Fenix 6 Series - 20.00 Public Release Candidate

That’s been my feeling too. I initially had it asking me to calibrate at the start of each activity but I soon got sick of that. Now, I have it set to do the nightly calibration and auto-cal. It works fine. 

Dr Phil said:

That’s been my feeling too. I initially had it asking me to calibrate at the start of each activity but I soon got sick of that. Now, I have it set to do the nightly calibration and auto-cal. It works fine. 

I completely agree.  I was really reluctant to lose the Altimeter Calibration schemes available in 19.20 - they were working well for me.  Well, probably more accurate to say that I had become comfortable working with the idiosyncrasies.

After some initial angst, and some compulsive manual calibration after initial install of 20.00, it seemed that logically thebest settings would be nightly calibration and auto-cal.

It's working very well so far.  Elevation was rock solid during the day despite dramatic lowering of Baro Pressure, and recalibration at night went without a hitch.

So... put this old dog in the "I Like It" camp.

What I can understand, the possibility to save a manual calibration is working again after last two betas. You know when before start of an activity, first get a gpx fix and then open control wheel and do a elevation manual calibration, back to activity and start it.

Great!

I haven't seen any unreal drops or straight increases during activity that I had maybe half a year ago that made me turn off auto cal during activity.

Great so far!

During night with the first two betas I had an increase of elevation every night by 100 m, to 143 m. With last three betas my elevation is down by around 5 m every night, to exactly 36 m.

The value in it self is OK, but I would really like to understand it. I don't think my phone has a GPS fix with that DEM elevation.

What is your experience guys with this version (20) regarding the incorrect low VO2, training load, intensity minutes issue that plagued us since 19.20? The changelog claims it is fixed but what is your real life impressions so far?

With this version something strange happens with calibration.

Let's say I live on the 4th floor, 250 m above sea level, then in the morning I go down the stairs, get my bike and start the activity to bike commute. The altimeter on the watch face shows correctly 238 m, while the "elevation" field on the bike commute activity still shows 250. I have to manually calibrate, then its shows the correct elevation.

Is it just me or that happens to you too?

I had the same experience with the 19.xx betas.

I have altitude on my watchface. At home the altitude where I sleep is 47m. DEM at home is 43m. I drive daily a few km to the same park to walk the dog. DEM in the car park is 15m. With the watch on the wrist, 1m above the ground, and with reference to other DEM data I prefer to set the watch altitude to 17m in the car park.

Every day I could see altitude reduce on the watchface during my drive. Once I arrived in the car park and started my Walk activity the altitude would jump from (say) 17m on the watchface to 47m or 43m or similar - the figure last seen 15 minutes earlier. Even though the watch tracked the descent on the watchface it's like the calibration ignored the new value

Now, on 20.00 I have switched to continuous calibration. The altitude at the start of the walk is now correct every time, without manual calibration. I have saved a couple of GPS locations in the car park with my preferred altitude of 17m and the watch seems to know of and use these points for automatic calibration.

Things may be more complicated if you start an activity 4 floors below where you sleep and you want two altitudes registered at the same coordinates, but certainly there is some weird stuff going on if you calibrate at start of activity, before the watch has even gained a GPS lock. Since the altitude is already offered before GPS has got a look in I guess the chances of a correct value being offered are quite low.

Both my altimeter and floor count get stuck - double whammy!

eezytiger said:

I have saved a couple of GPS locations in the car park with my preferred altitude of 17m and the watch seems to know of and use these points for automatic calibration.

I've seen this mentioned a couple of times now, how do you actually save a location with the altitude you set manually?

I can't seem to find it in the manuals. :-)

I have a 945 but more or less the SW is similar to yours, I follow you because sooner or later I will switch to Fenix6 titanium, from Friday I am in 8.20 which is equal to yours 20.00 and the altimeter has the same options . I noticed the very close correlation with atmospheric pressure, I live on the fifth floor at about 113 meters, when the weather turns to rain I go up even 20 meters, then when the sun comes back I go back down, but I think it is the correct functioning of the barometric altimeter, not I use the connection to the phone but I can finally correct the altitude by hand, the weather has been stable for 2 days and I am always at 113/115 meters.