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Altimeter manual calibration

6790980
over 3 years ago

Hi everyone,

I really like my vivoactive 4, data fields are much more complete and customizable than on Instinct series for example. I use it mainly for outdoor activities (bike, hiking, mountain). But why is it not possible to manualy calibrate the altimeter ?? Sometimes it takes a long time to acquire gps signal (cloudy weather) and even when the signal is ok, altitude can be wrong, especially in mountains. So....why is it not possible to set it manually with a validated value (based on a hiking map for example) ?? It's just a question of software, as the vivo4 has all the required sensors. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has this request. If Garmin developpers can hear us....

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Because Garmin wants to sell you the Fenix for that luxury...
    It's frustrating. And even calibrating via GPS or Glonas will result with different values deepening on which GPS settings you use. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Martin

    yes and it's ashame...

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    As someone who uses a sensor history widget to look at the pressure - it's pretty annoying how often the Vivoactive 4 thinks my elevation is changing just when I'm hanging out in my house, so I feel your pain. I don't like that I have to calibrate the altimeter every day (seemingly either). It would be great if they have a feature that let you lock it in or let is auto-calculate.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ForceV4

    you're right and as mentioned by Martin it's a feature only available on Instinct and Fenix series, you have the choice between 3 modes : pressure or altitude variations or choose auto where fast pressure variations are assimilated to elevation variation and slow pressure variations to weather evolution (as it was on my Suunto Core altimeter). It's really a pity that the Vivo4 does not work in the same way. I don't even know what is the algorithm inside the vivo4 : kind of auto mode ?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 6790980

    Whatever the algo is they use to determine when your elevation has changed vs the ambient pressure is pretty horrible. The watch thinks my elevation changes all the time when I'm not even awake. I just re-calibrated it today around 13:00 local time and don't anticipate going anywhere today, but between now and tomorrow morning I'll bet you the elevation has "changed" by more than 50 ft.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ForceV4

    The ambient pressure changes constantly because of weather, and the Vivoactive series does not know about these changes, so I guess it will assume all pressure changes are due to changes in altitude. It only calibrates when you start a GPS activity.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    yes, on Vivo series (equiped with a barometric altimeter), pressure variations are always assimilated to elevation variations I guess. From a hardware point of view we could be able to choose between alti/baro/auto modes, but due to software restrictions (and as vivo is not really an outdoor serie) it is not possible...

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 6790980

    Yeah, that's what annoys me. I just want to be able set the altimeter manually for average every day type stuff and then use the barometric pressure data then when I do an activity have it use the GPS data to compute pressure based on my precise location. Seems like pretty basic stuff here. I guess getting an Instinct is a possibility, but their battery life is so crap it's annoying.