Suunto 7 Altitude Issues

[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:

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?

[pilleus]

@isazi the question is how the Suunto wear app does calibrate the altitude at the starting point?

In other apps this can be done manually.

[freeheeler]

@isazi
@pilleus
yes, I assumed S7 has the same fusedalti as S9B?
…my wife decided for the S7 without my approval while I was in a never ending meeting I absolutely agree that this is a great watch, but now I am obliged somehow to learn two different worlds

[isazi]

@TELE-HO well I don’t know how the calibration on the S7 works, but there must be some calibration because it gets good results without manual intervention. What I see is that the S7 is young, and it is improving in features and precision with each update.

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

Let’s see if this was a warm-up issue.

This should not happen and yes s7 has the same fused alti.

However, not the same gps chip. It can well be that it calibrated wrongly (100+m???) The initial altitude and due to the correction (as seen) this was counted as ascent.

This is a typical behavior of gps based altitude , chip cold start, etc. Even ambits (without baro) have this and so on.

I am keeping track of this and reporting it.

Go on and keep the discussion.

[freeheeler]

@isazi
fully agree! the peak altitude was to the point!!
…I have the impression that the calibration is not overwriting the history?

[freeheeler]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
ok, so maybe she started the activity too quick, without letting the satellites to sattle and let fusedalti do its work?
we’ll observe this

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@TELE-HO yes. This can happen after a reboot also.

But should not on the s7 as it has a barometer.

Not 100% sure to be honest what’s going on. First time I kinda of see this for the s7. But you never know.

[Kurt68]

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos I have the same problem. Today I started a training session and waited 4 minutes. I climbed 40m without moving. Then I finished the training and started a new one, waited 2min and started running. this time there was an acent of 24m on the first flat 200m. On the whole lap then 72m more than with the Ambit 3.

https://quantified-self.io/user/diADq2nerESCkHAzB06aiagM9lc2/event/reFr0Df2p0ZsuoyB0bvR

[Jakub Novotný]

Hi, I have Suunto 7 for 3 days. Is there any possibility to calibrate altimeter/barometer as I am used with Ambit 2? I haven’t found this possibility so it seems that it is done only automatically through FusedAlti.

[isazi]

@jakub-novotný said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

Hi, I have Suunto 7 for 3 days. Is there any possibility to calibrate altimeter/barometer as I am used with Ambit 2? I haven’t found this possibility so it seems that it is done only automatically through FusedAlti.

I don’t think it is possible at the moment, but some third-party altimeters seem to let you do that.

[Egika]

I wonder if the S7 does the same automatic altitude and pressure tracking as other Suunto watches do it.
Slow pressure changes are regarded as weather change and quicker changes are regarded as altitude change…

Does anyone know how it is handled internally when not in training mode?

[Luca Bellardo]

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

[Brad_Olwin]

@luca-bellardo said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

You are incorrect, the S7 uses FusedAlti. I have many examples of corrections and virtually all of my S7 altitude profiles match my S9 baro. I often wear both watches.

[olymay]

I haven’t noticed any issues with the altitude recorded by my Suunto 7.

For example, today I did a run along a local canal and at a defined point I turned around and came bac along the exact same route.
As expected a canal is pretty flat, and the watch recorded only 3m of altitude change (I ran 8.6km out and back with a total of 17.2km).
The plot of altitude change is also symmetrical, as one would expect.

[Egika]

@brad_olwin said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@luca-bellardo said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

You are incorrect, the S7 uses FusedAlti. I have many examples of corrections and virtually all of my S7 altitude profiles match my S9 baro. I often wear both watches.

Maybe misunderstanding:
Luca states that during activity, altitude registration is Suunto state of the art.
Just not when not recording.
And that was my question: S9 has an automatic altitude measurement that I can have on the watch face and that follows weather changes and switches to altitude change when quickly moving uphill or downhill.
How does S7 handle the altitude measurement when not recording an activity?

Cheers!

[Andrea Antonio Guadalupi]

I find this situation unacceptable, a product that costs almost 500 euros has all these problems …