Auto Calibration Nightly

In nighty calibration mode, there is no continuous calibration during activities, only one auto calibration at night and a prompt asking for manual calibration at the start of each activity. 

Manual calibration is not a mode, it is the process of calibrating the altimeter manually which can optionally be performed by the user, on top of the auto calibration that is done in the background by the watch (either "nightly" or  nightly and continuously during activities, based on the selected mode).

Thank you.

If so there are a lot of room for improvements on the manuall…

To get the most accurate Total Ascent, I recommend turning off Auto calibration by selecting Nightly, select Altimeter Only in Sensor Mode and perform a DEM calibration before each Hike/Trail Run. More important than these settings is if you wear your watch on your left wrist, either wear a glove or wrap a BUFF to stop sweat from trickling down to the sensor opening while also reducing chance of air pressure interfering with readings. Time tested solution to get the most accurate total elevation gain from your activities.

Calibrating before the start of an activity only changes the Elevation's Minimum and Maximum number, does not affect the accuracy of Total Ascent reporting.

jan.shim said:

To get the most accurate Total Ascent, I recommend turning off Auto calibration

Absolutely correct!

jan.shim said:

select Altimeter Only in Sensor Mode

Perfect.

But my point is: Garmin does not state that on Nightly mode there will be no continuous calibration.

Also, Nightly mode is no good for the ones not  sleeping on the first floor because it messes with the elevation when not performing an activity.

Instead there should be a plain an simple option for no continuous calibration.

tks

if you select altimeter only then barometer is set also to altimeter only. I see no reason in this if you want to see a local pressure changes.

Local pressures changes have more value when, for instance, you are or static (let's say camping) or moving on the water (let's say fishing) where any change in the Barometer will meant pressure change (which can help predict wheater) and not elevation.

Yeah, I was confused at first but figured that out later on. 

I'm still experimenting to look for ways to avoid having to wear a Buff or glove on my left hand. To date I have tried using a silicone case with the sensor cutout taped but sweat still managed to get to the sensor opening and messed up my total ascent numbers from that run. 

I never got how this auto calibration at night could work anyway:

A: my watch is not connected to the phone at night, it has no way to figure out how high it is (no GPS reception indoors)

B: even if my phone was connected: my phone has no idea at what height it is either in a 12 story building without GPS reception, Wifi location services will put it on ground level which would lead to a miss-calibration every night (if I turn WiFi off at night, cell location could even put me on top of the nearest hill where the cell tower is located).

A correct calibration would be possible by giving my home WiFi a fixed height at the level I usually sleep in, whenever the watch detects that this Wifi is present it could calibrate to this correct height (once a night or with every planned or manual WiFi sync).

On the Fenix 6 (but fenix 7 most probably as well), you can set a nighty calibration altitude by manually calibrating the altimeter once before going to sleep. It will then always calibrate to this this altitude as long as you are not too far away from this setting. E.g. I set my altitude to 565m and for the past month, it always calibrated to exactly this value over night. Yesterday I travelled to my parents at an altitude of 280m. Auto calibration was smart enough to know that I am probably not sleeping at home and did not do the auto calibration over night. When I return home I probably need to re-calibrate once before going to sleep and I wil be fine again until my next travel. 

I am also always completely offline over night and for me, the highly calibration works great, always using the altitude that I have set once before going to sleep. 

Is that a special option to calibrate or just the one I can access from the widget? Still I would have to figure out my real height somehow, I don't trust GPS will catch it when held outside a window of a large building block.