Weather Widget - Wind Information incorrect

Former Member over 5 years ago

The weather widget mostly displays completely wrong wind information.

I know the watch gets the weather information from the phone via Connect and that Connect gets the data from some weather provider, but if all the following is true:

My Android phone has the latest Garmin Connect
Location services are turned on completely on my phone
The app has all possible privileges
The watch is on the latest version
The watch is connected to the phone
The watch is synced

Then why is the information still incorrect? The only explanation I can come up with is that Connect uses a service that cannot provide the correct information.

The problem might not be with the watch, but it is with Garmin or where they get the data from and it is for Garmin to fix it or get their data provider to fix it.

I have tracked the weather information over the last month. Most of the time the watch was COMPLETELY wrong as far as wind direction is concerned.

Sources used:

NZ MetService:https://www.metservice.com/towns-cities/auckland/north-shore#!/two-day

Windfinder:https://www.windfinder.com/tide/long_bay

Google Weather App on my phone

Red is where the watch was completely wrong
Orange where there was an acceptable difference, keeping the variations between forecasters into account.
Green where it was mostly correct
Grey not one source of information matched.

Out of 29 observations, 18 was red(incorrect), 6 orange(acceptable),4 was green (correct) and one grey(in-determined)

It is as tough the watch randomly displays some wind information.

Surely Garmin cannot just ignore this?

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0 Odie21 over 5 years ago

Ok, so let me ask you this (since you have a copy & paste response in 2 other topics here) when you called and spoke to a Garmin Support Specialist, what did they say?

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Odie21

More than a month ago, they asked me for some info which I mailed to them the same day. I heard nothing from them again.

How is whatever you respond helping to resolve this issue?

Like to troll much?

0 Odie21 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Hardly buddy but you didn’t include this latest information in your original post or the 2 other weather/wind topics that you copied and pasted the same response to which is why I asked the question. So I’ll ask a similar type question that I asked before. Did you call back after a few days when you didn’t hear back?

I can stop your search for an answer now, as I too had a similar question last year. It has nothing to do with the watch or GCM. It’s the cell tower information that you’re connecting too. GCM just receives the information and transfers it to your watch. Nothing more, nothing less.

0 Former Member over 5 years ago

How is this for a response from Garmin support:

"As previously advised, the Garmin Instinct features a Weather Widget that can display current and future weather forecasts. This is obtained by pairing the watch with the Garmin Connect App. The source of this weather data on the Instinct watch may differ from your smartphone, which can utilize a number of different sources and locations depending on the settings or apps of your phone. "

As previously advised, the Garmin Instinct features a Weather Widget that can display current and future weather forecasts. -THIS DOES NOT WORK This is obtained by pairing the watch with the Garmin Connect App. YES IT IS PAIRED AND EVERYTHING SYNCED The source of this weather data on the Instinct watch may differ from your smartphone, which can utilize a number of different sources and locations depending on the settings or apps of your phone. THAT IS WHY I USE 4 DIFFERENT SOURCES TO PROVE THAT YOU ARE WRONG.

0 Volker over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

Be happy that Garmin did not say the others are wrong

0 XMCE over 5 years ago

I agree, the info in weather widget is usually incorrect, definitely not reliable. I'd recommend Garmin to focus on re-testing this feature. In this state, weather widget works like a kids' toy.

If the watch is getting the weather info from a cell tower, (I doubt that), can someone here point me to a related specification?

0 Odie21 over 5 years ago in reply to XMCE

Where do YOU think it comes from?

Move spoken to several different reps at Garmin and they’ve all said the same thing. There’s a reason why there’s no option in GC for weather. GCM (just like it is for GC online, is just the middle man.

0 gaijin over 5 years ago in reply to Odie21

Where do YOU think it comes from? Today, my Instinct informed me through the weather widget that it was 77 DegF with a 50% chance of precipitation - the real conditions were 102 DegF with clear skies. The widget is seriously screwed up. ALL weather resources on my iPhone 7Plus showed the correct conditions - the only wrong reports were on my weather widget. I lay the blame squarely at the feet of Garmin - they should fix this.

0 Odie21 over 5 years ago in reply to gaijin

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=Mxs4eRXzRdAYJ0h7yyWaj9

The specific sentence that I pay attention to is:

”The source of this weather data on the Garmin device may differ from your smartphone which can utilize a number of different sources and locations depending on the settings of your phone.” This leads me to believe that GCM is just the buffer. Doesn’t mean the buffer is correct though.

This leads me to believe what I’ve been told by different employees at Garmin. I don’t formulate an opinion without doing research first, you should know I don’t shoot from the hip Gaijin.

0 Dr Phil over 5 years ago

Let me just confound the issue a little more. I'm in New Zealand too. I don't get to see weather data on my watch at all, except on very rare occasions that I cannot identify, never mind incorrect wind information. A couple of weeks ago I spent a few weeks in Australia and suddenly I was seeing weather each and every day. Got back to New Zealand and it disappeared.

Garmin is looking into it. I do know that much even if I do not know where the weather data is supposed to be coming from. Intuitively, it has to come from the phone (iPhone X in my case) as the watch cannot connect to any weather service except through the phone and likely only when GCM is active and connected to the watch. I have the default iOS weather service on my phone plus Carrot Weather and both give me current local conditions. Yet somehow this information is not conveyed to my watch.