Garmin

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AndyS Mar 2021 7:22pm, 19 Mar 2021 232 posts	AndyS One† of my Fenix 5Xs had an interesting barometer issue - the altitude would slowly drift up to exactly 20,000m. I'd recalibrate, and it'd be about right for a few minutes...then drift up to exactly 20km again. Lather, rinse, repeat. I took quite an effort to convince Garmin that the device was faulty (at one point even being asked if I was sure that 20km was wrong ...so I had to patiently explain that was about 2.2 Everests). Since then, I've had precisely zero faith in Garmin's altitude estimates. †"One of", because at this point, I've had about 4 or 5, swapped due to various hardware issues. Most often because the replacements are "refurbished" and have dodgy batteries.
Badger Mar 2021 7:31pm, 19 Mar 2021 13,662 posts	Badger Matter of interest, did you swim with it a lot? That really does seem to kill their barometer chips over time (not an excuse, of course, it’s supposed to be designed for that). Impressive collection. My 5 and 6x have been fine; I think I got through about 5 310xt units, including the horrible refurb they sent me for my brand new lemon, which had the same fault and a button that didn’t work. To be fair they did send me a brand new one after that which lasted months before the screen packed up.
Fitz Mar 2021 7:40pm, 19 Mar 2021 2,388 posts	Fitz I've been having altitude issues (not to be confused with my attitude issues) with a new 245. Elevation data looks OK in Garmin Connect (allowing for the unhelpful scaling of chart there) but goes wild on transfer to FE. I have sent feedback to His Fetchiness.
flanker Mar 2021 10:00am, 20 Mar 2021 19,758 posts	flanker Generally found my5x+ to be reliable - both accurate and consistent. K’s 945 is also consistent but seems to give slightly higher total ascent for the same runs (she claims it’s because she’s smaller so had to go further to get up a hill!) I do a get predictable variation start - end on a loop, so either I’ve got my home calibration point wrong or I need to let it acclimatise after leaving the house before starting.
Badger Mar 2021 10:25am, 20 Mar 2021 13,664 posts	Badger Acclimation, quite likely, I reckon - the barometer chips use micro resistors that are pressure sensitive, but they’re temperature sensitive too. The unit compensates for temperature, but that bit of drift early in a run makes me suspect it’s not perfect. There’s a Fenix 6 pro release candidate firmware out which claims improved calibration during activities. I’ll try it out when my ankle stops grumbling.
flanker Mar 2021 12:19pm, 20 Mar 2021 19,759 posts	flanker Yep, my thoughts too. If the calibration point was wrong I'd climb up a cliff when I neared home.
EvilPixie Mar 2021 11:37am, 24 Mar 2021 24,214 posts	EvilPixie anyone missing training today? My 6:30 run hasn't come through but is on the orange site
AndyS Mar 2021 4:20pm, 24 Mar 2021 242 posts	AndyS Does anyone know the secret magical sauce to get an Edge520+ to connect successfully to a Mac via USB? I've managed to get it to work occasionally, but it's a very hit-and-miss cycle of "plug it in/did it work/unplug it/plug it/did it work/unplug it" and on and on. It charges fine from all the ports, but the OS doesn't recognise it at all (and it doesn't look like the Edge thinks it's plugged in either) I've tried all the USB ports, multiple USB cables, done all the turning off and on again and all the other various shenanigans that Garmin suggest (apart from plugging into a Windoze computer, since I don't have one). I wasted an hour of my life talking a Garmin support droid, who did the Garmin support thing of repeatedly telling me to try all the things that I'd just told him that I'd tried. He then asked me to email a snapshot of the filesystem (so presumably had completely forgotten the fact that we'd just spent an hour trying to get the thing to connect...)
flanker Mar 2021 7:09pm, 24 Mar 2021 19,764 posts	flanker Pix, I've had a couple of runs over last 2 days that have taken over 12 hrs to come through, and others that have appeared almost immediately. Patience you must have, my young padawan
Rosehip Mar 2021 8:30am, 27 Mar 2021 20,405 posts	Rosehip Sportspursuit have Fenix 5s on sale if anyone is interested sportpursuit.com