Altitude incorrect after exercise
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Whenever I return from a run or a bike ride, the altitude shown in the alti/baro widget is incorrect based on map data, sometimes by 10+ meters. This is true for:
- a short run (30m) or a longer ride (3h+)
- when the exercise has the same start/end point
- for the Vertical
- for the last and current firmware
It’s often inaccurate by 10m+.
Has anyone else noticed this?
Am I the only alti/baro pedant, who has to adjust it when it’s more than a couple of meters out? Am I the only one who looks up runway elevation, so that they can calibrate their altimeter when they land after a flight? Should I be discussing this with my therapist instead of this forum…?
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@Ze-Stuart I never manually adjust my altitude. FusedAlti takes care of it for me. If I need to I rarely do and always use the auto-adjust altitude. My work and home are 200m different in altitude and the watch is often not exactly at the correct altitude when I commute due to weather changes. As soon as I exercise it is spot on as FusedAlti corrects this.
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@Ze-Stuart
For 10m+, yes, you should find a good therapist .
Not too much more though.
Are you sure of your map altitude references?
Fusedalti is also based on GPS altitudes data. It does an average of it, assuming GPS quality is good enough. It can’t be perfect all time, even if always very good. -
@Ze-Stuart said in Altitude incorrect after exercise:
Whenever I return from a run or a bike ride, the altitude shown in the alti/baro widget is incorrect based on map data, sometimes by 10+ meters. This is true for:
- a short run (30m) or a longer ride (3h+)
- when the exercise has the same start/end point
- for the Vertical
- for the SSU as well: I do not bother to adjust the altitude before training start, then pass a sign that I am at 917 m altitude and the SSU (and now the activity in SA) shows 874 m.
I have read here that as long as I don’t set the altitude manually within about 15 minutes before the training (and thus „override“ the altitude that the GNSS would provide at training start), the watch will take care of getting the altitude from GNSS. Sometimes this does not seem to work and only after a couple of activities that are launched from the same place, the GNSS altitude shown in the watch for that place starts to be correct.
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Suunto Vertical
Latest firmware
Both cycling and running trains. I go out and get to the same absolutely known point.
I never manually adjust to altitude. I always let it work fuse alti
I also go out with an Apple Watch Ultra
The watch always adjusts the altitude between +6 and +10 meters. For a watch that boasts of being exact…
The Apple Watch Ultra doesn’t fail. Always adjust to the correct height. At most, sometimes makes a mistake in a couple of meters
With older firmware GNNS also adjusted between +6 and +10 but only sometimes. Let’s say that in 60% he was right and in 40% he added those 6 - 10 meters to the altitude
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@Ze-Stuart Same for me on SR. Before the SR I used to have 9PP and it behaved the same.
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@Brad_Olwin - I think you’re being a reasonable person here. I’d agree that FusedAlti is very good, it just seems odd that on a a circular route, even over a short time there’s a drift.
@Mff73 combined with Brad’s comment, therapist seems the correct route. For the record, yes, I’m confident of my altitude references: I’ve looked up the altitude of ‘home’ by cross-referencing L&L with the 3D model we have of the planet, showing elevation from satellite scans.
@Mauerwegler interesting point: I’ll try not setting my altitude so close to exercising.
@Stark I feel the AWU ‘cheats’: it uses its connection to DEM the altitude. Nothing wrong with this route: it’s my preferred route when possible, I think the way Garmins can do it with their on-watch map data is very cool. Anecdotally, the last time I used a Garmin, every night, at the same time, the altitude would drop by 20m. This would always happen while I was sleeping, and I know I didn’t drop by 20m then!
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@Ze-Stuart If I lived at sea level and had less elevation changes, this would likely bother me too. I just checked a trip to S America on the ocean I did a year ago and my elevation was typically near 0 but would vary to 6m and -4m.
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@Brad_Olwin booking an emergency session with my therapist right now: -4m!!!
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@Brad_Olwin If Fuse-alti adjusted sometimes to -4m, other times to +3m, other times to +10m and others to -6m I would understand that it is a slack around the correct height. Personally, and it’s just my opinion, I see that it’s systematically +10 meters, so I don’t see it as correct. Of course I don’t need therapy because of the anxiety that the mistake causes me. I only expose it because maybe it can be improved. In my case, the height of the starting and arrival point is absolutely contrasted with other devices. And yes, the Apple Watch is much smarter and gives the information probably using both GPS and nearby telephone signals, wifi, etc. etc. (A-GPS)
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@Stark I think Apple will simply lookup the altitude, eg 51.45817500829792, -0.12244164198854866 will always return 21m, which means they’ll present the best data.
All joking aside, I think FusedAlti is really smart, and accurate enough for anything I do, but the incorrect values just annoy me. If I turned off the Altitude/Barometer widget, it would solve the problem, but I like seeing the barometric pressure changes, and then I know if the altitude isn’t correct, they won’t be correct, either.
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@Ze-Stuart No, I’m not talking about the widget. The widget can vary due to pressure changes, etc. I’m talking about an activity. The whole altitude graph is moved +10m. Once fuse-alti sets the altitude automatically within the first 15 minutes of activity (usually between minute 14 and 15), the whole curve is shifted +10 meters (the lowest point of the route is 10 meters higher and the highest point of the route is also 10 meters higher). That is what seems to me a mistake. In addition, if on the beach (it is very clear that on the beach we are at 0 meters with a small tolerance) I adjust the height by fuse-alti, waiting the 15 minutes that the watch asks me, the height systematically gives an upward error between +8m +10m. From my point of view, the information of the GNSS chip in altitude is not correct or not well processed
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@Ze-Stuart said in Altitude incorrect after exercise:
@Brad_Olwin booking an emergency session with my therapist right now: -4m!!!
I worry more about gain/loss during exercise and accuracy during exercise, which are far more important to me than having the watch on my wrist when not exercising. If the watch reads -4m and I am standing on the shore breathing I know that I am not underwater. If I run on the beach (flat) and I get 200m elevation gain I will be exceedingly unhappy.
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Im living in an island very close to the sea (altitude 1 - 5 meters).
Im using the fuse alti and unfortunatelly rarely works properly. I have to choose to do the correction almost daily to have reasonable deviations (at least not to show a negative value).
I have noticed how when I get it wet (even in the shower) the altitude goes down usually to a negative number and then it can’t adjust it correctly.
I thought that at least every time I connect to the gps it would automatically make this correction as well which it seems not to do. This was happening with the Garmin, I would log into the gps for an activity and then have corrected values.
Unfortunately it is one of the things that annoys me the most about the watch, while everything else seems to work perfectly.
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@Christos-Tsampas FusedAlti only works during activity, it does not change activity in daily mode
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Also not working properly
At the app at the altitude analysis report seems most of the activity below Zero.How could it works right all the time, during the activity and also rest of the day?