Sorry to be crossposting - but has anybody come across this strange behaviour yet? GPS track ends, but run (and recording by watch) continues. I had this yesterday - running 14k - after sync it turned out the GPS track stops +/- 4k from the end (I did a loop so know exactly where the run did end - at my car, where it had started). All other info continued to record, both on watch and via footpod. The run took place in a wooded area, and it looks like the track makes a strange beeline before ending abruptly. The environment did not change one bit - and it is a run I've done about 10-15 times before - the only thing I can think of that might have had an impact is that the weather changed from drizzle to downpour somewhere around the 10 or 11 k mark. I know rain can be a factor, but for pete's sake, this is in a forest with bare trees - no buildings or other hard obstacles at all and the GPS just folds?. Honestly, I've seen all sorts of inaccuracies, I've run in rain, fog, clear weather, snow, but I've never had a track just end in the middle of nowhere. This is for me now reaching the level where the GPS behaviour is becoming completely unacceptable.
Edit: having taken a close look at the track, this is what happened: 1. GPS already deviates massively between km 7 and 9, then seems to recover somewhat. 2. Between km 10 and 11, the track completely loses "me" - moving away from my actual run in a southerly direction; then turns 90° east to get somewhere close to where I am, and then stops at km 11. 3. The rest of the run is clearly not tracked by GPS until the end at km 13.82 (as recorded by stryd footpod). 4. All other "tracks" (elevation, heart rate, run cadence, pace, temperature) in addition to the connect iq tracks provided via stryd footpod are recorded seamlessly from beginning to end.
I just checked, and the GPS locks just fine - so the receiver is fine too. So I stay with my opinion above: reaching rapidly unacceptable levels of bad or non-existent tracking. The last runs I did on my "daily" track already have tracking errors I have never seen before - al since FW 8 - but this one gets the prize. The only reason for the moment why I still use the GPS is because it's the standard process that gets launched when starting a run - but all the info I need (pace, distance, heart rate, power etc) I in fact get from other processes - the GPS on my F5 has now gone from "important" to "mere decoration" in the space of a few weeks. Pathetic for the top-of-the-line tracker - from a GPS specialised company to boot.
I am surprised so many people are shocked at the altimeter, barometer and GPS performance or lack of good performance.
I swapped my Fenix 5S and 5 for a 935. It is fantastic in comparison!
The metal parts of the Fenix range mean humidity, clothing, static electricity all negatively affect the sensors of the watch. If I am at 6000m hiking and climbing should I trust a fenix5? No way.
The 935 can be had far cheaper, if you do your shopping research and is all plastic body seem to mean I have no problems ensuring accurate gps and altimeter correct usage.
Regardless of the usual buggy software from Garmin, why continue with a watch that cannot physically compete? Unless you are a fool with your money, it makes no sense.
Mmm yes but - I agree there are performance issues, but the only one that really concerns me is the GPS.Altimeter is ok for my purposes (even though, hihi, on my standard run every morning, which is a loop, the run ends systematically 7m lower than it started), the barometer I never use, and all other functions work OK - I have no Ant+ issues for example. Also - great to swap, but unless you can do it as a warranty exchange/product return policy swap it costs you additional money. But indeed, would I buy the same watch for the same price again, knowing that the 935 basically has the same feature set and less issues? Probably not.
can someone here explain me why so expensive watch like Fenix5 is doing like this, I mean much worse, than Polar M400?
I agree. I've switch from Polar M400 to Fenix 5 as well and after a year of usage (and a lot of firmware updates) I see no improvement. It's so disappointing...
I'm a little late to the game here... Long time Garmin user (first 305, then 110, now Fenix 5X, and wife has 5S). I guess my comments pertain to both 5S and 5X. My 5X, purchased shortly after release, is currently in transit back to Garmin due to major issues with GPS and altitude. I just did a 10 mile run last night with my ancient 110, and while it did have issues with completely freezing after the run, requiring a reset, it is substantially more accurate than my 5X or my wife's 5S despite being, what, a $150 watch 5 years ago? All the images come from Strava, but are similar in Garmin Connect.
GPS... on evaluation, looks like my wife's 5S GPS is terrible, but she's not as serious about running (she ran her first marathon recently in 4:24, while I'm a 2:39 marathoner), so she doesn't care as much. In this run, she was just outside the white road on a path (but well inside the yellow dashed line) over and over.
