see ultra-trac image - wild variation

Former Member over 5 years ago

Hi All,

I'm running a Fenix 5 on the latest firmware and yesterday I completed the 3 Peaks Challenge in Yorkshire (UK) using Ultra-Trac for the first time. Normally I use GPS+Galileo but I was concerned the watch battery wouldn't last the full duration. Now, everyone who does the 3 Peaks knows it is 40km in distance but when I had finished I had a reading of 60.47kms - despite not straying from the path. I then checked the gps map this morning and saw how in-accurate the readings were.

I wanted to check if the extra distance is because of the 3d distance option I had activated or because the GPS is not working as intended? I find it hard to believe that its a software issue given that it's so loudly lauded by Garmin.

Weather was cool and cloudy to hot and clear skies, no tree cover to speak off. GPS signal was string all the way through out. In short I think the error was mine and I am hoping someone with experience can advise me how to get more accurate readings - I'm hoping to go again next month!

Thanks in advance - AKS

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0 drkglb over 5 years ago

Welcome to the group of users who discovered by themselves that ultratrac is completely useless

More seriously, Garmin really needs to do something about this. Ultratrac is so inaccurate it's absolutely pointless using it.

0 Ocean5 over 5 years ago

Garmin really should stop advertise UltraTrac as a feature, it is rubbish, it is not working at all, that is false advertising for users who are after long battery life.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

All I can say is that if you want accuracy, UltraTrac doesn't deliver it. Unfortunately it isn't actually much good at reducing battery drain either. Perhaps if it was set to get a fix only once every 5 minutes it might be useful for hiking (and make it clear that it is really only useful for rough positioning not for race statistics... Which I think Garmin does state or at least hint at, somewhere in their manual.)

0 gauvins over 5 years ago

Did you wear a footpod? makes a huge difference in my experience

0 Ubo007 over 5 years ago

Ultratrac is so inaccurate it's absolutely pointless using it.

Yes !!, and Garmin will probably do nothing there

0 mcalista over 5 years ago

GPS + Galileo (or GLONASS for that matter) is roughly a 40% battery hit. Just switching to GPS only should give you enough life for 40km, without having to resort to Ultratrac.

3D distance is really only relevant for seriously steep gradients (think mountaineering).

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

Thank you for the great info guys and for the knowledge. I think I will use mcalista's suggestion of just GPS next time and stay away from Ultra-Trac.

Small variations I can understand and compensate for but adding 20kms to a 40km hike is insanely inaccurate and that's a pity as it would be incredibly useful to most owners at some point :(

nevermind eh? :)

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago

Unfortunately, the Ultratrac is not useful. Breadcrumbs or 20 meters recording intervals would be much better IMO. In v10.0 firmware the ultratrac wasnt that messy btw

0 Ieslei over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

That would be great! Is It hard for the developers to add that as a feature?