GPS Accuracy

The problem is that in tougher conditions it is always shows a shorter distance.

If it were well calibrated, it would sometimes show shorter, sometimes longer and most of the time close to spot on.

Iceskating Uphill said:

Is it worth trying GPS+GALILEO if you are in the UK? I think that’s a more European-focussed constellation than GLONASS.  

i live in Sweden and so far GPS+GLONASS is better than GPS+Galileo. It's not a big difference but under tough conditions GLONASS seems to be the better choice.

yes, I agree. It seems to be fine in some conditions, but not all of them. For a city run with difficult GPS connection but not too many sharp turns, it's fine on average, from what I have recorded recently (number of samples may not be enough to really conclude though...). For forest / nature runs, with difficult GPS conditions & a lot of turns, then it's too short, almost 100% of the time. So I imagine it must be difficule to fine tune the algorythm to make it work in all conditions. 

But it did NOT work better with the F5X :) I have one, and I was very very often fixing the distance on Strava to get the raw GPS data. That's why I'm not very optimistic. And how many of us are really affected by the problem? Maybe 99% of the Fenix users are happy with the data. Hard to know. 

I don't know how 99% of consumers are satisfied. Provided that only for the Fenix 6, there are several GPS and problem distance topics that have been visited thousands of times. Even more so with the FR 945 forum. That Garmin is silent also means nothing!

I am not satisfied with the urban condition that in the least another 5 minutes should be allowed to wait when the GPS is locked before start running. Even then, the result is a matter of luck. The same situation with FR 945.

It's surprising for me also that Garmin doesn't seem to care about the GPS performances problems ! I have no idea how they see it. They must know about it, but it must be far from the top priorities.

I'm not sure to understand your second problem. You have to wait 5 minutes before getting a GPS lock when you start an activity in a city ? Am I getting this right ? 

No no. I wait another 5 minutes after the GPS is locked.

Why do you wait 5 minutes ? To try to get a better signal ? 

I'm very often running in Paris, the same route. I did it with 2 Ambits, and two Fenix. I have dozens of runs like that. I can't say I have tons of samples for the 6X yet, but from what I saw : 

• worse is the Fenix 5X. It's challenging GPS conditions, and the track is going left and right, it's often not very clean. The distance is not too bad. 
• Fenix 6 & Ambit are very close. None are perfect of course, narrower streets are really putting the GPS into troubles. Maybe the Ambit is a bit better, but it was still quite poor at times. 

I often started the workout without waiting to be outside. The Fenix 6 is probably the one getting the GPS signal the fastest. It was a bit longer for the Ambit sometimes. And I don't think I saw any big difference by waiting after getting the GPS lock or not. It's NEVER clean and great in a city with tall buildings and narrow streets. 

So now I don't bother anymore, I start it and go. I don't care if it's not very accurate at the start, it won't be very accurate all the time anyway. I'm really not complaining about the Fenix is urban conditions, it's doing pretty good. It's on the trails that the distance is more of a problem. It shortens the distance a bit too much.