Auto lap by gps

Former Member over 6 years ago

After having upgraded from a 235 to a brand spanking new 5X Plus I went looking for the auto lap by gps feature...and I was unable to find it. Having read around the forum, it seems like this feature has been left out of both the Fenix 3, 5 and 5 plus...can this really be true?

I use the watch to monitor my motocross riding, and lap times are a pretty big deal here. Marking laps manually is unfortunately no go, as I cant take my hands of the handlebars long enough fiddle with buttons, and marking laps by length is also a no go as each lap are slightly different (inner vs. outer in corners etc).

I really hope that I am missing something obvious here, so any help is appreciated :)

0 tmk2 over 6 years ago

Indeed, autolap by position has been dropped on many latest garmin devices.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Thank you for confirming that it wasn't just be that was being blind :) but...really?
Because the functionality is covered by something else, like courses, or just plain dropped?

0 tmk2 over 6 years ago

My FR735XT lacks the autolap-by-position as well, and I cannot think of any practical workaround. So I guess it simply isn't there.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

Yeah I did find your datafield, and thank for developing it and making it freely available!

But, lap information is not really useful on the go. I am far to busy trying not to crash to also have time to look at the watch :) And as far as I understand the field is not persisted in the exercise log so that I can see lap times afterwards?

I really cannot fathom what decision proses led Garmin to drop this fairly simple functionality from it's top of the line watches wile keeping it in old entry level products....I really like the Fenix, but this is a bit of deal breaker :(

0 etparks over 6 years ago

But, lap information is not really useful on the go. I am far to busy trying not to crash to also have time to look at the watch :) And as far as I understand the field is not persisted in the exercise log so that I can see lap times afterwards?
:(

After the release of version 3.0 the laps are recorded to the FIT file...at least that's what the change log indicates.

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

You note

marking laps by length is also a no go as each lap are slightly different (inner vs. outer in corners etc).

which is of course effectively a different position. So how can you expect auto lapping by GPS to be much better?

If I remember correctly there were issues with the precision and accuracy of GPS to be able to reliably have auto lapping by position. It worked for some, but I recall there were many more complaints about it not working. Probably a great idea at the time, but poor functionality likely led to it being dropped.

It's not so much they kept it on older devices, as not implementing it on newer ones. This happens with all products from other sources. New functionality replaces older, not always in the way we like. But that's product lifecycles.

You could always submit this as a feature request to Garmin.

0 Trollskogen over 6 years ago

I want the function called ’autolap by position’. I knew a few other that want it also...

0 Dr Phil over 6 years ago

In that case, submit a feature request to Gamin.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

After the release of version 3.0 the laps are recorded to the FIT file...at least that's what the change log indicates.

I had not seen that, only the description saying that it doesnt update the FIT file. I will test it next time I am out riding thanks :)

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

New models and still missing this

forums.garmin.com/.../wich-models-have-auto-lap-time-by-position