GPS Accuracy Issues

Hi there, new (worried) Instinct owner here. Previous watch Forerunner 25, simple, reliable, durable, long lasting battery, accurate little watch.

Got it out of the box and went for a run (actually 3 in one day, yesterday).

1st: 2K (1.25 mi)
2nd: 5K (3.1 mi pushing a stroller):
3rd: 8K (5 mi)

All were made around a well known 2K loop in my apartment complex (little extra detours on the 5K to make it to the odd number).

As I said I'm extremely worried I'd have to return this beauty. Form a runner's perspective the watch's performance was sub par.

From my point of view the Instinct fails in what is most important for a runner, which are runners metrics, most of which are related to time and distance i.e. Pace. You can't get an accurate pace if one of the two is wrong.

Here are my results on the first 3 runs:

All runs were made wearing both watches, Instinct on the left wrist, FR 25 (paired with HRM chest strap) on the right wrist here are the discrepancies:

1st: -1.63%
2nd: -2.72%
3rd: -5.71%

I must say that Instinct settings were GPS and "smart" recording. Will set it to 1 second recording to see if there are any improvements.

On a positive note, Wrist sensor HR readings were spot on with the chest strap paired with the FR25.

Cadence were much different on the stroller run, maybe because the FR25 already "knows" my stride, and the Instinct still has to "learn" it.

You could see on the map that the track from the Instinct runs cut a lot of corners and are a lot more rounded than the FR25 ones. Here are some images.

Instinct map:

FR25 Map:

Hi, I wonder if this is what you mean and if you found a solution to it. Also if someone else has this same thing happening to them, here are some screenshots at the "intermittent not recording 1 second"  runs were 10K, 10K, 21K, 8K, and 4K respectively.

Note the amount of times the pace chart shows no recorded pace, I'm no expert, but this should not be normal.

I'd highly appreciate any feedback to determine if this happens to everyone or if I have a defective unit.

Thanks in advance for any comments.

I thought this images, although not professional edited, would spark at least some comments and opinions from the community, wrong expectations on my behalf.

I had GPS issues since day one. Sometimes it was bang on accurate, other times it was all over the place (same course). If the weather was nice, clear skies it seemed to be ok. But still, my old Suunto used to track me fine every single time. Was very disappointed. I saw in the Instinct V2 they are supposedly putting a Sony GPS chip in this time, maybe that will sort the issues out.

Best perspective on what's going on. Thanks so much!

The under recording of distance is a problem with the Instinct. It performs well in 'easy' GPS conditions, but struggles at any other time. I believe its a hardware issue, possibly to do with the antenna placement/size/design, which results in weak signal, or the GPS chip, if it was software they would have been able to fix it with updates by now. The more time you spend in poor GPS reception areas such as under tree cover, near buildings, valleys, hillsides blocking signal, weather issues etc. the worse it performs.

Ive had the instinct since Feb 2020 and tested it against my Ambit 3 peak at least 30-40 times using them both. The Ambit is very accurate, one of the most accurate GPS watches ever released, largely due to the large antenna nub that performs well in nearly all conditions.

When in poor GPS conditions, the instincts Pace and Lap pace are completely thrown out in comparison to the Ambit. This lead to lap markers getting further apart, with the Instinct lagging further behind.

Over a mixed course run between 1-3% under recording is usual in my experience.

Over a 10 mile run that's 0.3 miles and 480 metres of extra running, which obviously throws off your lap times and pace.

I made a post about my experiences here
forums.garmin.com/.../distance-under-recording-algorithm-fix-due

The 5k Runner site says pretty much the same thing.

"Garmin Instinct Review THE GPS Summary: After finally completing my formal test I found that the Instinct’s GPS performance in that test was mediocre. In easy GPS reception conditions it was good but when buildings or trees were involved the GPS performance slipped notably and the overall score was 65% and a good Garmin on a good day would normally give up to 79%, with other, non-Garmins scoring even higher. So here we are typically talking about positional accuracy often being more than 5m away from where it should be and some times a lot further away."

the5krunner.com/.../

On Strava, I have noticed a guy suddenly taking all our the local KOMs. He's using the Garmin Instinct, and putting out numbers that are off-the-charts good. Like he should be riding in the world championships for Kilo or match sprints. Not bad for a guy on an aluminum bike, wearing basketball shorts — and using platform pedals. His heart-rate numbers for his KOM segments are below 100 bpm, and his (Strava) estimated wattage is over 500 watts for 700m. I suspect that this watch needs "a bit of work."

There may be another reason for that. Instinct generally underreports the distance.  

Electric bike?