worst accuracy ever

Bad result with 5X (after a period of good performance)

Over the last few weeks I've actually had pretty good accuracy from my 5X. Yesterday I was doing a test of the 935 vs the 5X, and the results were surprisingly bad. You can see this screenshot of the two tracks, where the 935 (orange) proceeds nicely heading northwest along the river. The 5X, however, does an odd loop into the river and then inexplicably jumps me over a 1 mile away from my actual location.

@Budish: looks like/worse than my mess. at the same time, in comparison, the track from the 935 looks unbelievable good on the map. can't see big walls or much problematic trees neither on your screenshot. was it cloudy?

There is a big problem under trees and between walls.

Can confirm this. On my runs done on open ground, my gps accuracy is pretty good. However, on a 32k mountain hike involving some tree-cover and cliff-faces, the accuracy was less than desireable to say the least. My 5 year old Polar RX delivered better results.

this is what the scenery looks like the time where the gps on my watch went crazy:
https://abload.de/img/20170525_170256soyxu.jpg

while large portions of my whole run are indeed under trees, right at the part at which my watch gone totally crazy, one has a clear view to the sky - in my opionion and from fromer experiences, the situation is nothing which a top-notch gps watch shouldn't be able to handle.

i will bump/make a cross post at the mentioned gps-thread in the 5/5s forum: the thread is already on page 6 in the overview of the forum and gets already hard to find - one may suspect that the problem with the fenix 5 has vanished:

https://forums.garmin.com/showthread.php?371929-GPS-Accuracy/

of course, more importantly: i will drop the official garmin support a note after having done some more testing.

Iphone 7 Strava, vs 920xt vs Fenix 5X Test

Ran with all three devices today in Alaska. Lots of trees and pedestrian tunnels on bike path in town. Basically the 920xt and 5X recorded exactly the same distance of 7.22 and 7.23 miles respectively. I have done this type of test a few times now. Even though the 5x has an uglier track, it seems to record the same as the 920xt and iphone that has better tracks. Im pretty confident my 5X is doing a good job for the most part. The only time I really see it struggle is in urban areas with tall buildings and tight streets with surrounding buildings. Pretty happy with the watch for now, but I really love my 920xt as well.

http://mygpsfiles.com/app/#phHSQpWa

@Budish: looks like/worse than my mess. at the same time, in comparison, the track from the 935 looks unbelievable good on the map. can't see big walls or much problematic trees neither on your screenshot. was it cloudy?

No, it was a beautiful day. And the track from the 935 was pretty good; although both watches struggled in the parts with narrow streets. On my run today I didn't have any big failures like the one I showed a few days ago. The 5X did well compared to the 935 except in the areas where I stopped/slowed to navigate a muddy trail or to tie my shoes. In those places there was a lot of wobble on the 5X track (see attached image). But when moving at a running pace, the two were pretty similar.

I have the same distance measurement problems.

https://www.strava.com/activities/1020178775

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1776748156

Strava measures 11.4 km. which I know it is correct, Garmin measure 9,83 km.

Very happy with how my 5X performed during today's 20k run:
https://connect.garmin.com/modern/ac...re_unique_id=8

I think my Fenix 5x is drunk. I was testing out my new stryd and doing a comparison run with my 735XT. The stryd did great at capturing the distance, but the GPS track of the Fenix 5x was horrible in comparison to the 735XT.

Garmin patented the EXO antenna only recently... while it's surely affecting (negatively) the GPS accuracy it's not something that can be dropped so fast after just one model (the F3).
That would be an admission of complete defeat you will never see from a corporation (any corporation) unless it's assessed to be a move that builds revenue or cuts losses. The current stance is: plausible denial NOT assumption of responsibility for a bad engineering choice.

Some say the F3 is more accurate than the F5x but I beg to differ. Even though I have no outdoor tests performed (banned due to surgery to my knee at least until August), I did do several static tests and my findings are encouraging (it is SLIGHTLY better). Since the accuracy in dense urban area for the F3 with street running was good I can't think of the F5x's accuracy to be worse, considering the static test results. Keep in mind in the same exact place, running 14km/h and walking 7km/h will give you an EXTREME DIFFERENCE IN ACCURACY, sometimes even in open sky scenario. Keep it in mind, at all times.

The fact so many people have problems is because as soon as the scenario becomes a bit harder for a GPS, the Fenix brand is more heavily affected because of the antenna. This doesn't happen with other brands because they are superior GPS-wise, simple as that. Can you imagine a guy running in Tokyo, amidst the high-rises with a Fenix on his wrist?

Nothing anybody can do... you get a package, it's the best watch as a package and the GPS was, is and will keep being its weak spot. Knowing this in advance (over 200 pages of gps accuracy issues and discussions for the F3), you should have already bought the foot pod with the F3 and of course you should buy it for the F5. Stop considering accuracy a matter of WHERE is that line and start looking at it in terms of pace/dst.

The track may be more or less accurate but who cares: it's accurate enough for navigational purposes and that's what it's about... the DATA must be accurate, this is mandatory and for the whole Fenix brand, this only happens if you get the foot pod. That's a fact and it's a historically proven fact beyond any reasonable doubt, period.

The Ambit is a lot more accurate... but you must look at the package, not at the gps alone.
Go do an interval (lap) training with an Ambit and then you'll see what I mean. :)

I think those of you who had expected an improvement in GPS accuracy should have taken their time to read the hardware when Garmin presented the patents. ;)
I agree... it's disappointing but what else can you do? Buy the foot pod, it's a great investment and it's so cheap. You'll forget the accuracy problems and do mind Garmin invested a lot in building a great interaction with the Fenix... that's why it works like a charm.

I still disagree with statements claiming that F3 was better than F5X. My experience points to the polar opposite- I returned F3 after two weeks of owning it as it was that bad. Same with the F3HR, while I still own the 5X.

Yes, my FR935 is quite a bit better in GPS accuracy terms but I still get really good results out of the 5X.