Elevation gain issues

Hello, Fenix community!

I'm the owner of Fenix 6 Pro Sapphire watch and started cycling outside a month ago. I record activities with both my watch and Edge 820.

I rode with Edge 820 for quite some time and I think that elevation gain is somewhat real, at least it feels normal. However, now that I have 2 devices I noticed a discrepancy in elevation gain. I tested some settings with GPS mode ( GPS, GPS+Glonnas, GPS+Galileo) and altimeter calibration (At the start of the activity, Continuous calibration), but in every case, the watch showed more elevation gain.

As I was reading this forum I noticed that lots of people have trouble with elevation (or just everything), so I will present my findings of this issue.

In this case, the GPS mode on Fenix 6 and Edge 820 were both GPS+Glonass:

This is the elevation profile of Edge 820:

Elevation Gain: 226 m

Edge 820

This is the elevation profile of Fenix 6:

Elevation Gain: 342 m

When you are climbing and descending, there is not much difference in the profile. The discrepancy is mostly made on a flatter course which is over 51 % in this case.

I hope that this post is helpful enough to resolve this issue.

0 eezytiger over 5 years ago

From a 4km hike (dog walk) today, here are elevation tracks from....

F6X Pro Solar

F5X+

F3HR

Polar V800

Altitude was set manually to 45m at the beginning on all devices and there was no auto-calibration at any time, so this is all pressure data without GPS+GLONASS influence. Start and end points were at the same level, certainly within less than 0.5m difference. 6X track shows 45.0m at the start and 44.6m at the finish, on the opposite side of the same stretch of road. Correlation seems close enough.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

The same problem has been with me for about weeks - and it is still massive: on today's bike ride, my Fenix 6 sapphire shows a positive difference of 394 m, although in reality it should be around 250 m. That means a deviation of about 60 %. This is beyond good and bad!

The vertical meters in the graph are "unsteady", i.e. they go up and down nervously. The absolute values (at the start, in breaks and at the finish) are correct. But the real profile should be smooth.

0 Ze_Rui over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Have exactly the same issue with my Edge 820 and Fenix 6 Pro. Huge difference in elevation gain on my rides between both. Would like to now had to solve this

0 daniel.jg over 5 years ago in reply to Ze_Rui

Same here

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/226128/ascent-wrong-since-software-9-0