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Weather Widget - Wind Information incorrect

Former Member
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?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    Looks to me like even Garmin does not exactly know what weather data source they use.

    I also have correct weather in multiple phone apps, but garmin widget shows shows different weather. Temperature is usually 2 to 5 Celsius degrees lower, wind data seems like random.

    Sometimes i get into state where garmin shows 12 celsius, where the real temp was over 20.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago

    This is an interesting mystery. I like the responses that it's coming from the cell tower. Cell sites don't have weather stations. That's why we all use data based weather providers to view weather. Garmin keeping it a mystery, even from their support staff, is amusing. Like a lot of over-tech bells and whistles the promise is one thing and the practical reality another.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member
    I like the responses that it's coming from the cell tower.

    Your location is based on the cell tower and then the information from the nearest weather station is what provides you the information. No need to debate it, it’s already been proven.

    Thanks!

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Odie21

    but please tell, what _exactly_ do you mean by "the nearest weather station" ?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Odie21

    Well, your link goes to a Personal Weather Station website. What the heck? How is this connected to subject we're discussing here? Do you believe your weather widget on your Garmin Instinct watch shows the same data?? Can you please elaborate? :)

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to XMCE

    Based on your location (hence the cell tower discussion), GCM pulls data from the local weather stations you’re near. As stated by Garmin as on their as well.

    • General location data is usually provided by your phone (within several mi/km accuracy) when the Garmin device requests weather data from the app.
      • Example: Nearby airports are often the closest source for weather data, and weather conditions there may be different from your actual location.

      • NOTE: This weather data source is automatically selected and cannot be manually changed. This data may not match other weather apps on your phone as other apps may use different sources for weather data.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to Odie21

    What is the

    Odie21 said:
    source for weather data

    is what I am curious about.

    The principle is clear, but no-one knows exactly what source does garmin use. Either their data-source is kinda unreliable or their algorithm to display the data in weather widget is silly/overcomplicated/broken.


    Tho I have to say that using last official fw, the widget works more/less fine. Only the wind speed/direction looks random to me. And issues usually appear when travelling distances...

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to XMCE
    XMCE said:
    The principle is clear, but no-one knows exactly what source does garmin use.

    I actually do. Kind of. I analyzed the system calls and logs, and what I found matches with what I have seen in replies from Garmin employees earlier.

    Strangely, the GC App does not use the weather data provider that they use for example on their marine navigation devices using the inReach technology (DarkSky.net for terrestrial locations). I guess it may be due to the license fees - licensing all fitness devices might raise the costs more than Garmin would like.

    Instinct and other fitness devices (respectively the GC Mobile app) use the system weather data libraries, which are different on iOS, as well as on diverse Android versions, OEM clones, and localizations. This is the reason why Garmin Support will never tell you where the data comes from - they do not know it, since it depends on the phone configuration and other circumstances.

    I suspect that the primary source of weather data on Andorid was earlier the OS native Google Weather service from the Awarness API, but it is deprecated since 2019, and was shut down in January 2020 without any replacement.

    Hence, GCM attempts to access other available weather libraries, but those are no more any standard API's, and  may vary wildly among different Android brands and versions. In the last case I tested (Samsung brand of Android 9), GCM called the system weather library in the package com.sec.android.daemonapp:com.samsung.android.weather, and more specifically GC Mobile uses the android activity com.samsung.android.weather.app.particulars.ParticularsActivity. It then also polls the packages com.accurate.live.weather.forecast.pro and com.weather.Weather, but I do not really know whether they are linked from the initial package com.samsung.android.weather, or whether they are alternative fall-back libraries GCM tries to contact in the case the first one fails. It could also try completing data not provided by the first system library (for example the Samsung weather app does not show any wind information, so it is possible GCM needs to resort to the alternative sources, in such cases).

    Hope it helps.

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    Read this topic (specifically a post from Robert.kirr in response to vaggos13 from 7 months ago):

    forums.garmin.com/.../937912