I tried using the Fenix 7 for indoor climbing and it works pretty well. It correctly detects climbing vs resting, it counts the routes and gives me all the stats that I need.
I then tried to use it outdoors last weekend and... it was all over the place! I started climbing a 30 meter route that was pretty vertical and the watch correctly identified that I was climbing, but then it kept beeping like if I finished the route and started a new one as I was going up. Halfway through the route it told me that I'd climbed 130 meters! I came down the route and simply ignored it. I started belaying my partner going up the same route, and the watch kept thinking the I was climbing new routes. By the end of the belay it counted 5 routes of 5m each but I didn't move at all...
To be fair, the weather was VERY windy, and I though that might have affected the barometer readings, but overall, the watch was completely useless in climbing mode. I ended up putting it in bouldering mode without tracking routes and left it like that all day...
I can see now why they call it "indoor climbing" and not just climbing, but why doesn't it work? Would it not be possible to use GPS data together with barometer to correctly get the altitude and figure out the routes? I understand that outdoor routes don't all start from the same level, which might be confusing the algorithm, but if the algorithm waited 5-10m before starting logging, it shouldn't be hard to differentiate real climbing from walking around the crag.
How do we get Garmin to pay more attention to us sport climbers? Do you use your Fenix for outdoor sport climbing?
