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18 comments

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    Guido Del Giudice

    welcome to the club...a lot of us are having this issue and there seems to be no resolution in sight...

     
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    Barry Balk

    Having the same issue, use strava data is the only way around it. They want to sent me a new unit, hope this helps.

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    Zoltán Fodor

    I get the same error sometimes on a ride with 60 m gain on 6 km. On a longer, hilly ride this can be even normal especially if weather changes. Look at the graph! If you have random short drops and or peaks in ghe elevation than you have the same problem as me and a lot of other users. Still unresolved after many many months.

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    Keith Page

    I'm having the same issue and have raised it with Hammerhead over the last few days. Initially they acknowledged the issue and stated that they are aware of it and hope to have a fix 'soon'. They also stated that a replacement device may have the same issue and might not be the best thing to do. In a follow up email I was informed that they have no timescale for a fix to be issued. Very disappointing responses. As far as I can see from the forum this issue has been around for years and has not been resolved.

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    Guido Del Giudice

    am on a replacement unit and exactly the same problem...elevation is +20% ....but I have a feeling it is caused by vibrations on my gravel bike...on my MTB error is smaller

    going to try the same ride with the Karoo in my pocket..

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    Steve MacMillan

    I used my Karoo 2 in my pocket and in my hand a few weeks ago on a long walk and it was worse than on a ride. I was walking up a steep hill and the speed was reading as twice as fast as on the flat! And even on that 11km walk the elevation gain recorded was much higher than Strava adjusted it to!

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    Guido Del Giudice

    I think walking speed is difficult to get right on a GPS esp up a hill...running is fine .

    Will try later with it in my pocket and report back....

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    MarcoMarco Gasparrini

    Also got my replacement unit last week. Both show 4x normal elevation. How can 2 new units have exactly the same problem if according to HH only affects a small number of units.

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    Guido Del Giudice

    4X??     wow...mine are out around 15-20% , but 400% seems bizarre

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    MarcoMarco Gasparrini

    Yes it’s ridiculous. It’s probably because I live in pothole city of North America. Roads are really bad. But my edge 500 never had an issue and that thing is ancient. HH suggested using their bar mount, but I mean how sensitive is this thing that you can’t use your own handlebar mount.

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    Guido Del Giudice

    I think HH is giving you the run-around...I am sure they know what the problem is by now but it cannot be fixed by a firmware update.

    It probably started when they made the %grade more accurate but this impacted the total elevation calculation, so either one or the other will be correct.

    Possibly some of the barometers are more sensitive to vibrations hence only some units suffer, who knows.

    All I know is that a fix will not come until they release version 3

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    Oliver

    This was discussed at length elsewhere - I forget which forums.  But the TLDR is that the combined barometer / temperature / other sensor is not fit for purpose.  It's a hardware issue and won't be fixed.

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    Guido Del Giudice

    I did a relatively smooth MTB ride today and the Karoo was almost spot on compared to my Apple watch....while the other day on a jittery gravel ride with a rigid bike and the Karoo was +20% off compared to my watch

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    Guido Del Giudice

    Ok, I have figured out what is causing the elevation issue....vibrations!

    Today I went out with 2 Karoos...one mounted on a stem on my rigid gravel bike and one in my back pocket.

    The ride is quite rough with quite a lot of road vibrations.

    The Karoo on my bike on a 75km ride reported 1280m total ascent...the one in my pocket recorded 820m ascent...my Apple watch recorded 765m ascent

    When I use the Karoo for running,  elevation is also spot on since it is in my backpack.

    When I use it on my MTB the elevation is a little  high but not as bad as on my rigid gravel bike.

    There is NO way that Hammerhead has not figured this out...and I cannot see how they can fix this since it is affecting a lot of people and is probably related to the barometer being affected by vibrations...perhaps a software fix could be to smooth out the sampling...I don't know but if that was the case a fix should already have been issued.

    Please try and do a ride with the Karoo in your back pocket and see if you get the same result...

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    MarcoMarco Gasparrini

    For the first time yesterday I used the included Karoo mount instead of my Garmin. After getting 2 units with the same problem I wanted to try something different. With the Karoo mount, I went from elevation error of 4x what Strava showed to 1.3x. I guess it’s an improvement. I noticed a lot of flex in my old Garmin mount so it could be vibrations. Wonder if the new K edge mounts are stronger and have little flex. Maybe will help more? I also had the unit positioned at 8 degrees. Will position it completely flat and see if that helps next time.

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    MarcoMarco Gasparrini

    As others have stated this is certainly vibration related. Today I had to cross a 1km flat stretch of road that was being repaved. The top layer of asphalt was removed so the bumpy under surface was exposed. I could see the elevation gain 10m in that 1km stretch because of the road surface vibration. There needs to be some data smoothing.

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    Pepi Ross

    Same problem. On Oct 8, After climbing approx 1200 ft on Tunnel Rd in Berkeley, I was given another approx 250 ft during descent as I traversed bummpy parts of road. This is not rolling hills, it is all up then all down.
    I love my karoo 2, but really this does need to get fixed.

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    Goran

    Hello,

    I have Karoo 2 for almost a year now, I'm happy with the device. Of course, like many others, I also noticed that the elevation calculation is not the same as, for example, Komoot.

    A short note, I am a hobby rider (racing bike) and elevation recording is not that important to me - a few percent up or down is not the end of the world for me :-), further every ride I records using both Komoot on my mobile phone and on Karoo 2.

    However, when I compared the elevation graph on Komoot and HH, Karoo 2 has the same altitude measurement accuracy as Komoot (the difference is statistically insignificant). For example, at a distance of 20.6km, Komoot measured 579hm, and HH measured 580hm.

    I compared a lot of points on the route, altitude measurement by Komoot and HH, the difference is minimal or none.

    See attached graphs.

    !!! BUT !!!

    HH on multiple points has measured two altitudes which sometimes differ !

    Example at the distance of 20.5km, once HH recorded altitude of 580hm and second time recorded 581hm.

    First, I thought HH is making duplicate recordings, but looking at other details (Total time) they are not.

    Recording with altitude of 581hm was made at time 53:10 and second recording with altitude of 580hm at 53:15 (5 seconds later).

    Komoot on the other hand, records on a minute interval and on the same point (20.5km) recorded an altitude of 579hm.

    So, right, it might be that HH recording frequency is higher the other e.g. Komoot which then might lead to the differences in total Ascent/Descent calculation.

    Also notice differences in "Grade" measuring, on the same spot once is at 53:10 time grade of 1.2% and 5 seconds later at 53:15 time grade was -2.5%. Assuming speed of 30km/h, traveled distance for 5sec would be then ~42m, so it could be possible the measurement reflects proper elevation profile within that 42m distance - I personally don't recall what was the road profile at that place.

    So, somehow, I think that altitude measuring done by HH is correct and done at higher frequency then others (e.g. Komoot) which might explain differences compared to others.

    Not sure also how total Altitude/Descent calculation is done and what role plays "Grade" in HH calculation algorithm for total elevation numbers.

    HTH
    Goran

     

     

     

     

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