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Barometer/Altimeter of my brand new Garmin Fenix 6 PRO solar is always inaccurate

1193578
over 2 years ago

Hello, less than a month ago I adquired a brand new Garmin Fenix 6 PRO solar and the barometer is always innacurate.

It always gets a higher elevation than the real one, the time it was more accurate it was 25% wrong, and usually it's arround 35%, up to 60%.

- I am calibrating altimer and barometer using DEM before each bike ride and it gets the correct elevation.

- I have used it in sunny, cludy and rainy days, and the result is always the same.

- I have tried it with GPS, GPS plus glonass , and GPS plus galileo, always the same result.

- Watch is new so and works wrong from the first use.

- Riding together with friends that have the same or similar devices from garmin, they got the correct elevation.

- The percentages I mention above are based on garmin maps and strava maps.

Should I already assume that I got a faulty device? How should I proceed with it now as the watch has just one month so I beliave based on the european law I should get it replaced by a new one.

TIA

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    To me, the question would not even arise ... if the results are so seriously wrong, then by all means have them replaced.
    The results will certainly not agree 100% with the watches of your friends, but the written percentages are in any case too much.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Farron

    That's not a hardware issue. My watch is three years old and has exactly the same issues with the altimeter, albeit only since software version 20.xx. Before that SW version, the altimeter worked o.k.

    The real problem here is that

    • Garmin caused this problem themselves by this buggy software update
    • Garmin knows about the problem, because it is widespread (you can find lots of threads in this forum about this topic, including some started by me)

      and, last but not least,
    • Garmin is either not willing or not able to fix the issue.

    : replacing the watch will get you nowhere, because the next watch will have exactly the same issues. Cancel the purchase contract (the reason obviously being that the watch is faulty) and get some other watch. My estimate is that this issue will not be fixed by Garmin, because (software) engineering ressources at Garmin have long moved elsewhere (Fenix 7, Fenix 8, ...) and such, Garmin has no commercial motivation to fix this issue (and others) because there is no revenue behind. You should be fine, because you can still cancel the contract, but my watch is so old that this is not an option for me. I'm left with a $800 paperweight..

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 53bc6a5b980c4f559a60f7e77fff204c
    53bc6a5b980c4f559a60f7e77fff204c said:
    My watch is three years old and has exactly the same issues with the altimeter, albeit only since software version 20.xx

    That's too much of a generalization for me.
    My 6pro I have only a year and only a few days ago from the FW 24.78 to the 25.91 geupdatet. Not entirely voluntarily but some CIQ apps grumbled and would no longer work without an update.
    But, neither with the 24.78 nor with the 25.91 I have trouble with the Baro or the altimeter.
    So you can not automatically associate a malfunction with a faulty FW.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to Farron

    OK, maybe different hardware revisions of the watch have problems with the Altimeter firmware and others not.

    But please have a look at the forums (this one and the beta forums). Lots of people are complaining, and this started with SW version 19.xx or 20.xx. I cannot believe that all of those watches developed a hardware problem all of a sudden when this firmware version was published.