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Problems with the barometric altimeter

ivano59
9 months ago

Even if I update the altimetry to the exact value, shortly after it always marks an altitude close to -58

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  • +1 8 months ago

    Hello   

    I am sorry to hear you are having trouble with the altimeter. There is a margin of error with the altimeter of +/- 400ft. If you manually calibrate the altimeter, you can reduce this margin of error to +/-25-50ft. for up to an hour.

    Sudden changes in barometric pressure, moving from indoors to outdoors, staying in a single spot for long periods of time, and areas of poor GPS signal can allow this to stray outside of this margin of error as well. 

    If you are seeing incorrect elevation, especially outside of the mentioned margins of error, you may try some initial troubleshooting: 

    • Try calibrating the altimeter more frequently
    • Try cleaning the altimeter sensor port with these steps: 
      1. Submerge the watch in warm water for 15-20 minutes
      2. Rinse the altimeter port under the faucet
      3. Shake loose the excess water
      4. Try calibrating again
    • If this issue continues, you can also try a factory reset with these steps: 
    1. Ensure the watch is powered off.
      • You may need to hold LIGHTfor up to 30 seconds to turn the watch off.
    2. Press and hold BACK and START/STOP.
    3. Press LIGHT to power the watch on while holding these two buttons.
    4. After the first beep release START/STOP.
    5. After the second beep release the remaining button.

    If this continues, this can indicate a failure of the sensor. For this you will want to reach out to Garmin Product Support to discuss options for replacement. 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Garmin-Laurie

    Hi ,

    Thank you for supplying the expected margins of error on the altimeter. On my watch, the altimeter works perfectly fine and is surprisingly accurate, until I turn ON Auto-calibration. I can manually calibrate as frequently as I want, but it will always ‘default’ back to an altitude which is 150m too low when auto-calibration is turned on. 

    This has only started happening recently, around early August and has never happened before. This would suggest something like a corrupted file somewhere on the watch.

    Is there anyway to reset just the auto calibration? I’m very reluctant to do a factory reset, as it will clear my VO2max, training status, HRV status, etc. 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to Garmin-Laurie

    Every time I check the altimeter and the altitude is not exact, I calibrate it manually if I'm at home otherwise I use the DEM. The latest updates have certainly worsened the accuracy of the altimeter because I didn't have these problems before. Also this morning I manually calibrated it at +29 meters and checking again after about two hours, it was at -58 meters.

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to ivano59

    After I complained about this (and other issues that my watch has) to Garmin service, a Garmin representative gave me a phone call and explained to me that this is considered normal.

    Other watches don't do this, btw, as I can say from first-hand experience with the watch I used to use before I bought the Fenix 6, as well as a much cheaper watch of another manufacturer that I borrowed from a friend to test altimeter, GPS, HR etc. in comparison. The much cheaper watch wins the Altimeter comparison by a wide margin (it is mostly spot-on, with approx. +- 5 m deviation max.), as well as the GPS comparison.