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Aragornii

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 25, 2010
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The elevation reading on my Apple Watch Ultra is off by a couple thousand feet. My iPhone and other some Watch are reading accurately. Any new Ultra owners experiencing this?
 
The elevation reading on my Apple Watch Ultra is off by a couple thousand feet. My iPhone and other some Watch are reading accurately. Any new Ultra owners experiencing this?
Does it show in meters or feet? I was trying one out last night at the apple store and it was in meters, couldn't find a way to change it to feet anywhere, not even the apple employees could figure it out.
 
It's probably a GPS quirk. Rebooting the Watch will force it to reacquire GPS and might correct the error. If it doesn't, there might be a software bug that'll get fixed in a subsequent update.
 
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The elevation reading on my Apple Watch Ultra is off by a couple thousand feet. My iPhone and other some Watch are reading accurately. Any new Ultra owners experiencing this?
Glad I found this forum. My ultra watch is off by about 5000 feet. I’m at sea level and it says I’m at 5200 feet. Only thing that happened is I boarded a cross country flight from LA to NY. Was working fine before and now is off. Several hard resets no change. Also the iPhone altimeter works great. Definitely a bug on my ultra.
 
I am in the same bug(boat) as you guys. Got the watch in Austin. Seemed to be working fine. Then got on a plane to Boston and now it is about a ~1000 feet off. Restarted, Unpaired/Repaired, been in contact with apple support and they had me turn on and off a bunch of things...nothing seems to fix it....yet. If you all find a solution please let me know. The strange thing is that when I do a workout, it doesn't display correctly while in the workout, but when I go back and look at the history, everything is spot on correct. So, I think hardware wise everything is cool, just something is messed up software wise.
 
Mine is off too, about 3000’ too high… then all of a sudden it’s dead nuts on??? If this isn’t fixed within the return window, back it goes. Main reason I bought this device over a Garmin was for its new “improved” GPS. Online chatted with Apple Support, they had no solution… except be patient. Pretty disappointed.
 
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You need to get a good GPS fix and acquire a signal. Preferably somewhere outdoors with a clear view of the sky. Also check your location privacy settings.

FE051D6D-BBB7-4434-9C7F-21D541D2F02D.jpeg
 
Also following up...mine adjusted to start reading correctly over the weekend. Maybe they needed an adjustment and calibration period to find the right pressure to use. 🤷‍♂️...I don't know. I did get in touch with Apple and worked with a senior tech rep and we discussed over a few calls the issue (which he mentioned that it was a known issue)...mainly, it was him trying to diagnose the issue and then it seemed to fixed itself. So, all good now.
 
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Anyone have any solutions. I'm about 1,500 feet off. When I got in the shower, it temporarily corrected to the right elevation, but then when wrong soon after. I've tried all the above mentioned trouble shooting, and it still is reading incorrectly. My phone is dead on.
 
No solution yet mine is still Way off … correct sometimes for a couple minutes. I did see they released a new watch update but didn’t see an elevation fix as part of it. Going to try an update now
 
For what it's worth, I updated my watch and then unpaired and re-paired. It works for now. The update itself didn't fix it but the un-pairing did. I've also heard from Apple Support that you could try leaving it off wifi and bluetooth and seeing if that corrects it. I did that but it didn't work.
 
My Ultra was like off by ~100m too (while Barometer watch app was showing correct altitude). It seems turning off / on water lock fixed it for now (at least for me).
 
I updated to 9.0.2 and so far, 12 hours later the watch is at the correct altitude. It is fixed! I will be on a plane later and will update in case it breaks again
 
My Ultra and car GPS reports me as 9 feet above sea level which is correct.
 
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It's a barometric altimeter, so if you get the watch wet and don't blow out the port (seems to me water ejection is weak) then you might have this crop up. No problems with mine if four flights in the past few days, but it has been kept dry.
 
It's a barometric altimeter, so if you get the watch wet and don't blow out the port (seems to me water ejection is weak) then you might have this crop up. No problems with mine if four flights in the past few days, but it has been kept dry.
Interesting theory I don’t go into water mode when I shower … however when I just unpaired and repaired it was fixed when I picked it up… showed the right elevation and when I entered my passcode it immediately broke again … off by 5000 feet. Bizarre bug they need to fix
 
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I noticed this after I flew to Colorado. I was staying at 7,780 ft and noticed my Ultra showed I was at 13,294 ft!

Now I’m back home at 328 ft and my Ultra shows I’m at 3,502 ft.

I’m on the WatchOS 9.1 beta FWIW and I filed a bug. I hope it’s not a hardware issue.
 
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I noticed this after I flew to Colorado. I was staying at 7,780 ft and noticed my Ultra showed I was at 13,294 ft!

Now I’m back home at 328 ft and my Ultra shows I’m at 3,502 ft.

I’m on the WatchOS 9.1 beta FWIW and I filed a bug. I hope it’s not a hardware issue.
Good to know. I have posted on a couple forums and will be hoping on a call with a senior advisor. I would be very annoyed if it was a hardware issue.
 
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