GPS Accuracy

Here's the short answer : https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?371929-GPS-Accuracy&p=959969#post959969

Here's the short answer : https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?371929-GPS-Accuracy&p=959969#post959969

OK thank you. If that's the case, I don't see why anyone would use GPS Only....unless they were doing an event long enough where battery life would come into play.

Which for an ultra runner with the 5, would be anything over a 50miler, maybe even a 100k.

OK thank you. If that's the case, I don't see why anyone would use GPS Only....unless they were doing an event long enough where battery life would come into play.

Which for an ultra runner with the 5, would be anything over a 50miler, maybe even a 100k.

In my experience on track and road is that there are no differences between gps and gps + glonass over the last year and a half with fenix3

with that erratic start with the first 20% being totally off... no way distance is right. it really looks like it had a bad position to start, i'm not trying to generalize and it may be he did this BUT...

1. once you get a satellite lock stay still for 30-60 seconds to get a much more solid lock.
2. insure 1 second recording, perhaps even turn on GPS-GLOSNASS.

should help a lot, the fenix 5 got the plot about 20% into his short run and seemed to be accurate after that.

Actually the distance was almost spot on: 1.58 is the actual measured distance of the loop. So off by 0.02 miles.

I'll try it again later this afternoon, after waiting a minute, and with GPS-GLONASS on (only GPS was on in yesterday's test).

Ok, here we go: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1634810266

much better than yesterday. Distance and track wise. Track doesn't snap perfectly to the trail but I've had the same problem with the FR235 so I think this is acceptable.

1. Waited about 45 seconds after GPS lock acquired before starting activity
2. GPS+GLONASS setting

Ok, here we go: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1634810266

much better than yesterday. Distance and track wise. Track doesn't snap perfectly to the trail but I've had the same problem with the FR235 so I think this is acceptable.

1. Waited about 45 seconds after GPS lock acquired before starting activity
2. GPS+GLONASS setting

Waiting at least a minute and using GPS+GLONASS are two great ways to improve a track recording.

Your track looiks great and is an excellent example of how Garmin does a lousy job of making tracks look good.

Here's a section of your track as shown in Garmin Connect:



It's not exactly on the path I assume you ran, but could be better, right?

Well, when the same section of the exact same track is viewed in Google Earth, it looks like this:



Like magic, the recorded track is now exactly on the path.

Honestly, it would be unrealistic to expect a better recorded track than this ... from any wrist-worn device.

HTH

Well, I hate to bump this thread back to the top when it already hit page 2, but I think this should be looked at.

I walked around a small lake today with some open areas around it, so I thought why not test out the accuracy of Ultra Track. I loaded the walking app on my watch, set GPS to Ultra Track and started to walk. About a third of the way I saw a dead fish in the lake which I wanted to get a closer look at so I paused the activity, spent about two minutes at that spot and then continued the activity all the way around the lake. Let's take a look at the activity:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1635876998

As you can see, for some reason the GPS stopped right where I paused the activity and didn't pick up when I continued. What is even more astounding (apart from the rather spotty track; the beginning is spot on but I never left the path next to the lake) is that in Connect it says that the walk was 1.65km long, but when you load the track into mygpsfiles or Google Earth you can see that it is really only 0.5km long and stops where I paused it. Did Connect simply auto-guess the pace for the rest of the activity since it was still running but GPS stopped? And why did the GPS not continue tracking? I'll try tomorrow if the GPS not continuing is a bug in the walking app when you pause it.

What do you guys think?

Did you manually chose to resume the activity?

Did you manually chose to resume the activity?

Yes. Also, Auto Pause was deactivated.

To me it's just weird how Connect shows 1.65km when the .gpx file only shows 0.5km.

Cutting the corners in the forest. F5 good!!!!

I made my first training today with the Fenix5 on the left wrist and fenix 3 on right wrist.

Fenix 3 performance is as it usually is on this track. It is cutting the corners in the bottom quite badly, and also on top left corner.

Fenix 5 followed the track more closely and even almost nailed the top left corner 4 out of 6 times.

This looks extremely promising regarding fenix 5 accuracy.




Additional info:
- I've had 3 different fenix 3's so nothing odd about that current specific one, they aren't better.
- One lap is approx 750 m and me running approx 4 min/km. (6.5 min/mile)
- The map is extremely accurate, approx 2 m accuracy.
- Same or similar settings on F3/F5
- Both had EPO
- Both had equal time to connect to satellites.
- Tall trees, but no leafs yet.
- The measured difference on each lap is approx 40 m where fenix 3 always is 40 m short.