DLC coating and GPS signal?

Is it possible that DLC coating have some impact on GPS reception? We have two watches mine is Fenix 6 pro sapphire DLC and my girls is Fenix 6s pro sapphire when we run back on the same road you can clearly see big differences in my GPS track.... im like 10 or 15 meters away from my track but hers GPS is almost spot on. My first theory was that im taller and "bigger" so we switched watches and its the same track hers is almost spot on and mine is the same.

0 TobiasLj over 5 years ago

I doubt it would. I have a DLC coated 6X Sapphire and the GPS is almost spot on. Check the settings for differences and check how you wear your watches. Also important that you compare tracks recorded at the same time since conditions changes quickly.

Verify 1s recording (system setting) and verify GPS settings (activity setting).

Also keep in mind that 10-15m for two devices can be 5-7.5m if they diverge opposite from each other.

0 C.sco over 5 years ago in reply to TobiasLj

Same.

The DLC coating is very thin - its thickness is measured in atoms.

The steel underneath the DLC coating is far more likely to have an impact, than the coating itself. I'd venture a guess that a stainless watch with DLC and one without DLC will have exactly the same performance as each other.

For what it's worth, my F6X DLC gets perfect GPS reception, haven't had any issues.

Most likely, the different tracks between your two watches is attributed to that fact that these are single-band GPS devices that only have +/- 5m accuracy to begin with, which means that occasionally the tracks may drift apart by up to 10m. Sometimes one will be closer to the actual path than the other, and sometimes it will be vice versa. Until we get dual-band wearable GPS chips, that's just the way it is.