Suunto 7 Altitude Issues

Egika

@vr2udt if a replacement unit has the same issue, maybe it’s something else?!
How are you wearing your watch? Under clothes? Left/right arm? Windy conditions?
Anything else that could affect the built in pressure sensor?
Thx

vr2udt

@Egika Hi Egika, it’s not under clothes, not particularly windy, tried on both left and right wrists, same. GPS track and WHR were both good, just the ascent/descent over-counting. The altitude reading was quite off (20-30m) too, supposedly FusedAlti should kick in to adjust altitude reading after some duration of good GPS reception in the open, but didn’t happen. When comparing with either S9 or SSWHRB, wearing together with the S7, those 2 were consistently giving correct altitudes and ascent/descents. I phoned tech support today, the advice was to wait until the latest firmware is pushed to the watch, update it, then observe again.

cosme.costa

@vr2udt said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@Egika Hi Egika, it’s not under clothes, not particularly windy, tried on both left and right wrists, same. GPS track and WHR were both good, just the ascent/descent over-counting. The altitude reading was quite off (20-30m) too, supposedly FusedAlti should kick in to adjust altitude reading after some duration of good GPS reception in the open, but didn’t happen. When comparing with either S9 or SSWHRB, wearing together with the S7, those 2 were consistently giving correct altitudes and ascent/descents. I phoned tech support today, the advice was to wait until the latest firmware is pushed to the watch, update it, then observe again.

Could be, that due a diferent position of the sensor holes for some reason you are blocking them during the activity?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

I had issues. at some point. Issue was that I was showering with the watch and the little hole there was full of soap and stuff. Try cleaning it up and drying it up. Soak in water , flush under the tap water with some pressure and repeat 2-3 times.

DO NOT insert anything in the pressure hole

vr2udt

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Thanks both for the suggestions, actually I have been following previous threads about the baro sensor cleaning and tried the submerge overnight in soft water with little detergent then rinse procedure. I will complete the update shortly and see if it helps.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@vr2udt FYI

I had a friend Damian who is a tester. He had altitude issues with 2 watches from the test builds. I sent him in the end mine (I though he was unlucky). Mine would work ok.

Then mine started to work bad. His issue in the end was that when he showered / washed hands there was always humidity stuck inside the pressure sensor. That resulted to similar charts to yours , aka “leaking pressure”.

Lets try todo this if you like.

After the cleaning and all, please do not wash, / have water contact with the watch for a few days (1-3). Observe if this imporves the situation.

vr2udt

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Now I almost soak all my watches with Baro overnight to clean them before any serious activities involving heights

vr2udt

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos just see the new reply. Sure will follow that advice and see. Thank you mate.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@vr2udt Good and bad todo that imo.

Good once in a while , no more should be needed. But beware, soaking for a lot of time can damage the material (should not break waterproof). Meaning that everything that is soaked into water can discolorate etc. From my tests I didn’t see anything but I need to share this with you.

Brad_Olwin

Interesting about showering, etc. I never shower with my watches. After a sweaty or long run I rinse the watch in running water and let it dry. So far I have been lucky and have never had altitude issues. I can imagine that soap/shampoo could easily clog the sensor if dried on.

Christophe Botineau

Hello

I have a problem with my S7. during my bike or mountain bike rides, the watch gives me completely wrong D +.
she went to Suunto for sav, they couldn’t find anything. I just received it and still the same problem.

Christophe Botineau

You can see the difference between suunto app and strava for the same route.

Mff73

@Christophe-Botineau
Could you share the SuuntoApp link for this activity, please ?

Christophe Botineau

@Mff73

https://app.suunto.com/move/christophebotineau/5f6391ba28e2b42fd481d5ae

https://app.suunto.com/move/christophebotineau/5f610df9bd97271fc1b95308

This is the same route in diferrent days
Would you need the route in strava ?
Thx.

Mff73

@Christophe-Botineau
Strava makes altitude corrections, so no need for strava link.
I imported your activity in QS and ascent calculations are the same : over 900m ascent.
So it may be between your watch and SA.
Altitude data are too wavy

If your watch comes from Suunto support back, we can eliminate sensor issue (or not ?)

Let see what others think about that.

isazi

@Mff73 @Christophe-Botineau I had crazy altitude readings only once on my S7, and that was because before riding my bike I was swimming in the sea and the salt water must have clogged the sensor.
Cleaning the watch, leaving it soaking for a while in tap water, fixed the issue for me.
There is also the case of your sleeves or wrist position blocking the sensor, this happens to some users with other watches.

aeroild

Something has happened to the barometric altitude measurments of my Suunto 7. I have run the same route almost once a week since I got the watch 31. January and can compare the route profile from runs on the route the last eight months.

First, here is the route profile drawn by me after a topografic map:
høydekurve siri 4k.png

The first six months the watch did a great job recording the profile. The profile recorded by the watch was almost identical from February to July on at least 25 runs. Here are two examples:
10. February:

25. July:

Then suddenly in August the profile started to get more and more smoothened, untill it now looks like a GPS made profile.
21. August:

27. September:

Now it is constantly bad and useless as a barometric altimeter.

From when I started to notice the bad readings I have been careful to not cover of brush against the barometric sensor with e.g. a sweater or other fabric. In case there was something cloging the barometer hole, I have soaked and rinsed the watch in water serveral times. That hasn’t helped.

Has anybody else experienced anything like this? Any idea what the problem might be?

vr2udt

Just an update to my earlier issue posted here on 12 Sep, about the excessive ascent/descent values recorded - the watch was sent to service center and within a month I received a new unit. Credit to Suunto service for that. After received the replacement, I updated its firmware to the latest and did some more testing. Yes, the problem is gone, ascent/descent are within acceptable ranges (minute fluctuations still observed), although unlike the S9B or SSWHRB which would consistently be showing 0 ascent/descent on flat terrains, or indoors.

freeheeler

I did not find anything similar posted here to the observation I made when looking at my wifes activity with her S7.
She went skitouring and started at 918m of altitude.
The watch shows lowest point at 870m. The highest point is 1’580m and the watch shows 1’581m
What surprises me is that the alti graph starts at 814m and within a very short distance (and hence time) rises steep roughly to the actual start altitude. The end alti is about correct. The total ascent should be around 665m as there is no real downs on the way up.
The total recorded ascent is 854m.
So the difference of start alti is about 100m wrong while the lowermost point is only shown in the graph and hence differs from the values shown in the overview.
The total ascent is about 190m wrong… did somebody else have similar experience?

EDIT: the descent shows correct 651m. That’s about correct. Start and end point was the same at the parkinglot.

isazi

@TELE-HO so something like fusedalti or equivalent not working totally right?