GPS Accuracy

I'm a competitive runner and I had to stop using my Fenix 5 for running as the pace information is very inaccurate, which makes it near enough useless for running. The GPS also completely looses signal in urban environments, which doesn't seem normal for what is Garmin's "money-no-object" GPS watch.

I'm now thinking my Fenix 5 has a faulty GPS chip. Otherwise it's not fit for purpose. Sure, I could use it for just hiking and the occasional bike ride, but that isn't what I brought it for.

I think I'm entitled to a refund - I have the receipt but I don't think the shop will let me return it as it's past 30 days.

I paid on a credit card and live in the UK. Can I put in a Section 75 claim so that I can get my money back? Has anyone tried this before?

Speak to the store. Also speak to your credit card provider and see if they have any protection on offer. Call people and ask the questions.

If no on both counts, then you've got two options. One, speak to Garmin chat and see if they will swap it out for a replacement (to see if it's the GPS chip or not) or two, sell it on Gumtree and try to make 80% of your money back.

Mine has the same sort of inaccuracies, I've had two fenix 5's and it was the same on both of them.

I'm not competitive, I'll probably just keep it and hope it gets better. (Luckily I didn't pay RRP). I would love a 935 but the plastic feel and weight just puts me off completely.

Speak to the store. Also speak to your credit card provider and see if they have any protection on offer. Call people and ask the questions.

If no on both counts, then you've got two options. One, speak to Garmin chat and see if they will swap it out for a replacement (to see if it's the GPS chip or not) or two, sell it on Gumtree and try to make 80% of your money back.

Mine has the same sort of inaccuracies, I've had two fenix 5's and it was the same on both of them.

I'm not competitive, I'll probably just keep it and hope it gets better. (Luckily I didn't pay RRP). I would love a 935 but the plastic feel and weight just puts me off completely.

Not sure if I can go back to the store as it's been 30 days since original purchase - although I did exchange a 5S for a 5 one week after buying it, so maybe it's only been 23 days? To be honest, I probably wouldn't get anywhere
as I brought it from an outdoors store which only sells hiking gear. They are not runners and might not understand the pace issues with the watch. They would probably argue it's perfectly good enough for hiking.

However, I did speak to my credit card company today who said they might be able to help. I just said the product was not fit for its intended purpose.

I am about to return my 935. As shown in the 935 forum, the tracks are a little bit better, but the distance was always the same to my f5. I know there are a little wobbly tracks but I cannot justify to myself to spend more money (got the f5 with discount) for the 935 and don't really like the looks. It was easier if the 935 has a reasonable price.

This.

I've been considering the 935 of late, having seen evidence on the forum of better GPS performance, and the fact that Stryd is supported. But I enjoy my watch 24/7, not just for activities, and I want it to look good as well. I think the 935 looks great for what it is, but for day to day wear the Fenix 5 looks classier to me. I'm waiting until I can find the 935 locally and then see how it actually looks on my wrist.

Good, Bad, and Ugly

After upgrading the 5X fw to 3.21/3.22, I went for another run with both the 5X and the 935. The results were surprising. Both watches were set to GPS+GLONASS, 1 sec. recording, auto pause off.

The good: The pace records of the two runs were nearly identical. I don't mean "close enough that I can live with it," but nearly identical. This image shows the paces side-by-side: . This is the closest I've seen with these two watches, and by far the smoothest pace track I've seen on the 5X. It makes me wonder if they made a change to the GPS filtering for runs in 3.21/3.22, which would be in line with what Garmin Support told me at the end of April when they claimed a software fix for the pacing issues was imminent.

The bad: Both watches struggled with parts of the track. The 5X marginally more so than the 935 at the beginning, and vice versa toward the end. The only exception being where I stopped to deal with the 5X navigation freakout (described below). The tracks are viewable here: http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#6gMxKwG2

The ugly: The 5X had a strange freakout at about 19 minutes through the run. I wasn't using the 5X for navigation (I was using a course on the 935), but when I looked down at this point, the 5X was showing the map and was saying "calculating" as though it were routing to a POI, back to the start, or some other location. I held down the menu button to get to settings and try to stop navigation, but I saw only one a single option: "Settings." I then pressed the back button, but instead of backing out to the data screens it did a new lap, showed the lap screen, and then returned to the single "settings" option. At this point I had stopped to fuss around with the watch, and this is where the track shows me dancing around in a little circle, despite standing still. Unable to get back to the data screens, I just finished the run with the watch on the "settings" screen. When I finished and pressed stop, and only then did it show me more settings options like "Settings for current app," "watch face," etc. And then I was able to back out to the data screens and actually stop the run. I don't know why this happened. It is possible that my wrist somehow bumped some buttons that went into navigation, but I doubt it.

I did a 15 mile run yesterday at my easy long run pace (8:15 min/mile). I'm confident I maintained a fairly consistent pace.
One minute I'd look at the watch to see the correct ~8:15 pace. The next minute I see 9:40, then 7:05.

http://imgur.com/a/VdqyX

I know the limitations with GSP devices and the instant pace, but I can't remember my past forerunners being this bad. It makes it so hard to at least guesstimate what pace I'm running, especially doing intervals or tempo runs.

When doing comparisons..

it would be helpful to see this information as people do comparisons going forward on the threads...

-What GPS Mode both watches were in i.e. GPS only GPS + GLONAS, Ultratrack
-Were these performed at the same time head to head or on different days
-What was the KP Index during that time

Thanks

I remember the same problem with 920xt. It was fixed with FW. Pace was smooth and constant, but it needed about 15s to adapt after you started an interval

Well somethings gotta give when the underlying data is not up to par...

Fenix 5 Sapphire (FW 3.3) vs. Foretrex 401 vs. Montana 650 vs Xiaomi Mi4c (incomplete track)
http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#ctW4wtgt

5X does well vs 935

GPS Track: http://www.mygpsfiles.com/app/#dsy793PZ

Pace comparison:

Challenging conditions with clouds and rain, yet the GPS tracks look very close and the pace tracks are nearly identical.