So it begins.
I will have mine Fenix 5 on Saturday and will start doing comparisons to an Ambit 3 Peak. I don't have an F3 to directly compare to as of now.
Anyone have an F3 and F5 to compare?
I agree you shouldn't be waiting 5 minutes, but one full minute rather than haring off the moment the green ring appears might be sensible. Green ring means 'enough satellites for a 3D lock', which is only 4, and a few more seconds could give you 6-8, better initial position and less chance of the lock going berserk if you lose sight of one single satellite.
My F3 gives a better lock at 60 seconds than green ring alone in a place where my 310xt regularly took 5 minutes to lock at all, because of the number of metal-framed buildings around it.
I think dcrainmaker may have suggested just wait until pace shows zero before setting off? Certainly on my 735 after I get a lock it shows pace for some more seconds before dropping to zero.
Shows zero and stays there for ten seconds or so, would be my take. Once it's done that, you can be sure it's got enough satellites for a stable lock, and it hasn't locked on to a reflected signal accidentally (which would cause a slow drift in position). But, broadly, yeah, somewhere between GREEN RING TIME TO RUN and 5 MINUTES MINIMUM :)
When you're getting initial lock, still as possible is good, so satellite signals aren't interrupted . When you're moving, as fast as possible is good, as it helps with reflection rejection.
Took a better look at the routes, the 'towards' ones is taken by the 735xt. It starts on the proper side of the road and only drifts off around the water (the only place where the F5 performs better). Shapewise the tracks are actually quite close I guess, but the 735xt is more accurate wrt the route I actually ran.
The 'back' one is closer, both not great but hard to tell which would be the better one. Because I was unable to start/stop the watches at exactly the same time it's hard to comment on the 4sec pace difference.
Btw, just walked the dog again and this time set the F5 to GPS only, utter crap still (might be even worse then GPS+GLONASS) so that was no success. Might try smart-recording next time (but think I used that once before, without luck. Also, it kinda sucks that you can set GPS vs GPS+GLONASS activity specific but not smart vs 1sec recording). Atm I actually seriously think about taking them both during my HM, would be a very nice test...
When I took a look at the routes on GC, the F5 route actually looked better to me because it seemed to cut through fewer buildings. But you know the exact location of your run better; I was just guessing from the track.
Can you post the dog walk? I'm just curious what such a bad track look likes?
Sure :)
F5:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1650104018
735:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1650105756
Yikes. I mean both have lots of wiggles and wanders, but that F5 track is awful. It looks like it never had your location locked at the beginning because you start in a building and promptly walk through a different building :eek:
