Vertical on ski tracking apps/watches

NELSAP

I track my ski day using two systems - my Garmin watch that uses Garmin Connect, and Ski Tracks App.

For both of them, they always overestimate the vertical by at least 5%, and sometimes closer to 10%. I can't figure out why. I don't think it's picking up on extra vertical while actually riding the lift. I've also noticed a "drift" for the start/stop elevations - see the screenshot below for Saskadena Six yesterday. The first 19 runs are on the quad, and note that the top elevation keeps getting higher while the bottom does the same.

Does this happen for everyone? Are you finding the same errors in vertical?

xlr8r

I use Strava, which seems to be pretty accurate elevation wise, it doesn't give out as many interesting stats as other aps unfortunately.

For record keeping though, I record my daily vertical in an excel spreadsheet where I look up the lift vertical on liftblog.com, then I just have to count how many rides I did on each lift to get a total vertical for the day.

z1000307470

Could the errors and the drift have something to do with the internal barometers? I also use a Garmin and Ski Tracks and I see the same patterns of drift and inaccuracy. It also might depend on how often per minute it reads the altitude.

Cannonball

z1000307470;c-58953 wroteCould the errors and the drift have something to do with the internal barometers? I also use a Garmin and Ski Tracks and I see the same patterns of drift and inaccuracy. It also might depend on how often per minute it reads the altitude.

Yes, this is the to answer. And the experience described by @xlr8r can provide a correction. If you run Strava without using a barometric reading (watch, external GPS, etc) Strava uses your x,y horizontal data and compares against topo maps to determine your y vertical data. It ends up being pretty accurate. Strava allows you to correct any faulty barometric-based data with thier topo data. It's generally way better

shpride

I use garmin and the thing I notice it’s good for missing at least 1 run per trip. At smaller places it’s almost definite to miss a few runs but even at larger it may miss a run or two.

joshua_segal

I use SNOWW, WeSki and Ski Tracks Lite simultaneously. All of them have problems. All are free.

SNOWW stops working gratuitously. I have a few friends who participate on this app and that's why I continue to use it. It tends to read about 10% on vertical.

WeSki rarely misses runs but does occasionally miss a few. Vertical is the closest to accurate of the 3-apps.

Ski Tracks Lite tends to read about 10% high on vertical. It is the most reliable of the 3, but it doesn't provide the comparison with other participants.

All suck a lot of power and I use a supplemental power supply to keep them going through the day.