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Altimeter not working well

jeversace84
8 months ago

Ran around a park for laps today. Altimeter was on a downward trend throughout the run.

Note I have calibrated it via GPS already. My Fenix 7 would show consistent graphing on a run like this for the altimeter.

  • 0 8 months ago

    The altimeter is a pressure sensor. 2 things will make the pressure go up, losing altitude and atmospheric pressure going up. You are seeing both here. The humps are you gaining and losing altitude. The downward trend is the atmospheric pressure going up. 

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to MikeB

    So I had the same thing in my Instinct 2X. On what I thought was flat land. It wasn’t. The park actually sloped about a meter across a 150 meter span for drainage. Not even perceivable when running, but “hilly” on the post workout graph.

    My F6 did a flat graph until I cleaned the sensor port, then it did what yours (and my new F8) is doing now. It’s intentional and not a bug, and indicative your watch working properly, ironically (and I hate it when people say “it’s a feature not a bug”)…

    What Mike said is spot on. The sensor is picking up minor terrain changes in the park, downward change is a change in weather, and it’s merging them together. You have what would look like an average 2 meter change in altitude around the park? 

    IMHO the F8, to its credit, is more sensitive. I just did hilly terrain the other day in the mountains and it was off by 1 meter against a known trig. That, for a consumer grade device, is awesome…

  • 0 8 months ago in reply to kezzad

    Thanks for the reply. I should have noted that this is 1 example. I've tested over multiple workouts with start and finish at the same point, and it is always at least 4m off at the same point. It was 7m yesterday after a 10 minute walk. This never happened with my F7.....

    I do understand how the barometric pressure works and if it was a once off I wouldn't have reported it. Good to know yours are working fine though!

  • 0 8 months ago

    clean the backside of va4 and remove any dirt / scrubs from the openings for the barometer. that worked very well for me. at the same time: it measures pressure changes only, will never be very precise (+/- 80m is no surprise when hiking for example. i know the height of a mountain from maps, but my watch has more of an estimate of the height:D)

  • 0 8 months ago

    i have similar problem related to altimeter / barometer, every morning my walk to school is the same. sunny days  1m elevation , rainy day 12m elevation..  is there any way to make watch precise regardless weather and barometer pressure change?