Poor Elevation readings

Another one.. same trail as previous pictures.

Same start and finish!

Waiting 60 seconds after the watch establishes GPS, before starting the activity.

Its ludicrously wrong! It's a loop, where every lap is about a mile. Three laps or so, and the elevation is all over the place.. its useless! Why even have it in the app as data?

I understand the corrections, but why??  Is the barometric data so poor that we throw it away and use the "corrected" data only?  The corrected data is survey mapped data and my understanding is that it has no relationship to the data recorded by the watch itself.

The internet is full of complains, so this seems to be a real issue. A few additional comments:

In the Garmin Express application on the desktop you can have the elevation corrected. However, this is only possible after you finished your workout and uploaded the data.

I have done a lot of mountaineering trips with way more sophisticated barometric altitude devices. Best practice is that you set (calibrate) your altitude every morning at a place where you know the correct value. For example at a mountain hut or a pass, where the elevation is defined. This IS best practice and I do not understand why Garmin does not allow for a manual setting.

The auto-calibration does not work. Note that also a GPS altimeter depends on the accuracy of your GPS. If you stand next to a cliff, your altitude could be totally off. The ability to manually set the altitude is a must feature of every serious altimeter.

This morning I was running 10k out and back in flat terrain. The watch when up for 100m during the first 30 min, until it came down and slowly was in the right range (although the signal shows very "nervous"). This has nothing todo with calibration, since the delta elevation should at least work.

Overall, this feature is not usable (unless you use the correction feature in Garmin Express later on). In fact, it can even be dangerous if you not only consider this as a nice tool, but something you might rely on, for example navigation in the mountains. Using a GPS altimeter + barometric altimeter when navigating in zero visibility is not a bad idea. But this watch cannot be used and can even result in death.

Butzlaff said:

The internet is full of complains, so this seems to be a real issue.

This is because it's senseless to post a thread anywhere saying "Everything works OK".  Negative post are certainly not indicative of a real issue, only that some are experiencing issues. There's no way of reading negative post and determining what percentage of users have a problem. 

Butzlaff said:

Note that also a GPS altimeter depends on the accuracy of your GPS.

The VA3 doesn't have a GPS altimeter. It has a barometric altimeter. The problem you're facing is the inability to calibrate both the altimeter and the barometer (which is an absolute must for accurate readings) with the VA3. 

Hi tess, Thanks for your reply, but I think you do not get my point. I understand that the VA3 does not have a gps altimeter. A barometric altimeter needs to be calibrated every time you use it. Unfortunately the VA3 does not allow for manual calibration (like every professional barometric altimeter does). The automatic calibration of the watch does not work correctly and even the relative elevation changes are not correct,  as explained in my post. Therefore this watch is dangerous when used as a real tool and not just a toy.  I do like all the other features though, just the barometric altimeter sucks.

Butzlaff said:

just the barometric altimeter sucks.

Garmin's barometric altimeter actually works quite well depending on the device. I'm able to calibrate my 945 elevation using GPS, DEM or manually. I can also calibrate my barometer. In addition to the calibration options I can set my barometer to any of 3 modes. "Auto" which guesses if pressure change is due to actual elevation gain/loss or changes in weather (sometimes works well, other times not so much), "barometer mode" which locks the altimeter and sees pressure change as weather/temperature related, or "altimeter mode" which takes any pressure changes as changes to elevation. All three of this modes serve a purpose in different situations. I'm saying the problem you're facing is Garmin decided not to put these calibration and mode options on the VA3. 

Unfortunately there is thread after thread about this on the forums.  While we want this barometric altimeter to work properly it never will do what we want.  I've spoken with Garmin support and engineering about this.  When you get an person knowledgeable and open to discuss it on the phone they will tell you flat out, we have way higher expectations that this device is intended to provide.  The barometer in these devices is a toy and they will admit that.  It is not a professional instrument and never will be.  That is not what they designed it for, nor what you paid for in a VA3.  It is in there to give the device a simple way to measure stairs climbed to a reasonable level at best.  Inexpensive solution.  A toy barometer that yields toy results.

If you want something higher end, for safety for example, you have to pay a lot more for the device.  Unfortunately they also put the same baro unit into most of their watches.  Even the Fenix 5X has the same basic unit that has the same limitations.  I skied with a friend wearing a 5X for 3 days this week and it performed the same as the VA3.  On one day the VA3 was actually better.

Also understand, Garmin is NOT computing an elevation solution from GPS all the time in the VA3.  It takes a while.  Lower performance electronics that can't do that.  Thus why to even do the automatic calibration, you have to let it sit for 30 seconds on GPS before starting the activity.  That's both settling time and computation time.  No, it does not take 30 seconds to compute, but it is not instantaneous and it needs to see a sequence of usefull / viable results.

Plain and simple, expect a result commensurate with the lower cost of the device.

Ragazzi ho il vivoactive3 da quando è uscito. Da un anno circa succede che dopo 30 minuti di corsa l'elevazione scende di circa 50/60 metri portando ad un elevazione di -20/-30 per poi registrare l'elevazione decentemente ma ormai con 60 metri in meno di dislivello. Forse ho trovato una soluzione!!!. Premetto che ho sempre usato la fascia cardio. Ieri ho messo il vivoactive 3 a bagno per più di un'ora con acqua tiepida e sapone. Questa mattina sono andato a correre e l'ho indossato sulla maglia in modo che non fosse a contatto con la pelle. Risultato: 1h di corsa nessun problema elevazione in linea con l'altimetria. Ora devo capire se è stato il modo di indossarlo oppure si è liberato dallo sporco tenendolo in acqua. Domani correrò indossandolo al polso normalmente per capire quale delle due cose ha risolto il problema. Spero sia stato utile. 

Multi grazie.  Please let me know what the result was. Maybe it is not the heart rate monitor, but the sweat from the skin is getting into the small hole of the barometer and needs to be cleaned. I see the same behavior of a drop about 30min. But the first 30min the readings are wrong and it seems that after 30min the readings are getting more into the correct range.