Some thoughts on Ultratrac mode

Hello everyone

Just bringing my two cents on the Ultratrac mode.
Before anything else I just want to say I'm very happy with my Fenix 5S plus, even with the battery life (getting approx one week with two to three hours of GPS activities + daily smartwatch mode). But as most users I was expecting a top range device like the fenix 5 to manage a full day of GPS, for trekking or ultra trail, software wise - with a decent compromise between GPS accuracy and battery consumption. Unfortunately the consensus is that Ultratrac mode is VERY far from that.
I would be happy with a drop in accuracy if the GPS data was still a little relevant, but all the reports I've seen give distance gaps of more +50% (33 km instead of 24 for example) and GPS tracks look like drawings of my 2 years old boy Slight smile
Competitors have developed similar modes which are much more intelligently coded (Suunto 9 ultra mode ?).
So to me, Ultratrac is just a marketing name, not yet a feature I'm even considering to use. I prefer packing a small power bank in case I run out of juice during a trek or trail race.

Has anyone got a positive experience with it? Any setting or type of activity where it gave relevant information ?

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    I'll be conducting another hike using UltraTrac over the coming weekend, with a small configuration change - forcing the GPS plot to 'follow roads' in the hope that it'll remain locked to the path.

    I'll report back on the success of this once I have the data mid next week.

  • I recently tested a 3 hour run on a 10k route (daytime), running laps, in UltraTrac, on a 945.  I wanted to see how well it might work for an upcoming 100 miler. 

    Conclusion - I can't recommend it, won't use it. 

    First, I lost 13% battery (92 to 79) in three hours, the drainage was consistent throughout the run.  OK, I might have been looking at data screens on the watch a bit more than usual, but nothing crazy.  Was using a Stryd Power pod as well, so that might have had some impact.  No music used, nothing else unusual (no other sensor used, no music).  In addition to the worrying battery usage, which translates to 24 hours or so, not reliable enough for me, especially as I will need the backlight from time to time at night for a 100 miler, there was the problem with the distance.   Point is, this is not much better, if at all, from general GPS 1 second usage.

    The distance of the run (in NYC Central Park), was off by about half!  I can understand that I was running a loop rather than a straight line, and there might have been trees from time to time, but I would have thought that the accelerometer would have tried to match up nicely with the occasional GPS points that it picks up every minute or so, but wow.  I wasn't so sure about the pace, that seemed ok, I assume it's getting it from the wrist.  I even went into settings to make sure I hadn't accidentally switched units from km to nautical miles, but no!

    So, while I like the 945 over the Fenix 5 for many reasons, including better battery life, I'm disappointed by its UltraTrac mode.  I might try one more longer run to see how it does again to make sure it wasn't a fluke, but wonder if a Suunto wouldn't have been a better option for a reliable 100 mile watch.

  • I used to have a Fenix 3 and had the same problems with UltraTrac. Wildly inaccurate distances and so on. I now have a Coros Pace. It has a similar mode which works really well.  So it seems to be possible to do this right. 

  • Hi guys,
    I have totally different experiences with Ultratrac mode on Fenix 5s Plus now (Dec 2019) -> the indicated distance is underestimated (i.e., shorter than the reality).
    Look at the picture from the last short trip. The total distance based on the Ultratrac exported GPX coords is 14.88 km (and yes, it is wrong/too long due to noisy GPS positions, as expected), the real distance measured on the map is 8.3 km (measured along the paths I followed), and the Garmin Connect indicated distance is 6.78 km. I was surprised that the Garmin Connect distance is shorter than reality and not longer how many people complain.
    I projected the GPX path to the map and found out that some 1 km rounds (first, second, sixth) have linear distance (round start - stop points distance) greater than 1 km. For example, see the first round where the path is nearly straight and the linear distance is slightly over.1300 meters (the rule step is 300 meters). It is of course a nonsense as the linear distance can be 1 km at max. Thus the first km point must be located somewhere as indicated by the red arrow in the worst case.
    Conclusion: The Garmin guys tried to compensate the GPS noise by the shortening of the indicated distance by some magic on the fly calculated multiplication constant lower than 1.0 but they exaggerated it over the physical limits. Yes, we have to calculate with GPS inaccuracy but 30 % at 1 km distance with nearly straight path?

    So, if somebody from Garmin reads this, please, correct the Ultratrack mode to have the distance lower-bound a little bit more in accordance with physical limits -> the measured round can't be greater than linear distance.

  • Same here.. last year I ran a mountain marathon and the Fenix 5 Plus ran out after about 7hours in (from fully charged), using regular GPS in Run mode (no music or live tracking used). Last week I put it in 'ultratrac' mode for a 50k mountain race, and whilst it lasted (still depleted from 100% to sub 30% in 9hrs) the GPS result was off by over 10km, very erratic points when viewed on a map. Quite surprised how poor this performs for a watch that price..

    Does Garmin has anything to say about this? Is there software updates in the making to help this? 

  • 7 hours seems very poor for normal GPS. I did a 50 mile night ultra race using maps and navigation on all the way, backlight switched on for notifications (accidentally left on as didn't need with headtorch). Lasted 12 hours before it went. I did have the heart rate turned off too but 7 hours seems way too low.

  • If there are working to fix the UltraTrac mode (which I don’t think is high prio for them), I doubt that our Fenix 5 Plus will get it. They will call it UltraTac Plus and make it an exclusive feature for the Fenix 7. 

  • I did a test with a $90 GPS module from AdaFruit (adafruit-ultimate-gps) which has a built-in logging ability of 15 second interval. It did a pretty good job. (I'd go so far as to say it was much better than some that I've seen from Fenix Ultratrac....)

    It's about as big as the Fenix too. (no screen etc, of course) And no external antenna, just a little 2cm square thing built-in. Probably better than the antenna in the Fenix though, given the comparitive results.

    I also tried the InReach Explorer plus handheld that has adjustable logging periods. At 10 mins, it was very noticeable in cutting corners, as you'd expect, but the 1 minute one was pretty good in terms of accuracy.

    All of which is just to say, as others have already said, that this idea of being able to sleep and save power and have a slower logging/sampling rate is doable, it's just a pity that UltraTrac isn't apparently very good at it...