For comparison, here's me on the same path with fewer laps. The inaccuracy of cutting the corners on *mine* is so high that my average pace was 10 seconds per mile slower than people I was running with (laughably, using a rather old GPS watch and a cell phone for tracking, but following the path much more closely).
If mine was off by 10 seconds a mile average by cutting all the corners in this park, hers has to be 30-60 seconds a mile slow, at which point the watch is borderline worthless. For what it's worth, it would be impossible to actually cut this particular corner without running through a 10 foot tall fence and through the center of a bird sanctuary.
I use my watch to ski as well. In this map, the center two lines that veer off in an upside V are the same chair lift. They should follow the grey line. The straight red line left of them should follow the grey way in the upper left. We're talking being off by tenths of a mile here. Not even close.
Altitude has been sub par, but close enough with running (a race on Saturday that started with a 290' hill and then had another 50'-ish of roll throughout registered 262' climb total), but it's laughable with skiing (and the hike mode I've had to use for skiing recently). With ski mode, the altitude is so all over the place that it doesn't realize I've ended a run and continues counting down in altitude until I'm off the chairlifts at times. Similarly, when I get off the lift, the altitude just keeps on climbing and the watch doesn't realize I've started a run until I'm several minutes in. If it's a short run, the run time is often so short that the watch just automatically deletes it from its history. Lately, it will just decided that I'm climbing higher and higher throughout a ski day, resulting in a map like this:
The highest point I can reach on skis in a resort where I live is a bit shy of 11,100'. In this day, I didn't exceed 10,000' by much. This is just so obscenely bad that I'm not sure what to say.
Interestingly, Garmin noted the GPS inaccuracies, but they couldn't see a problem with the altitude, responding "I wasn't able to see the elevation swings you had mentioned." though this shows up in both Strava and Garmin Connect. Oddly, my wife's 5S is completely fine with altitude, but my 5X is horrendous.
I actually got approval to send it back for warranty replacement 2 weeks ago (thankfully I've had this for just under a year), but I was too lazy to ship it for about 2 weeks and kept using it. The final straw came 2 days ago when the GPS signal just completely dropped out around 10 times in a 9 mile run, nearly all in areas with no trees overhead. I actually had to repeatedly stop, stop my watch, say I'd "resume the activity later", click to resume, and wait awhile for the GPS to reconnect, at which point, it would frequently disconnect again, and then I'd wait another 5-10 seconds for yet another reconnection. Speaking of GPS dropout, I've noticed that there are several places I frequently run where the pace always gets very, very slow. Usually, it seems to figure it out after the fact. I had a 15 mile run on a pretty flat, paved bike path at 6:10 pace a few months back in which it suddenly had me going 8-9 min pace on live pace for about a mile, but then when the mile finished, it still put me at a 6:02 for that mile and the map was at least close to correct. Weird. Also, had a run back in the middle of DC on Mass Ave last fall where it just dropped out 10 seconds into the run, didn't notify me, and never reconnected. I guess it was determining pace from cadence estimates, and I had thought it was weird that I wasn't changing pace much between up and downhill portions, but just figured it had to be due to being out of shape and just back from injury, so not knowing my pace well. I finished and saw that my map was only a couple hundredths of a mile long, and everything else was due to cadence.
Long and rambly, yes, but bottom line is that I'm rather frustrated that I spent $700 on a watch that seems sleek, but doesn't perform. I hope my replacement is at least a bit better in altitude. I guess I can live with some inaccuracy with GPS, but I really think this is something Garmin should address, particularly on these "flagship" models that function, in any reasonable sense, worse than the cheapest watches they sold the better part of a decade ago. Oh, and don't even get me started on the wrist heart rate... :Pciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1334010.png
OK, so I updated my watch to GPS firmware 4.40. I started running and I saw that the drawn route makes no sense (I have Fenix 5, so I don't have maps, but I can still see the drawn route.
I ran about 200 meters and the route was already at 500 meters. So I stopped the run.
You can check the result in the attached image (the red line is what the watch generated, the yellow line is the actual route I ran)
The GPS was WAY OFF! It's never been this bad! It's so bad that the start point itself is wrong.
As always, I waited enough time after the GPS fix. I use 1 second recording with GPS only (which I found produces the most accurate results on this watch)
