Related
Options

Fenix 6X Sapphire - Problem with GPS Total Distance.

Beowolfs
over 4 years ago

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.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to JacekZet

    That is correct. After 15k i turned back and ran the same 15k back again.
    You can see my start and finish point in this pic.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 4256234

    Perhaps a misunderstanding from my side but do you say that 200m on a 30000m run is bad accuracy? Or isn't the start and stop positions the places where you started and stopped?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to TobiasLj

    200m on a 30000m run is not a bad accuracy. But my Forerunner 935 had it almost perfect everytime.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 4256234

    5k - Almost spot on
    10k - Almost spot on
    15k - Almost sport on (Turned back here)
    20k - Almost spot on
    25k - About 100 meters after the checkpoint
    30k - About 200 meters after the finish/start line.

    Almost spot on is not the same as spot on. Were the errors accumulating? How far before/past each checkpoint?

    4256234 said:
    had it almost perfect everytime.

    Please define. Two hundred metres off in 30km is less than 1%. For a wrist worn consumer device, that represents remarkable accuracy and would be classified as 'almost perfect' anywhere. 

  • +1 over 4 years ago

    I own the Fenix 6 Pro and have done about 5 runs with a friend who is wearing the FR945, which is using the same Sony chip as the Fenix. The results were that the FR always displayed like 200-300m more total distance than my Fenix. This was for the range of 12-24 km runs.

    Moreover, I was comparing the distance traveled during the run and it showed that the Fenix and the FR agreed nearly perfectly (+- 30m) on like the first 8km but then a 100-200m offset appeared out of nowhere for the Fenix watch.

    As I checked the GPS tracks later I found that the Fenix was far more inaccurate (e.g. not being exactly on the road we ran) than the FR and did always cut a corner at one point leading to the 200m difference. As I was owning the FR945 before I know that its GPS accuracy is quite good and reliable.

    I just dont know how these two watches can be so different when using the same chip, was there any other hardware change in the Fenix 6 compared to the FR945?

    However I am sending my Fenix 6 to Garmin for a replacement but I feel that it wont help, so that I will need to go back to the FR945 again. Very sad cause I completely love the other improvements they introduced with the Fenix 6.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to nico_132
    nico_132 said:
    I just dont know how these two watches can be so different when using the same chip

    A few years back there was a similar discussion regarding GPS accuracy with Fenix 5X vs Forerunner 935. One of the differences was the metallic bezel, which could cause some signal interference. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to nico_132

    Personally, I think it is in the software and how it calculates.  I too use two garmins and the Fenix 6 is always a bit behind on anything with turns or corners (like trails) but spot on for straight ahead roads.   This leads me to believe the chip measures correctly but software fails to run the numbers out.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to onefeather

    I also noticed the same, at least that would be fixable. I always get huge offsets when running in the woods.

    Here is a screenshot from todays run where you can clearly see a big deviation between the track (red lines) and the path I really ran (white lines). I really do not get how this can happen, but I would love to have it fixed.

    When I was running the same route with my old FR, both lines match perfectly by the way.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to onefeather

    It is a (bad) combination of poor GPS-accuracy AND poor calculation!

    A 10km-race two days ago my fenix 6x sapphire displayed 9,28km. Analyzing the distance out of the track leads to 9,69km. My polar V800 got (5,0 and 4,98km for the two laps!). The fenix 6x sapphire has always (much) less displayed distances. The analyzed data out of the track are longer (and sometimes similiar/close but less to V800 distances).

    The dicrepancies between displayed distance and distance "out of the track" are a general Garmin "feature". This is what my former devices had, too. Accuracy increased for former devices - that's what I miss for the fenix 6x sapphire.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to beta-L-user

    I found my Forerunner 945 to be very accurate on the total distance (when comparing the GPX data with the data the watch displays), unfortunately my Fenix 6 isn't.

    However, I also extracted some tracks from professional athletes also using the Fenix 6 from their Garmin profile and there I found that the "watch" distance and real distance always is correct to up to +-10m. I wonder if they recieve better/more accurate/calibrated watches than "normal" people, because theyre sponsored by Garmin. Would be quite a shame tbh..