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Auto Calibrate Elevation to Location? Baro Altimeter?

Here's another one:

On my Edge 800 it is possible to have the Elevation Auto Calibrate to my starting location. I saved the location, and every time I start a ride from that location I get the pop-up that says the Elevation has Auto Calibrated to that location.

I can not find the same feature on my Edge 820. As a workaround, before starting a ride I go to Navigation>Adjust Elevation and set the elevation immediately before a ride. It is a bit cumbersome, and doeasn't seem to do as good a job as the 800 in managing Elevation over the course of the ride.

The 800 has a barometric Altimeter which means it does not take all the Elevation data from GPS. This has proven very reliable.

The specs for the 820 say it also has a barometric Altimeter, but the recorded Elevation data look like all the data points come from GPS.

Does the 820 indeed have a barometric Altimeter?

TIA for any help.

Top Replies

Garmin-Shawn over 9 years ago +1 verified

We have escalated the elevation issue to our engineering teams and are investigating the cause. We apologize for the inconvenience.

All Replies

0 axys over 9 years ago

Yes, manual calibration is available. What it seems to be lacking is auto-calibration, a feature that is at least available in the Edge 800: you define/save a location and its altitude once (for example, your usual start location), and from here on the device auto-calibrates to that altitude whenever it is near that reference location. So far as I have seen up to now, I have to calibrate the altitude of the 820 at the start of all rides.

Yes, that's exactly how my 1000 works - my 820 altimeter calibration simply doesn't work AT ALL.

0 marknicho over 9 years ago

I'm having exactly the same problems with my 820.

No automatic calibration so i try to manually calibrate. I then watch as my altitude slowly falls about 150ft while I'm stood still.I have then recalibrated and it still falls. I am getting negative altitude readings during a ride!

I emailed Garmin a few days ago but yet to receive a response. Other than this gripe its a really good unit but my old 810 was better at elevation than this.:mad:

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

I'm onto my second 820 - first one returned for the issues described in this thread and to re-iterate every other post the second one is no better.

A third 820 owned by my partner works perfectly - elevation +/- 10ft.....nah it's rubbish as well.

Hopefully a firmware update will improve the situation otherwise I will be strapping my Edge 25 back onto the bike and using the GPS elevation data from that.

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

It's a shame, that Garmin doesn't give any information, how elevation data is processed.

In my testing the manual set altitude slowly drifts to a standard altitude (probably the value, that comes from GPS). The speed of elevation drift comes down with approaching the standard altitude. If you set the altitude to 99999 - it jumps to the standard altitude.

However I've not yet found out, what elevation is recorded. It's definitely not the manual set value. It can be the standard altitude or something in between. I will take care of this in my next rides. All in all, this is pretty ridiculous and I can't see the reason behind it.

0 VyCn over 9 years ago

Elevation is a disaster with Edge 820 :mad:

When will Garmin communicate about this problem that seems to concern all devices ?

Can we hope it isn't hardware related and bugs will be corrected one day ?

I'm really disappointed, my old Edge 810 works much better...

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Elevation is a disaster with Edge 820 :mad:

When will Garmin communicate about this problem that seems to concern all devices ?

Can we hope it isn't hardware related and bugs will be corrected one day ?

I'm really disappointed, my old Edge 810 works much better...

I am searching for someone with "appropriately working" edge 820, too. Still haven't found one :) Well, I am expecting my second edge 820 unit (after returning the first one), however I do not have very high expectations that it would work properly - at least given the experience of some on this forum that have already returned one or even two units with no success. And I agree, we still don't know whether this is a certain series HW problem or is it a problem of all produced units and will be corrected via FW update. Communication is definitely not the strongest part...

0 marknicho over 9 years ago

I'm having exactly the same problems with my 820.

No automatic calibration so i try to manually calibrate. I then watch as my altitude slowly falls about 150ft while I'm stood still.I have then recalibrated and it still falls. I am getting negative altitude readings during a ride!

I emailed Garmin a few days ago but yet to receive a response. Other than this gripe its a really good unit but my old 810 was better at elevation than this.:mad:

Further to my previous, I have only just received a response from Garmin tell me how in plain and simple terms I calibrate elevation....on an 810!!!! :mad:

0 Former Member over 9 years ago

Further to my previous, I have only just received a response from Garmin tell me how in plain and simple terms I calibrate elevation....on an 810!!!! :mad:

Just got a replaced unit. I was only able to test whether saving a location works, didn't have time to test elevation during the ride. Short and simple = NO. When you hit Start there is still no recognition (and correction) that you are at your saved location. And another thing about the test - pressed start and stopped after about 7 seconds of the test. Discarded the test "ride", connected the unit to the computer, and surprisingly found a "test ride" in garmin connect even though I didn't save the ride after the end. Now, I wasn't paying attention so far with other (older) edge units, however what's the point of rejecting/not saving the ride if it occurs in garmin connect just like the saved one?:confused:

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Another thing I've noticed is that both of my 820's (original & replacement) consistently record Total Ascent approximately 5% less that the same rides with my 810.
Garmin will probably say it's within the margin for error but it's annoying all the same . :(

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Firmware 3.20 released today, no mention of Elevation Calibration. :mad: