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Apple Watch Ultra Elevation Way Off

nheilweil said:
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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Oh weird. I just updated my Watch to the latest beta build and my watch correctly displayed my elevation. I was excited until my watch rebooted to complete the sw upgrade and it went back to the incorrect elevation. So probably SW related. I updated the bug feedback I submitted.
 
Have had the same issue for 3 days. Took my hand with the watch on under water and shaked it. Then the altitude started to go down. After maybe a minute it was spot on and worked fine again.
 
Okay. I’ve been working on understanding this as I have had the same issue.
I live in Denver (5280 ft) have the Apple Watch Ultra with latest watch OS (9.0.2) and latest iPhone OS (16.0.3).
When I first pair the Apple Watch Ultra with my iPhone 13 Pro, the elevation is correct. This continues until I use the activity app (native to the Apple Watch) or Strava, and immediately after that the elevation on the always on altimeter will show ~ 9000 feet.
If I open the compass on my phone, it is the correct elevation, and there is no way to sync compass on the phone with compass on the Apple Watch Ultra.
The only way to repair this issue is by comparing and repairing the watch to the phone, and then it will be correct until I again use the activity app or Strava.
Despite the altitude being in correct in times of absolute reading, it will register elevation gain at the end of the workout, which seems reasonable.
I also had issues after a commercial plane ride, but I only noticed it after using the activity app, so it may have been thrown off by that and not the airplane pressurized cabin.
Other altimeter apps seemed to work fine. So I do not think this is a hardware reading issue, but rather a software bug with the compass app and elevation getting off sync after using the activity app.
I even had a replacement Apple Watch Ultra sent my way, and this issue is the same on the new device. Therefore, I think this is a glitch with the compass app that needs to be fixed in an upgrade.
Does anybody know how I can let Apple know about this? How can I file this so that they can work on fixing their compass app? Maybe they know about it, but I think knowing the sequence of events would be helpful.
 
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I live in Denver, and my watch, which I've had for a week, was fine until Friday, when I drove up to 11,000ish feet for a hike. When I got out of the car the altimeter read 13,900 feet. When I got up to the destination lake at 12,000 feet it had me at almost 15,000. Interestingly, the amount of elevation gained during the hike was accurate, When I got back to Denver -- my house is at about 5,300 feet -- the altimeter read 8,500. I worked with tech support, resetting the watch, unpairing, etc., and it fixed temporarily. Then next time I did an in-town bike ride it reverted to 8,500 feet. This morning I worked with a senior tech person who had me try setting up the watch as new, rather than from a backup. My watch still thinks I'm at 8,500 feet. Both support people told me they are documenting cases and sending them to engineering so that this can be corrected in a future software update. Pretty annoying for a high-end device. My Apple Watch 4 was always perfect with elevation.
 
Put your Apple Watch under a foot of water and move it back and forth for 3 seconds.

The huge swings in pressure will ‘recalibrate’ the internal sensor.
 
wgr73 said:
Put your Apple Watch under a foot of water and move it back and forth for 3 seconds.

The huge swings in pressure will ‘recalibrate’ the internal sensor.
Click to expand...
That worked for an hour and then it reverted to the grossly inaccurate reading.
 
I’m not getting the huge swings you all are getting mine is usually off by 30-50ft elevation after a car ride around town. I also live in the Denver area. My elevation will revert eventually back to the correct elevation for no rhyme or reason. 9.1 did not fix that issue for me.

My wife’s Apple Watch 6 is spot on. No idea why.
 
Yeah so it isn’t the watch/hardware. I get correct readings in the altimeter app (5415 ft - I’m in the 13th floor of a building in Denver).
It is a software issue - it is the compass app that is way off. (9915 ft)
 
PGeorgeMD said:
Yeah so it isn’t the watch/hardware. I get correct readings in the altimeter app (5415 ft - I’m in the 13th floor of a building in Denver).
It is a software issue - it is the compass app that is way off. (9915 ft)
Click to expand...
What app did you use to get the correct measurement?
 
I had the same problem. Turned out it was my iPhone that somehow messed up the altitude reading of my AW Ultra, despite the iPhone showing the correct elevation. I had to reset and restore my iPhone and pair it with my AW. That fixed it, so far.
 
arqtiq said:
I had the same problem. Turned out it was my iPhone that somehow messed up the altitude reading of my AW Ultra, despite the iPhone showing the correct elevation. I had to reset and restore my iPhone and pair it with my AW. That fixed it, so far.
Click to expand...
What exactly did you do to your phone please?
 
So altitude was working fine for me, but now not working very well at all. I am running iOS 16.0.2 and 9.1 on the Ultra. I have some different problems to those above:

1. Large errors on the compass App. I am at 145M elevation. The compass app has started saying that I'm at 200M +/- 105M. And worse still it changes...one minute I am at 145M +/- 5M, then 196M +/- 55M, then 145M +/- 5M, then 200M +/- 105M. Atmospheric pressure is steady.
2. Elevation doesn't display a reading whilst using the native workout App. But then it does show, maybe halfway through the walk, for maybe a few minutes, during which it is accurate. Then it disappears again (by which I mean I get two dashes "--" where the reading should be). It is the same with or without the phone.

