to all the ambit3 users - need some hints on fused-anti

mario_b

hi to all!
i need some help.
i am new to suunto and have my watch now for a week.
long story short:
i did 2 times sports a day now. have been for holiday now in italy. every morning i made my “wake up” run, followed by an mountaineering / hiking or climbing activity. i really like it, not to care a about anything on this watch. gps /heartbelt found in around 5-10 sec and lets go. fused-anti kicks in in around 5-20 minutes and the altitude is for my reasons just perfect the whole day.
today i started with my morning run. followed by a via ferrata, followed by swimming some pool lengths. and i did never get an value without the “~” before.
my morning run for example looks like this:

yes i am on auto baro profile but it worked the whole week before.
( i don’t care 'bout the elevation while running in flats, but i haven’t seen it before.) then i tryed to to calibrate the watch with fused-alti and it failed. i tryed it later a few times on the pool after swimming and it failed. (clear sky, a really wide valley, pointing the antenna nope up) did not work.
i synced the watch every morning with the movescount app. to get fresh almanac data. but today, fused alti not worked to get me near the actual hight.
have you some hints to improve it?
thanks for your help

freeheeler

@mario_b
I did not use fused alti in the last two years. ButbI started using it since 1 or 2 weeks now and my experience so far: I either let it calibrate automatically before an activity or I manually adjust the altitude when I know the exact altitude… I then assume fused alti does the rest during the activity.

I will try with my next activity if fused alti calibrates automatically after it found the satellites and before I press the start button.

But I must say, I am always on alti, never automatic or baro.

mario_b

Hi @TELE-HO !
thanks very much for your help.
fused-alti is the main reason for me for this watch. and all the 13 sports i did before, have been rock solid.
just today, it didn’t get the point. all the runs before on the same round route -> spot on. ( and that in a for me completely flat area).
i’ll try tomorrow run with altitude profile not with auto. maybe it just was a bad day, or its because of the auto setting. ( i did just auto, because weather was changing a lot here the last days, and running was nearly flat.)
do you know if A-GPS data gets refreshed while syncing with the mobile phone too, or only by cable?

freeheeler

@mario_b
what I know about the auto baro-alti profile is that it switches from baro to alti when the pressure changes and the watch is in motion. When the watch is not in motion, let’s say on the desk and the pressure changes it remains in baro. I think I once read something about around 5m of altitude change and then it switches. But to be sure I’m always in alti, and I don’t observe the weather on the watch, I use the multimodel in Meteoblue

The GPS “optimization” or how the call it (updating satellite orbiting data) is only working thru cable by the moveslink2 on the laptop. At least that was an information over a year ago from Suunto customer care. MC app does not support updating GPS data.
I think SA does that also for Ambit3.
For now I’m syncing thru MC app to have all my data stored in MC web and have it uploaded to Strava.
After that I sync with SA and force the app to stop once the activity is uploaded to SA. During the sync with SA it always says something about updating GPS data or something similar…
The only reason I sync to SA is to be able to do some testing with every update…
Until SA is working solid and supports A3 entirely I stick to MC

Saketo Nemo

Do you mean this? Point 4.4 of the manual

Weather and altitude changes both cause a change in air pressure. To handle this, Suunto 9
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.

mario_b

Hi @TELE-HO !
about the auto: yes you’re right. if you move in elevation for 3 minutes 5 meters (around 0,5 hPa pressure change) it switches to alti. if you’re in between 5 meters for 12 Minutes it switches back to baro mode. i like the documentation on this watch, so there is no guessing.
but thanks very much, i think you solved my question. i think that the elevation is just around 5 meters of ups and downs, that why it sticks on baro. and the days before it was just over the 5 m point to switch to alti.

mario_b

@Saketo-Nemo i just found the same. thank you.
works great!

mario_b

@TELE-HO said in to all the ambit3 users - need some hints on fused-anti:

@mario_b
I either let it calibrate automatically before an activity or I manually adjust the altitude when I know the exact altitude… I then assume fused alti does the rest during the activity.

@TELE-HO for your info: if you manually calibrate the altitude while in an activity, fused-alti will be turned off. https://www.suunto.com/Support/Product-support/suunto_ambit3_peak/suunto_ambit3_peak/features/exercising-with-sport-modes/

freeheeler

@mario_b
I only adjust the altitude manually before I start an activity.

mario_b

@TELE-HO ah ok. i will try that too. thank you

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

I would avoid auto for all cases except track and filed (although there should be baro) and flat runs eg Netherlands.

mario_b

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos thank you. i changed every activity to alti profile except the ones i do no care about elevation and hiking. (hiking because here in the alps it would be nice to get a “storm-alert” on weather changes) and i do not hike in flats.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@mario_b good point.

freeheeler

@mario_b
when I’ve had the Suunto Core couple of years ago, I tried the storm alert and it came up several times without any signs of a storm… I use the weather alert from the Swiss Meteo… don’t know if there is something similar in your area?
To be honest but without wanting to be mean: I think the storm alert is more a gimmick…

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@TELE-HO Kida gimmick. IT works as it should (3HPA drop) but not all storms drop that nor it means definately that a storm passes by.

freeheeler

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
I think it could be useful when you’re out in nowhere, no cellular network, no radio, no access to meteo news etc
But I’m never there… so I have it as you recommend always in alti mode

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@TELE-HO yup. Except at nights that wakes me up sometimes here due to the summer storms

mario_b

@TELE-HO i know that on baro watches it only works when in baro not in altitude mode. if you do not a sport and you are in auto mode, often it raise up the altitude instead of a storm alert. but in sports mode, with auto profile and fused-alti enabled, when it corrects the elevation it also corrects the sea level pressure. (i saw that on a friends watch and found it works great). and i could be wrong but @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos i think it is 4 hPa in 3 hours.
i know it does only give you a hint, if a storm could be and i would not rely on it, but its a nice thing to have.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@mario_b yup I dont remember the number by heart and I think what I said might be for Spartans/s9

mario_b

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos i think it does not really mather too. pressure drops, watch peeps and bad weather could come. the good point is, everybody can choose to turn it on or off.