Altimeter is broken on Karoo 3 brand new device

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Christos Andreev

• October 26, 2026 15:32

I bought the Karoo 3 about a week ago. 3 rides in and the elevation gain data are way off. I reports anywhere from 10 to 30% more elevation gain than it should be. I do the same rides over and over for years. On Wahoo I get 480-500m of elevation gain, on the Karoo 3 I get 880. It's ridiculous considering that Karoo 2 had the exact same hardware problem. It's a shame seeing it also in the Karoo 3. Seems nothing got fixed after all. I opened a ticket but noone responded. I'm still protected via the returns policy of R2 for two weeks. If noone fixes my problem will return the device and buy a Garmin.

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  Christos Andreev

  • October 26, 2026 15:33

  I already did elevation calibrations both manually and automatically, did factory settings restore and nothing got fixed. Delulu elevation gain data remain.

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  Mark Sekelsky

  • October 26, 2026 17:38

  I have this issue. On my FOURTH Karoo. Numbers 2 and 3 were due to price drops and swapping was the way to get the better price. ALL are too high on elevation although I will say this unit is closer. I was working with support but they got down to “we can do a warranty exchange.” Well that’s a bit of a pain and I can’t see how it would help. Friend that bought a month ago has crazy high elevation as well. Friend that bought this spring has no issues. I’m wondering about a “bad batch.”

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  Simon Lockwood

  • October 27, 2026 17:14

  Does it actually measure air pressure or does it use gps and map data to calculate? If the latter it could be bad map data rather than the unit, maybe?

  When the ride is synched to other apps like strava, does it use their own map data or just synch the elevation gain directly from the karoo?

  Sorry, i know this isn't helping you, but was just wondering how it worked.

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  Mark Sekelsky

  • October 27, 2026 19:27

  I don’t know for sure but here is what I think/know. I believe Karoo uses a pressure sensor versus an altimeter. I do think sone calculations go on. Today Karoo said 301 feet (this is high but no atrocious). Strava read this as 299. In my experience the number on Strava and Karoo are very close. This is from the upload NOT Strava replacing elevation data. OTOH RWGPS shows 480. In my experience RWGPS typically calculates higher. How Karoo does this I do not know but it sure appears like the data gets interpreted

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  Christos Andreev

  • October 27, 2026 22:05

  I don't know how altimeter works. All I know is that for now I use the autocorrect elevation function in Strava. My latest ride had 880m of elevation gain according to Karoo. On Strava I used the fix elevation data and it made it to 503 which is exactly how much it should be. That's not a fix whatsoever. That's just using Strava to see how much climbing you really did. On the fly, you still have delusional readings

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  Mark Sekelsky

  • October 28, 2026 00:26

  My other theory, which I can shoot a hole in, is that my elevation is pretty modest. Most changes are a foot or two. Maybe small changes are just tougher to detect versus say a 5 minute climb

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  Christos Andreev

  • October 28, 2026 08:02
  • Edited

  When the ride has long continious climbs, the elevation drift is usually less than 20%. However, when it is a rolling terrain it's very inacurate. I'm speaking with a customer support representative and I'm waiting to see their response. They asked some basic questions, made some suggestions and asked for the .fit files which I provided. Will keep you updated if I have any news or if the issue gets resolved or not. 

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  Mark Sekelsky

  • October 28, 2026 17:48

  I sent fit files as well. They wanted to do a warranty swap which I declined. You can’t do advanced swap so it would mean no head unit for a week or two. And being 3 for 3 I couldn’t see device 4 mattering

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  Simon Lockwood

  • October 28, 2026 20:55
  • Edited

  I have a vague memory that when I did a warranty return of a wahoo years ago they charged my credit card then refunded it as soon as they received my broken unit. Kept it on one month so it equalled out nicely - and didn’t go without a head unit 

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  Mark Sekelsky

  • October 28, 2026 21:03

  Garmin for sure does the credit card advance.  I did not think Hammerhead did but I could be wrong.  Hope I am wrong.  Regardless when I asked what they hoped a swap would do the answer was that this is what they could could offer as a next step.  Now had they said something like "Based upon your serial numbers all of your units come from a specific batch.  While we have no reason to assume anything is wrong we want to ensure you get a device from a different production run" (or something like that)

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