Garmin 520 showing elevation below sea level...

mason5697

Anyone know what is causing this? Happened my last few rides. Mainly been using the turbo in my garage, but had 2 or 3 rides outside this year, that are showing well below sea level, never happened at all last year.

ugo.santalucia

If the elevation is based on atmospheric pressure, then it needs calibration (basically you need to manually imput the altitude you are at), if it's based on GPS, then something is not quite right

meanredspider

mason5697 wrote:

Anyone know what is causing this? Happened my last few rides. Mainly been using the turbo in my garage, but had 2 or 3 rides outside this year, that are showing well below sea level, never happened at all last year.

Most Garmins have the option to calibrate elevation at a certain point (ideally the normal start point of your ride). That would help the thing know what elevation it's starting at. Indoors is always going to be problematic if it can't see satellites - barometric only really works as a relative measure because atmospheric pressure changes (albeit usually quite slowly). That's all I can think of.

defycomp2

Mine too, since the v10.00 s/w update. Had been fine for 18 months.

meanredspider

DefyComp2 wrote:

Mine too, since the v10.00 s/w update. Had been fine for 18 months.

Well, yes, Garmin screwing it up is the most likely option!

stevie63

I'm using a wahoo elemnt and I have had several rides in the past few weeks showing below sea level so I think it's more likely to do with air pressure as it's not just affecting garmins.

meanredspider

stevie63 wrote:

I'm using a wahoo elemnt and I have had several rides in the past few weeks showing below sea level so I think it's more likely to do with air pressure as it's not just affecting garmins.

If you've been doing long rides at close to sea level when the atmospheric pressure has been falling, then that's a possibility.

What used to irritate me about Garmin Connect was that the elevation scale used to show 100m below sea level....

Man Of Lard

It's definitely something Garmin introduced with v10 firmware - their forums have many posts on this... Hilariously they have had the same issue with the 820 all along (so you would hope that having introduced the error on the 520 between 9.20 & 10.00 that they should now be able to fix both)

Websta24

My 520 is the same...I've set the elevation but it seems I have to do it before each ride. Is it possible to do this so it stores?

jgsi

Have you all set the home elevation since using the 520?

spekky

Editing Locations
Select Menu > Training > Locations.
Select a location.
Select a location detail.
For example, select Change Elevation to enter a known altitude for the location.

Edit the value, and select .

Should work.

By the way, if the Pressure drops, the altitude goes up not down.

jgsi

Spekky wrote:

Editing Locations
Select Menu > Training > Locations.
Select a location.
Select a location detail.
For example, select Change Elevation to enter a known altitude for the location.

Edit the value, and select .

Should work.

By the way, if the Pressure drops, the altitude goes up not down.

nice work Speks.. I just couldnt be arsed to tell them

meanredspider

Spekky wrote:

By the way, if the Pressure drops, the altitude goes up not down.

Good catch. Though, TBF, this is Garmin we're taking about and anything could happen. Pressure's gone down recently anyway so that's not the cause.

kaiserpc

My 520 has been doing the same thing for about 3 months; always about 30+ metres lower than the actual height. I was hoping an update would fix it, but no joy.

I saw the fix about amending the location elevation, but when I go into locations I've just got "Garmin Europe", "Garmin" and "Garmin Taiwan". Do you have to create a "home" location, or do you amend the elevation of the "Garmin" nearest you?

keith57

My standard practice when riding from home is to set a waypoint at home and enter the altitude manually to what I know it to be in the waypoint screen. I only have to do this once.

When I press the start button on each ride within 50m or so of this point the altitude is calibrated automatically and is then tracked fairly well by the barometer throughout the ride.

When starting a ride away from home I have to switch on the unit and either let it work out the altitude from a satelite triangulation (which can take a few minutes) or I can enter the altitude on my 810 manually. I have a great map app on the phone which will readout accurate altitude from map contours in the UK, not the GPS.

When on holiday abroad and riding from the same spot everyday (hotel entrance for example) I'll do the waypoint trick on the evening I arrive then I'm good to go for the rest of the trip.