Fenix 6X Sapphire - Problem with GPS Total Distance.

Been using the Fenix 6X Sapphire (Sony GPS chip) and have noticed,  it always shows a shorter distance traveled than my other Garmin products.

Last week (In order to test it) I went on a short hike. I brought along my Oregon 650, Fenix 3 Sapphire and the new GPSMAP 66i.

After the hike, the total travel distance was:

Fenix 3 Sapph. 7.59mi

Oregon 650      7.55mi

GPSMAP 66i    7.57mi

and

Fenix 6X Sapph 7.46 

So far, the Fenix 6X always reports the shortest distance.  I hope Garmin becomes aware of it and sends a fix in the near future.

  • This may explain an issue that I have been seeing.  My wife recently had knee surgery and I was trying to use my Fenix 6 to track her distance and pace on her early walks.  We were moving really slow, .i.e. taking about 14 minutes to walk a 1/4 mile track.  Below a certain speed the watch just didn't track movement.  At the beginning of he walk, when she was moving a bit faster the watch might track the first 0.1 miles and then as she slowed down it was just stay at 0.1 miles.  I did two tests to confirm my concerns.  After  her slow 1/4 mile loop I did a second walk at a standard/brisk walking pace and logged 1/4 mile as I should.  On a later day, after her slow 1/4 loop I made another loop on my own and as soon as I picked up the pace the watch started logging distance again and added about 1/4 mile for my second trip.

    On one of her first walks after the surgery, we walked part of the way around the track, stopped, and then walked back to where we started, i.e. starting and ending at the same point.  It is as if the watch is not using GPS coordinates along the way but calculating the course from speed and directions. 

    See the track here:

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/438631585


    On a later day we walked around the track and ended where we started, 

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4397180431


    By comparison, my natural pace walk around the same track is 

    https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4386348285

    I would be very interested to know if anyone else has seen or can reproduce this behavior when moving at a slow speed.  I realize most users of Fenix 6 are moving a lot faster than my wife, but when hiking in diffiicult terrain you sometimes make progress slowly and if this behavior is the norm, the track would be worthless.

    Thanks for any input.

  • Since weeks I experience the same issue and tried to find the problem. As it tracked sometimes with an accurate amount of difference.

    I do wear a Polar Vantage V and the fenix6s always together. Sometimes I added my Polar V800 as reference.

    The worst difference was on a 10k race on a track in a forrest. The VV had 10.05k and the f6 8.55k ..which is useless.

    Yesterday i ran with a friend who had a Forerunner945. So we had 3 watches with the same Chip and the f6s was failing again. After analyzing the Charts we saw, that in the moment we entered an area with trees beside us, the f6s starten to fail .. the f945 worked similar to my VV.. so this is definitely a fenix6 Problem and I hope Garmin will fix it otherwise this 800Euro watch is useless for Training.

      

  • Since weeks I experience the same issue and tried to find the problem. As it tracked sometimes with an accurate amount of difference.

    I do wear a Polar Vantage V and the fenix6s always together. Sometimes I added my Polar V800 as reference.

    The worst difference was on a 10k race on a track in a forrest. The VV had 10.05k and the f6 8.55k ..which is useless.

    Yesterday i ran with a friend who had a Forerunner945. So we had 3 watches with the same Chip and the f6s was failing again. After analyzing the Charts we saw, that in the moment we entered an area with trees beside us, the f6s starten ro fail .. tue f945 worked similar to my VV.. so this is definitely a fenix6 Problem and I hope Garmin will fix it otherwise this 800Euro watch is useless for Training.

      

  • Road or trail, cloud cover or clear, straight or winding course?

  • In my case not only the total distance is incorrect, but also the elevation gain / loss.

    Here my details for the same course, all data from Garmin Connect:

    1. Run with Forerunner 630 (elevation correction enabled because no barometer):

    • Distance: 16,5km
    • Elevation gain / loss: 296m / 294m

    2. Run with Fenix 6 (elevation correction disabled because barometer should be more precise:

    • Distance: 16km
    • Elevation gain / loss: 154m / 141m

    3. If I draw the course in Garmin Connect:

    • Distance: 17.12km
    • Elevation gain / loss: 322m / 319m

    So compared to the Forerunner, Fenix is 3% off in total distance and has just half of elevation gain / loss.

    BUT, where it gets interesting. If I export the Fenix 6 activity into a GPX and import this GPX to any online viewer it shows.... 16.69km total distance! Does that mean the data is recorded correctly but Garmin Connect / the watch UI is just displaying it wrongly?

    Elevation gain/loss of this GPX without correction is 180/164.

    Here is all the data from the exported GPX (report from https://www.trackreport.net/ which does no elevation correction)

    1.

    • Distance: 16.62km
    • Elevation gain/loss: 324m / 319m

    2.

    • Distance 16.69km
    • Elevation gain/loss: 180m / 164m

    3.

    • Distance 17.11km
    • Elevation gain / loss: 166m / 167m

    As a third option I used the official Swiss topo map and imported the gpx there. It does some elevation correction. I don't know how good this is, but they have the best maps and geo data in Switzerland. I don't know why it also changed the total distance as the path is shown like recorded sometimes off the tracks. I added this data in a table, all together:

    Conclusion: I'm confused. But it looks like the recording is good, just the display on the watch and in Garmin connect is bad.

  • I don't really understand what "drawn" is?

    Discussing distance accuracy is always a hot topic. For some reason almost everyone seems convinced that the device (or method for getting distance) that gives the longest distance is correct and everyone else is wrong. What if both are equally wrong? Or what if the shortest is the true distance?

    We use our watches to improve and as long as things are within reasonable limits and are consistent we can use them to compare one run with another, compare one day from another and to draw conclusions. 

    The reason why a GPX track almost always gets a longer distance when plotted in an application compared to what watches says is because of noise (accuracy issues). The GPX coordinates might show that you moved from left side of the road to the right or even smaller changes in direction that you won't even see.

    For altitude a watch with barometric sensor will always give you better accuracy compared to GPS based altitude. But there will be a noise there as well. Even if Garmin says the elevation data is uncorrected the is an algorithm applied to the altitude data to get elevation. Another reason for this is that you probably don't want every stone and every small step up and down to impact the elevation. The algorithm used by Garmin is a well kept secret, others say what they use. I use runalyze.com for analytics and can easilly compare different algorithms and their impact:

    The corresponding activity in Garmin Connect: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4366003752

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to TobiasLj
    Stop making people idiots ... It's natural for consumers to complain. I run the same route and ensure that under poor conditions the GPS always measures a shorter distance for me. Under ideal conditions, there is no problem on the same route. What more to measure?
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

    Apparently Garmin has a problem in interpolating data under poor GPS conditions!

  • I'm terribly sorry if said something you found as a personal pounce. I've never said that people, or anyone in person, are idiots. 

  • Unfortunately, I have exactly the same observations about the fenix 6x - even with a not too dense tree cover (e.g. road in the woods) the distance is lower than measured by other Garmin watches, e.g. fenix 5x, FR 945. Sometimes even by 5%.
    Under the open sky it is spot on and shows the same distance.