It's really frustrating! If it wasn't working at all, I would think it is a setting, but working and then not working is unreliable. I haven't been on to tech support yet as it keeps seeming to work, and then doesn't for a while. It's driving me nuts!
 
drmt226 said:
So altitude was working fine for me, but now not working very well at all. I am running iOS 16.0.2 and 9.1 on the Ultra. I have some different problems to those above:

1. Large errors on the compass App. I am at 145M elevation. The compass app has started saying that I'm at 200M +/- 105M. And worse still it changes...one minute I am at 145M +/- 5M, then 196M +/- 55M, then 145M +/- 5M, then 200M +/- 105M. Atmospheric pressure is steady.
2. Elevation doesn't display a reading whilst using the native workout App. But then it does show, maybe halfway through the walk, for maybe a few minutes, during which it is accurate. Then it disappears again (by which I mean I get two dashes "--" where the reading should be). It is the same with or without the phone.

It's really frustrating! If it wasn't working at all, I would think it is a setting, but working and then not working is unreliable. I haven't been on to tech support yet as it keeps seeming to work, and then doesn't for a while. It's driving me nuts!
Click to expand...

I had the exact same problems:
iPhone compass app was accurate.
AW Ultra compass app was way off.
AW Ultra displayed „- - -„ in workout mode.

I paired an old AW with my phone. Same behavior, even on the old AW.
Then I unpaired my AW Ultra and paired it to my wife‘s iPhone. Worked correctly.
That‘s when I started to suspect, that despite the problem showing on my AW, the actual root cause was my iPhone.

I completely reset my iPhone (deleted everything, removed it from my Apple ID). Then I installed it from the iCloud backup. It’s was a pain, but fixed all problems.
 
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I also have problems with AWU altitude. Always wrong until resetting it (under water trick). It’s becoming a PITA.

One day I ended up with double height gain as well?!? I just can’t trust what it’s telling me. If I’m out climbing with my wife, I have to ask her to check her watch to see if mine is right or not!
 
arqtiq said:
I had the exact same problems:
iPhone compass app was accurate.
AW Ultra compass app was way off.
AW Ultra displayed „- - -„ in workout mode.

I paired an old AW with my phone. Same behavior, even on the old AW.
Then I unpaired my AW Ultra and paired it to my wife‘s iPhone. Worked correctly.
That‘s when I started to suspect, that despite the problem showing on my AW, the actual root cause was my iPhone.

I completely reset my iPhone (deleted everything, removed it from my Apple ID). Then I installed it from the iCloud backup. It’s was a pain, but fixed all problems.
Click to expand...
Great, thanks. I’ve just gone through diagnostics with Apple. Nothing wrong with the AWU hardware. I did go through a iPhone update to 16.1 so might see if that works before the full reset!
 
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Hi All, just a note to say that my AWU elevation issue seems to have been resolved by updating my iPhone to iOS 16.1. I was already running 9.1 on the AWU.

I am 24 hours on and no issues. I've been walking, using the app with no issues. Accuracy via the AWU Compass App is settled at between +/-5M and +/-10M.
 
So what is the reliable standard/measure to obtain elevation information so that one can compare for the accuracy of the reported AWU and iPhones elevation numbers?
 
drmt226 said:
Hi All, just a note to say that my AWU elevation issue seems to have been resolved by updating my iPhone to iOS 16.1. I was already running 9.1 on the AWU.

I am 24 hours on and no issues. I've been walking, using the app with no issues. Accuracy via the AWU Compass App is settled at between +/-5M and +/-10M.
Click to expand...
I'm on both 9.1 and 16.1 and still have the issue.
 
msackey said:
So what is the reliable standard/measure to obtain elevation information so that one can compare for the accuracy of the reported AWU and iPhones elevation numbers?
Click to expand...
I just compared it to Ordnance Survey data for a known location (I'm in the UK). Personally, in terms of accuracy, I am only looking to be within +/-10M and my issue was that I was 50M out with +/-105M of reported accuracy on the Compass application.

It also appears that most user's (mine included) iPhone Compass App was reporting a reasonably accurate elevation.
 
drmt226 said:
I just compared it to Ordnance Survey data for a known location (I'm in the UK). Personally, in terms of accuracy, I am only looking to be within +/-10M and my issue was that I was 50M out with +/-105M of reported accuracy on the Compass application.

It also appears that most user's (mine included) iPhone Compass App was reporting a reasonably accurate elevation.
Click to expand...
I see. Mine matches my iPhone pretty closely. The Watch does say +/- 20ft and maybe that margin changes depending on circumstances
 
Hi
I live in Reunion Island (Indian Ocean) and I recently acquired an Ultra. I regularly hike and I quickly noticed a significant error of the altimeter showing a constant error for my part of more than 1,100 m! Like most of you, very disappointed, I contacted the Apple support which was unable to find a solution. The watch exchange could not be done because my watch tested according to the Apple verification process does not have any hardware problem. Like you, I sacrificed pairing, un-pairing, and resetting my watch and my iPhone repeatedly, but nothing happened. It seems that we have to wait for an update of WatchOS
 
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