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Fenix 5 GPS distance to short

MichaelLundMilo
over 4 years ago

I was reading in the Fenix 6 forum about distances beeing to short. Someone pointed out that the actual distance in the GPX file might be correct, but Garmin Connect and the watch shows asgorter distance.

I thought that I might check the same thing with my Fenix 5. I found a 10 km trail run that I participated in last august and the watch and Garmin Connect both showed 9,73 km.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/3958970995

I exported the activity to a GPX file and opened it a GPX viewer which showed the distance to be 10,20 km. I then reexported this file and imported it into Garmin Connect which is now showing 10,23 km.

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4541095614

Does anyone know why this is happening? Is it an algorithm in the watch that attempts to compensate for GPS errors but fails. The track was officially measured to 10 km, and I beleive that the 10,23 is the correct distance.

Regards,

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    An update on this - I’m 99% convinced this is a software issue. That is the Fenix 5 Plus records the GPS track accurately (i.e. to within the error tolerance I would reasonably expect of less than 1%) but the algorithm in the watch used to convert the GPS track into distance is consistently coming up short c.4%. 

    My reasoning is based on the fact that when I use my Fenix 3 and iphone to record the same route as the Fenix 5 Plus, they consistently record the distance 4% longer. The other point of proof is that when I upload the Fenix 5 Plus GPS record to 3rd party software like Strava and check the distance accuracy, Strava restates the recorded distance as around 4% higher. 

    If anyone has any greater insights on this please share - I would particularly like to know if this is a system-wide issue for Fenix 5 Plus users or something specific to me?

    Best wishes all.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to IanGamon

    I can confirm that Strava makes the distance longer when I let Strava automatically change the distance..

    Dont know a solution though