I tried both the regular verson an the Beta, and the altitude is way off by a factor of greater than 3 on the new Galaxy Pro 5 watch. All other apps display it correct. The last time I played with Facer was in 2016 on the original Samsung Galaxy watch so figured this would have been fixed over the past decade?
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Hello and welcome. Please check your settings. If the factor is about 3.3 then it may mean your expected altitude is displayed in feet when you expect it to be in meters or vice versa.
tag #ALT# is explained as “Altitude (in ft or m based on users’s preferred format)”
btw. original Samsung Galaxy watch was first released in august 2018.
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The original Galaxy Fronter Watch released November 18th, 2016 in the US.
It is displaying 29,000 feet, The other apps display 9200 feet which is more or less correct based on my location. Is is off as other have noted by a factor of 3.14, which is oddly Pi. It is also very close to how many meters happen to be in a foot. But change 29,000 feet into meters merely makes it worse.
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The numbers you are stating now rule out my earlier speculations.
I am not sure where does Facer take the data for #ALT# tag from (GPS or pressure sensor). I tried to test it on my own Frontier, but its pressure sensor broke down second time and is not giving good numbers on any app, so I cant compare. (I decided not to have it repaired again until the watch does not break down completely.)
It does not change anything now, but to be fair, Frontier’s full name was Samsung Galaxy Gear S3, as a third generation of the wearable “gear” S, available in black (Frontier) and silver (Classic) variations (I got mine in spring 2017 when the first hype and prices turned down a bit). The first smartwatch from Samsung called “Galaxy Watch” came in 2018, that has nothing to do with US.
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OK so the Gear S3 Frontier, which does not have a pressure sensor, it could only do altitude by getting it from the internet via GPS location. Why it could not do it via GPS alone, I never understood.
So I got the Galaxy Pro, which does have a barometric sensor and can do altitude all the time. But in Facer it does not work. The problem is with Facer, and I assume that Facer used the old GPS/Internet “method” which the Pro 5 does not provide and Facer does not have a good way to ask for the altitude from either or, since Facer is designed for both types of devices.
If you look for Pro 5 watch faces that display altitude, there is only one, and it requires a helper app. So it may be some limitation of the watch or of the WearOS API’s too.
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There are a number of old threads discussing a very large altitude error on WearOS watches - around 3x what it should be.
Can anyone confirm if the error is still present or if it has been fixed ( I don’t have a WearOS watch to test myself )?
Thanks
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Nope, still broke, at least for Samsung.
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Thanks, so just to be clear, is it still showing around 3x the real value?
And so I can pass it on, would you please let me know the following:
- watch model
- Facer version
- WearOS version
Thanks, much appreciated!
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I never use Altitude, it’s not accurate.
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Same problem and symptons as the original report. There are other threads on this. Facer has said it is a Samsung bug in the way their code interacts with the sensor, which is likely a limitation of what Samsung makes available for doing watch faces in this fashion, as there are plenty of watch faces like Marine Commander where altitude works fine.
Currently showing 27,900 feet. True altitude via Altimeter (barometric, no calibrated) is 9,524, which is pretty close, it should be 9,628.
watch model - all Samsung Galaxy series watches
Facer version - all versions current and past
Wear OS version - all versions current and past
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Altitude is normally accurate within 50 feet, so long as it has been calibrated within a week or so.
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Thanks, much appreciated.
I have updated my support ticket with that info.
Cheers
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From the last ticket that was opened, they said they can’t fix it unless SamSung makes changes to the API. However the fix should be the ability to even display altitude should be removed, since they don’t have altitude data available.
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