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GPS Accuracy

Former Member
Former Member
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?
  • @Paul1477, I agree, I would report the issue to Garmin Support.

    @Tom.Shane, not sure you can ask for much better walking performance from a watch, track is not beautiful, but generally representative and distance accumulation seems within 1%.
  • @Tom.Shane, not sure you can ask for much better walking performance from a watch, track is not beautiful, but generally representative and distance accumulation seems within 1%.


    I'm sure there are watches that could do better in respect of track smoothness, but this definitely is not terrible and good enough for me.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    I think that MyGPSTrack site makes good GPS tracks look bad. Looks like it adds a lot of jitter to the tracks for some reason.
  • @bcalvanese I think you may have it backward a bit, MyGPSFiles just plots the GPS data as it is, Garmin Connect applies smoothing.
  • I turned GLONASS back on for this run: https://www.strava.com/activities/934701930. Doesn't get much better then this. It even got a couple of spots where I ran around cars. HOWEVER, despite such a beautiful track, there were a number of places where the average pace was completely out to lunch and took up to ¼ mile to settle into the real pace. CW suggested it might by a Stryd issue and I tend to agree.
  • Ran my usual 10k round today, but again forgot to also take my 735xt with me :/ So just for reference I uploaded an earlier 735-run of the same route..

    http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#DtVAsWZW

    Overall the F5 does fine, it does deviate from the actual route (placing me besides the road quite consistently at parts) but overall distance seems to be accurate. I noticed that when going underneats 'bridges' the 735 is more able to keep the track while the f5 immediately jumps off. Perhaps there is some internal smoothing or something done in the 735 (although I can't see how that would actually work ;) ).

    Anyway, in this form the F5 is good enough. I'm not entirelly thrilled by it, not at all, but good enough for now. I just hope more demanding conditions won't push it completely over the hill.

    The next time I'll try to remember to put my 735xt on as well again ;)
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    you could give "Compass" off a try next time. The F3 had a weakness under bridges because of a wrong implemented compass algorithm, I think. It is not understandable that a watch with compass and gyroscope makes such nonsense without stable gps.
    So better turn compass of and you have a "normal" gps watch which behaves better under bridges. It is a shame that this design flaw of the F3 made its way into the F5.

    Under normal circumstances a watch with gyroscope should be able to draw a perfect line under a bridge. Why it isn't?? Keeps me wondering....
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    Here is a recovery walk I did today.

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1668016578

    Track looks good and distance is fine.

    I notice people are extremely critical about GPS tracks.

    I think some devices are better than others, but I also think that no device is perfect either.

    I've done my share of comparisons wearing multiple devices, but what I mainly look for is consistent distances (even if the track strays a little here and there). Distance is what affects pace and time metrics so it should be consistent IMO.

    So far my F5 has been pretty consistent in that regard, and the tracks have also been good as well.
  • Here is a recovery walk I did today.

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1668016578

    Track looks good and distance is fine.

    I notice people are extremely critical about GPS tracks.

    I think some devices are better than others, but I also think that no device is perfect either.

    I've done my share of comparisons wearing multiple devices, but what I mainly look for is consistent distances (even if the track strays a little here and there). Distance is what affects pace and time metrics so it should be consistent IMO.

    So far my F5 has been pretty consistent in that regard, and the tracks have also been good as well.


    But that one DOES look pretty great, what were the settings? (GPS+GLONASS and 1sec)?

    If mine looked like that I'd be pretty happy as well ;) Then again, I only did like 1k test-walks so far so haven't really walked a decent distance... But those 1k walks were pretty ugly.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 8 years ago
    10 mile race i did yesterday. Pace seemed to work well for me on this one. 1 sec recording, GPS + GONASS:

    Vale of York 10 mile race 2017 >