@Brad_Olwin Thanks for this information.
I came to Suunto with the Race, after 10 years with Garmin.
I don’t think Suunto emphasises this positive point enough. I think the altimetry is better managed by Suunto, but Suunto doesn’t say it loudly enough.
When I look at the manual for my Race for the FusedAlti™ tools, it says :
“FusedAlti™ provides an altitude reading that is a combination of GPS and barometric altitude. It minimizes the effect of temporary and offset errors in the final altitude reading.
NOTE:
By default, altitude is measured with FusedAlti during exercises that use GPS and during navigation. When GPS is switched off, altitude is measured with the barometric sensor.”
And when I look at the manual for the Altimeter and Barometer widget, it says, among other things :
" Automatic alti-baro profile: Weather and altitude changes both cause a change in air pressure. To handle this, Suunto Race automatically switches between interpreting changes in air pressure as altitude or weather changes based on your movement.
If your watch senses vertical movement, it switches to measuring altitude. When you are viewing the altitude graph, it is updated with a maximum delay of 10 seconds.
If you are at a constant altitude (less than 5 meters of vertical movement within 12 minutes), your watch interprets air pressure changes as weather changes and adjusts the barometer graph accordingly.
It’s a shame that the two pieces of information aren’t available in the same place, I think that would be beneficial.
And I don’t think there’s any mention of the fact that FusedAlti can update past altitudes if it deems it necessary. I think I’ve understood that’s how it works from what you’ve said.
This is a big difference from Garmin, which will never touch the past minutes of an activity. If you do a loop and come back to the exact same place with a 2000m difference (recorded : +4000d+ and -2000d-) Garmin doesn’t get offended at all ; even if a Garmin function is supposed to manage the altimeter with crazy intelligence…