Great looking watch, and I really want to love it. I up graded from the VA hr which was spot on for what I used it for which was really only for running. Two things, the VA 3 is just way off as far as elevation goes, I expect a bit of variation +- 10 m either way or so, which I got for the hr but the 3 is so erratic, start position, all over the place while running, then elevation not matching start position. Secondly the tracking seems to cut corners much more then the hr. I'll add something else to the list, the battery life does not match what was advertised. Has anyone else experienced any of this, and is there anything that can be done about it? Thanks
Yes, I have also noticed severely inaccurate elevation readings during my runs/walks. It's basically an unusable feature as is. I hear there is a way to manually calibrate the altimeter to your specific location, which could help, but I'm not sure how to do that (haven't got around to searching for instructions yet). Hopefully someone else can chime in with instructions on that. (And how does one find out the elevation where they currently are? I mean, I can look a general elevation for my city, but that doesn't seem specific enough?)
I have also noticed increased corner-cutting over my previous device (the first generation VA). I changed my data recording from Smart to Every Second and seems to have helped a bit with that.
Battery life is comparable to what I got with my old VA, maybe a tad shorter, so I'm pleased in that regard. I did disable the "backlight on gesture" which I think helps with battery life.
Yeah would be good to get other people experiences. While recording an activity elevation is taken by GPS, the calibration is really only for elevation from the barometer, as far as I understand, which is another issue all together. I think you can get elevation from Google earth, and there are also various Web sites where you can put in your post code/zip code to get an elevation. I also changed to every second data recording, but yeah it still shows corner cutting. I think I will try and factory reset and see if that helps.
Actually elevation does come from the barometer during activities. It will only use GPS elevation if you have auto-calibrate turned on and then only to set the initial elevation.
Having a different elevation at the start and finish of a run that starts and finishes at the same place is due to either there being a difference in temperature between where you were indoors and outside where you run or there being a large change in barometric pressure such as a front moving in or going out. I used to get the same thing from time to time on my Fenix 3.
If you want to manually calibrate your elevation there are many websites and a few phone apps that will give you an altitude based on a physical address if you're in an area that is well documented. Which covers most populated areas.
Hey, yep that makes sense. I have auto calibrate selected and I also always run the same routes and checking the elevation graph on garmin connect the ascent and descent has always been the same, for each route, and what I would expect for where I run, particularly with VA hr. Today on a regular run the graph had no correlation with what it should be, really frustrating. Yeah weather would have an effect, how ever I never noticed anything significant with VA hr. Cheers.
