It would be easy enough to settle this. Someone go ask him to halt his test of the Fenix 5, and restart it with Every Second enabled. He's retested watches before.
NYanakiev7??
If things turned out differently, he'd certainly have some egg on his face. Might be a disincentive for him to retest.
I did ask him in my comment yesterday to post a comparison between every second vs smart on facebook/his website. Let's see what he replies.
I really wish I could think of a way to describe how bad using smart recording is for any sort of data analysis. I can't think of a comparable thing. ....[/I]
Agreed!
Puzzling that the FR35 is every second only but the F5 series is "Smart" by default. I bet most people never touch this setting...
A comparable thing is taking a raw TIFF image file, converting it to JPG and making it smaller dimensions and then sending that to publisher to put in a glossy magazine. I don't think that would look great...
> Anyway according to this guy the best GPS accuracy is found in a foot pod. Think about it...
Wrong, he says it gives the best distance/pace accuracy.
Strictly speaking yes but in a study of "GPS accuracy", the takeaway is that you are better off with a foot pod. That is fine of course if you only run the same route over and over and "know" the distance. Most of the time I don't...
In that park one you appear to be no more than about 10 metres of the path. What accuracy are you expecting as AFAIK that is entirely within expectation of a GPS consumer device.
Ridiculous to say that when performing any analysis that having anything less than the full data set is adequate.
Except one really obvious problem: If smart recording 'skips' over a short switch back (as it's known to do), it simply doesn't exist within the file then - you can't make that re-appear afterwards. Given he focuses heavily (almost exclusively) on trail running, then these add up. Thus, for the purposes of what we're talking about here - it is less than adequate.
Which isn't to say there are other things you can evaluate, there certainly are. You can look at whether the unit plots a track point 100m off the trail, or stuff like that. But that's not what we're talking about. We're specifically and 100% purely talking GPS accuracy in tight (trail) situations.
Not to mention that the watch uses an algorithm to decided when should record a point. If the algorithm or GPS accuracy is off, the points it chooses may not tell the entire story.
Except one really obvious problem: If smart recording 'skips' over a short switch back (as it's known to do), it simply doesn't exist within the file then - you can't make that re-appear afterwards. Given he focuses heavily (almost exclusively) on trail running, then these add up. Thus, for the purposes of what we're talking about here - it is less than adequate.
Which isn't to say there are other things you can evaluate, there certainly are. You can look at whether the unit plots a track point 100m off the trail, or stuff like that. But that's not what we're talking about. We're specifically and 100% purely talking GPS accuracy in tight (trail) situations.
Can agree with those singling out Fellrnr's trail-only trials of these devices. Given Fellrnr's scientific background I suppose the ideal hybrid review would be to critically analyse the GPS chip used in the watches, the software anomalies that need corrected in each and an appropriate breakdown to allow independent analysis of these.
The market is likely only to get bigger in future, given that smart-watches could eventually replace mobile phones within 5 to 10 years.
My own experience is that GPS on the higher-end Garmin watches works well. GPS+GLONASS actually works less well and seems to provide an aggregated less accurate location and therefore set of data-points. I suspect this could be to do with Garmin's software and associated algorithms being unable to adequately cope with too much information for a given datapoint and therefore, counter-intuitively, meanins GLONASS is better switched off.
Or it's the Russian's getting their own back for years of sanctions :D
