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Calibrated Elevation changes erratically.

2331063

I have noticed my Fenix 7 Pro SS changes altitude frequently even while sat on a desk. I soaked my watch in water and rinsed off to remove possible build up of any gunk in the sensor ports. But the problem continues. Calibration with GPS under an open sky away from trees and buildings, with All Systems + Multiband takes forever. Eventually, when a signal is received, the altitude fluctuates wildly. Setting a known elevation manually doesn't help either. The issue I have is that elevation changes so often across a wide range, the figure is no longer believable. I did communicate to Garmin Australia who have not got back to me on this yet. Has anyone faced this issue? Could this be a hardware fault?

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    To start with: If you calibrate DO NOT use GPS as a primary means since calibrating via GPS is not really accurate, we had a lot of threads on this already, you may find a lot as for the reasons.

    Use DEM instead where a position is determined via GPS and the elevation is read from a DEM map. To do this go to a larger flat plain since DEM is ofc not digitalized for every point on earth but for a grid (well, kind of a grid, but lets put it taht way for our purpose) which differs from 2m (rarely) to 500m depending from the region you are in. Ofc don't stand on a artificial structure since the surface is digitalized not the roof of a building.

    2331063 said:
    Has anyone faced this issue? Could this be a hardware fault?

    Many did and yes, this could be a faulty sensor. There are members of this forum who cleaned the sensor thoroughly with a small brush after submerging the watch for a day or so and it helped them. But ofc sensor might be gone for good.

    What I can say: if sensor is ok I didn't observe such a behavior with any software version, today on a 60km roundtrip with a forest run at the middle and elevation differences > 200m I came back and had a difference of 3m/2m arriving at the starting point with two units on 17.28 and on 26.09 respectively which I consider perfect. So if you can't resolve it by cleaning it is probably sensor hardware.