Instinct Solar - 18.10 Public Release Candidate

That's now how the owners manual reads though. It states that it will automatically switch between altimeter and barometer mode.  

Understanding How These Sensors Work

The barometric altimeter on Outdoor watches use barometric pressure to determine changes in elevation, as well as changes to the pressure caused by weather patterns. Outdoor watches will continually monitor barometric pressure to determine which mode is most appropriate at any given time. 

• Auto (default setting) - The watch will monitor changes and automatically switch between altimeter or barometer modes
• Altimeter - The watch is locked in altimeter mode and all changes in pressure will impact the elevation reading. This mode is best for activities with a lot of elevation changes. 
• Barometer - The watch is locked in barometer mode and all changes in pressure will be considered due to weather and changes in ambient pressure. This mode is best used for activities without a lot of elevation changes. 

1211243 said:

That's now how the owners manual reads though. It states that it will automatically switch between altimeter and barometer mode.  

Thanks for the quote. Yes, the official text you quoted, tells exactly the same what I wrote - baro mode only changes the barometer, alti mode only changes the altimeter, and the auto mode sticks either to one or to the other mode according to the situation. In an outdoor activity where you move, it will switch to the altimeter mode. It may switch to the baro mode when you stay on the same spot, and it does not detect abrupt pressure changes indicating a climb or a descent.

Indoors it is much more complicated, because although you are theoretically on the same spot, you can be climbing stairs, or you can take a lift, or there may be also air pressure change unrelated to the weather (air-condition, ventilation, temperature changes, closing/opening of windows and doors, etc. etc.), hence there is much more incertitude, and the watch tries to guess where the change comes from, from the accelerator patterns, and also from the gradient of the pressure change (steep gradients - climbing/descending; slow gradients - atmospheric changes). The problem is when both the elevation and the atmospheric pressure change simultaneously (and they do all the time). There is no simple way to separate the two influences, without continuously calibrating the altimeter. Instinct does not have the option for continuous calibration, though.

I hear you and I'm not trying to be pedantic but that's not what the literature says. 

Quote: "Outdoor watches will continually monitor barometric pressure to determine which mode is most appropriate at any given time. "

Even in an outdoor activity, it reads as though it's still monitoring the barometer to determine which mode is best in real time. I.e, it's not sticking with either mode but changing back and forth depending on the situation. 

I haven't seen anywhere that garmin has published the cause of the problems, hence my asking several posts back whether disabling the barometer made a difference. 

1211243 said:

Even in an outdoor activity, it reads as though it's still monitoring the barometer to determine which mode is best in real time. I.e, it's not sticking with either mode but changing back and forth depending on the situation.

I believe you misunderstand the principle, where there is only one barometric pressure, and the watch has to decide whether it considers the pressure change to be generated by the elevation, or by the weather. It cannot consider both in the same time. It means, when you run, hike, or bike, permanently changing the elevation, the device cannot monitor the atmospheric pressure changes that happen simultaneously. Hence the watch has to dismiss the weather influence, and attributes all the pressure changes to the elevation. 

1211243 said:

hence my asking several posts back whether disabling the barometer made a difference. 

Disabling the barometer (setting the watch to the altimeter mode) means that all pressure changes will be considered to come due to the increased or decreased elevation. Atmospheric changes will not be considered at all. 

Oh, there could definitely be a misunderstanding on my end as to what's going on under the hood. I just know that garmin is claiming a SW bug and was wondering if someone had tried taking the barometer out of the equation for altitude and elevation gain.  Their manual is not very clear as to what exactly the watch is doing. Your interpretation is different than mine.  I'm hopeful they sort it out for good aa I otherwise like the watch very much. I'm going on a hike tomorrow and will test out 18.1. 

Oh, there could definitely be a misunderstanding on my end as to what's going on under the hood. I just know that garmin is claiming a SW bug and was wondering if someone had tried taking the barometer out of the equation for altitude and elevation gain.  Their manual is not very clear as to what exactly the watch is doing. Your interpretation is different than mine.  I'm hopeful they sort it out for good aa I otherwise like the watch very much. I'm going on a hike tomorrow and will test out 18.1. 

Just did a hike with my regular Instinct watch with os v18.10. The track says 5.37mi, 3497.4 ft elevation gain...which is way OFF. When I enabled "Elev Corrections" in Garmin Connect, it shows 5.37mi, 2214.3 ft gain...which is about RIGHT. It's about perfect fall weather. BTW, it started pretty good to about 650 ft gain, then jumped to 1300 ft in .2 mi !

Can someone there know how to debug this thing using a real watch and write all logging data doing a real hike/run ??!

WOW, after all this wait - GARMIN what's next????

Thats a bummer.  I was getting ready to update my watch to the beta software update.  I didnt know about the toggle for elevation correction, so thats nice to have at least.  Tech support told me that a stable release version is expected at the end of the month.  Hopefully it's a real fix.

I also didn't know about 'elevation correction.'  I did this on a recent hike and it changed a lot of values of the ascension and descension.  So, this feature then uses the cartography elevation details as opposed to what was recorded by the watch?