Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Why isn't there altitude/elevation data in my FIT file?

Not all devices record altitude/elevation data, so it may not be present in a FIT file.

For example, Garmin's Forerunner 10 and 15 GPS watches do not record or display elevation. Instead, when an activity is uploaded to Garmin Connect, altitude/elevation data is looked-up for each GPS position in the file and an elevation profile is generated. To mimic this behaviour Google's Elevation API can be used to achieve the same effect.

To check whether altitude/elevation data is contained in a FIT file, you can use the phpFITFileReader's show_debug() function and see which fields are present in record messages.