Danger of an elecronic compass not calibrated

[Mister PYC]

Recently, I made a suggestion of an ANGEL mode (see here : https://forum.suunto.com/topic/6767/angel-mode-when-your-watch-detect-you-are-lost-and-are-out-of-route/34?_=1626677942637)
and during the discussion it was said that there is already a SAFE mode existign … so I decided to test it …

It was in a super small trip (just 30 minutes to see the sungset on geneva from Saleve mountain) … I was super astonished that the direction of the starting point was totally erratic … was it this mode or the compass …
…
So today I tested the compass with also my old one as a reference … and I was super surprised about what I saw …

NO WAY TO GET THE NORTH !!!

I decided to redo the calibrate of the watch and all became back to normal.

So …

Conclusion …

When you start your journey and you want to rely a minima on your electronic devise, not only calibrate your ALTIMETER, but do the same again also on the COMPASS, it will avoid you bad surprises …

See the small video I just posted on my test done today :
https://youtu.be/QKmhLNWGzfc

PS : one could say it is a bug, hummm let’s not say it like that, I’m sure that any electronic watch have the same limitation here version an “analog” magnetic old compass.

So nothing of bad here, just share your thougg about it
I’m interrested to see what your think/

Just a remark … still I’m obliged super super often to re-calibrate the compass … is it normal doctor ?

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@mister-pyc on activity mode once static it will ask for calibration. On all other cases it uses the gps bearing

[sartoric]

I guess somewhere in the manual it’s stated to recalibrate the compass after charging.

[Mister PYC]

@sartoric
No idea what happened … have you seen the video I posted on Youtube … it may not bring many help to catch what happened but show the pb

[Mister PYC]

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos
Hum … have you seen the video I posted on Youtube … it may not bring many help to catch what happened but show the pb

[isazi]

@mister-pyc I would not test an electronic compass (and sometimes even a magnetic one) indoor.

[Mister PYC]

@isazi

Hello Isazi I was doing the test before in my garden but with the ambiant light the watch screen was not visilble, when I did again the same inside … I obtained exact same results

[halajos]

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos said in Danger of an elecronic compass not calibrated:

@mister-pyc on activity mode once static it will ask for calibration. On all other cases it uses the gps bearing

For me sometimes it doesn’t ask for calibration, when I use navigation and the direction of the route is displayed wrongly. As a workaround, it would be very helpful to be able to calibrate the compass during excercise.

[Mister PYC]

@halajos

Hello halajos … this is preciselly why I did a test.
I was inside an exercise the day before, with the S+ SAFE activated to validate what Dimitrios told me about this screen and it is was at that moment that I realized that moving by 90° the compass was moving erratically …

Should the compass beign re-calibrated during an exercise ? it is a good idee !!!

Again … if there was this COMPASS screen available in the exercise view, then it willl have allowed to better discover this wrong situation and as Suunto as some contextual menus with a long press on the crentral button , why not to offer a calibrate feature here ?

It’s a good idea you have here ?

[Jamie BG]

not just electronic compasses, should regularly check and calibrated mechanical compasses too.

Always amazes me when I get on a boat that has had a recent refurb and ask if the compass has been calibrated and the owner says no, only to find out its way out due to all the addiitional refurb work that has been done. Even had one where they replaced the binacle and didn’t bother!!! And that is serious stuff. There have been times when satnav has been down and we have only had a compass to work with (hence my paranoia about it).