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Altitude all wrong

iafrate505
over 4 years ago

Hello,

I have an edge 530, and it is mostly... well... ok... it sometimes freezes on starting up or recommencing a paused activity, but my issue here is much greater. I have searched the forums for similar but can't find any (perhaps I haven't searched thoroughly enough...) anyway, my altitude is plain wrong, I have tried calibrating to no avail, but for me that isn't important, what I want to know is how much climbing and descending I have done, not too bothered about the absolute elevation if I am honest. For example, I will ride along a quite steep climb, but it shows negative gradient, I can be stood still and the altitude reading either drifts down or up, I can be riding downhill and have a positive gradient, or any combination of the above. I have now resorted to correcting elevation on strava, but if I am out challenging myself to a particular elevation gain target, it is pointless because I have no idea how much I have achieved. Does anyone have any idea as to what is going on? I have seen some threads saying their temp/altitude readings are wrong and it points to the sensor, but my temperature read out seems to be ok....... one final question - why can't we have an option to set altitude by GPS etc? - seems much more simple.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Is Garmin working on this?

    starting a ride everything ok, then after a change from ascending to descending all goes wrong, and keeps going displaying crazy values.

    even standing still the elevation reading will go to +50m to -50 without moving!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to ColinP737

    Hi ColinP737, thanks for your comment. Short answer, no! I have raised a ticket with Garmin and not had a reply, I’ve followed up and not had a reply. I am basically stuck now. I bought the device from Chain Reaction Cycles in the uk, their policy is that they won’t  help if device has been registered with Garmin, which it has, its the first thing anyone does for warranty right? Well what warranty? is my question, my next contact may be to trading standards in the uk see if they can help me get my money back.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to iafrate505

    What kind of backwards policy does CRC have? One literally has to register the device in order to start using it.

    You can remove the device from your my.garmin.com account, and in this sense CRC can't say it's registered. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to iafrate505

    Phone Garmin directly. A friend's Garmin watch gave erratic altitude values like you describe because the altitude sensor failed. He phoned Garmin directly and even though it was out of warranty, Garmin sent him a replacement (a newer model, actually).

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago

    I have the 530....first 3 rides it had elevation correct...today for 38 miles it was between 100-170 the whole ride and then when finished and I hit summary it had the correct elevation of 1985ft...huh???

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to iafrate505

    why so active in this forum in that case?

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I recently bought a 530. On my very first ride it would not even acquire any satellites. I was ready to return it, but then on the next ride it magically started working. Everything seemed fine for the next few rides, but then all of a sudden I went on an easy road ride with no trees or any obstructions and as I was riding uphill the elevation kept decreasing! It did this for nearly the entire ride. When I got home and uploaded the ride to Connect and enabled elevation correction it said I had over 1,110 ft of elevation gain but my unit said only 400 feet.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Yup, I have the same problem.  I just completed a 48 mile ride.  The elevation tracked well for the first 18 miles.  Then, the next 30 miles the elevation readings were all over the place.  At one point I stopped for a break, the 530 said that I was at 1800 feet (even through I was really at 1500 feet).  While stationary, I watched the elevation drop from 1800 feet to 700 feet!  I even took a video of this.  I had this same problem a week ago, then it worked fine for a week.  Now it's failing again.  I spoke with Garmin tech support.  They suspect this is a hardware problem.  They want me to do a few more tests and then get back to them.  I have a feeling they know about this problem!!!

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to marshalljackson

    Is the temperature data playing up?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to aweatherall

    Oh, good question.  I typically don’t track the temperature.  Is that a problem you have seen?