I'm posting this in the Acurite section because Acurite makes use of auto-calibration for the barometric pressure in their weather stations (at least in some of them). I know Acurite isn't the only company doing this as LaCrosse also does it. But I figure in the Acurite section this will get more exposure.
I understand how to calibrate a Davis and a Fine Offset clone station and they both use different methods. With Davis you provide the elevation and the console then calculates the offset from station pressure, simple, very accurate and precise, the way it should be. With Fine Offset you have to do the heavy lifting and figure out what your elevation pressure offset is based on your elevation, so you have to do the math yourself (one time), which is not that hard using an online elevation calculator like Kaisan. Also very accurate and precise but you need to know what you are doing (which is why I've written so many help posts on this topic).
So what gets me is how does this auto-calibration even work? I want to understand it from a conceptual view. If you can't provide the elevation to the console nor manually enter in the barometric offset then
how does the station figure this out in 14 days? What is it doing during those 14 days? Is it just seeing how high and how low the barometric pressure gets and then it keeps adjusting the max and minimum to acceptable "possible" real world levels? That is the only thing I can figure. Maybe it is as simple as that. But couldn't there be some room for error if it was that simple? I just don't think that would be as precise as being able to manually enter in the elevation (or an offset). Because if it were that precise and automatically hands-off then why wouldn't other reputable quality station manufactures also not use this method?
For contrast take Garmin equipment that has a barometer/altimeter. Garmin uses the built in GPS to determine elevation and then the barometer adjusts based on GPS elevation data. The Garmin still needs time to adjust as GPS elevation data is not perfect but it gets the device into the ball park. This method of auto-calibration makes sense to me. But what Acurite and LaCrosse (and perhaps others) are doing without GPS makes no sense.
https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=FhOYuggxmV6Atph276U4h8I'd like to hear other people's thoughts on this...even if you don't know the answer. Maybe we just kick this around and we'll see where the conversation goes. Maybe we can come up with some plausible answers even without really knowing what the secret sauce is.