On - The watch will calibrate the altimeter once every night during the user's sleep window. A Garmin Connect Mobile connection is required for this feature to work, as it uses location data from the phone and compares it to the DEM information.

    Off - The watch will not automatically calibrate the altimeter, and manual calibration will need to be used. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to TobiasLj
    TobiasLj said:
    So far the only use case I found is if you are on the sea and want's accurate air pressure.

    Similar to your example would be using barometer mode while running on extremely flat terrain where you know elevation change may only be a couple of feet. I use to live in Hawaii. (I know, I was roughing it).  There were days where the barometric pressure was steady. Using altimeter mode while hiking in the hills is more useful for tracking elevation gain/loss because I don't want the watch to mistakenly think any pressure changes were due to weather while in auto mode. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to tess

    I wonder how it works at night when battery saving is automatically turned on when I sleep. The bluetooth connection does not work then.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to bugajalan

    Calibrate not during activity wouldn't work if you're Bluetooth connection is disabled during your sleep window. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    My fenix altimeter works perfectly. The same was for my prior 3HR and 5X. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to manelok
    manelok said:
    My fenix altimeter works perfectly.

    That is the rule for me as well but sometimes there are exceptions that can not be explained by abnormal changes in pressure where the altimeter changes a lot. I think that there are combinations of the settings and how they work that sometimes causes the altimeter to fail.