Fenix 6x GPS Accurate - But Records Incorrect Distance

I've noticed my 6x consistently chopping off around 3-4% of my runs. The 5 plus I had before almost always agreed with my phone and me Edge 1030, but this one never does.

I investigated a bit more using a Half Marathon I recently ran where I got a distance reported of 20.60km. Running that through a recalculator like http://utrack.crempa.net/ its notable that the tracks actually add up to 21.7km instead. Is the watch therefore chopping off an _entire_ kilometre or what exactly is going on?

1538.Silver_Comet_Half_Marathon_Garmin_robbed_me_of_miles_.zip

Top Replies

#Matthias# over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin - Chris +2

There is fore sure a hardware component to this phenomenon. But looking at the original post, the raw GPS track has a more accurate distance than what Garmin is displaying, so the problem must originate…
silentvoyager over 1 year ago +2

There have been multiple discussions on Fenix 6 forum about this issue. I observed this issue for a long time, first on Fenix 6X and then even on Fenix 7X, and I think that fundamentally this is a software…
53bc6a5b980c4f559a60f7e77fff204c over 1 year ago in reply to 5925888 +1

5925888 said:
You can't fix this. It's an internal hardware problem of every watch that comes from the Garmin 6 series. Obviously Garmin employees can not and will not admit to this but it is what it i…

All Replies

0 Dr Phil over 5 years ago

Have you got a link to the GC upload?

0 D3v01d over 5 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

No idea how privacy works in GC but here it is: connect.garmin.com/.../4193414175

0 AndreiDracul over 5 years ago in reply to D3v01d

How did you get all the running dynamics? You get those via run+ strap right? Perhaps that's throwing off the numbers?

0 TobiasLj over 5 years ago

A half marathon is 21.0975 and compared to 20.60 you are 487 meters short and compared to 21.7 you are 602 meters over. Which is best? Regardless I would say that it is within the error margins. What did you get with your phone and Edge 1030 on this specific run?

I read many posts about F6 being wrong since compared to device Xx it records the wrong distance. Who says that the other device is correct?

For consistency is what I look for and I find the F6 very consistent and same with my previous F3.

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-6-series/205848/gps-accuracy/974008#974008

0 D3v01d over 5 years ago in reply to TobiasLj

Oh I agree TobiasLj, neither of them is truly ideal. However, my issue comes that if you add up the gpx waypoint positions and distances between them you do not get the same distance as what the watch reports. If this wasn't the case I would be totally fine with the measurements and _thats_ what I'm querying.

I have examples where the tracks look close enough to the same but the distances are different which is confusing and doesn't make me happy.

0 D3v01d over 5 years ago in reply to AndreiDracul

HRM Tri+ - I'm actually going to try this, I ran a route I used to do a long time ago without it recently and the distance looked good now that I think about it...

0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to D3v01d

No...the measured distances from watch are wrong. In german forum also discuss same problem.

0 D3v01d over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

If you have a look at my reply to TobiasLj ,this is exactly what I'm trying to say Tron, thanks!

I doubt that removing Run Dynamics will do anything but I was running with a friend recently without it and my watch matched his Fenix 5 so I might as well try it.

0 TobiasLj over 5 years ago in reply to D3v01d

D3v01d said:
if you add up the gpx waypoint positions and distances between them you do not get the same distance as what the watch reports

That is quite common for many GPS-tracking devices. The reason for this is that GPS coordinates are saved at a given interval (mostly every second for Fenix and FR devices) and there is no post-processing of that information afterwards. The distance on the other hand can have a better error correction based on a series of GPS coordinates saved in memory during the activity. My experience is that the distance reported by the watch at the end of the activity is more accurate (and more consistent) than the distance if I load the GPX file and calculates the distance based on every single coordinate.

There are devices (or rather platforms used to visualize and analyze) that do post-processing of GPS-data that makes things look better than on those that doesn't...

0 RISBAC over 5 years ago

It's very typical of the recent Garmin watches. They must be using of a mix of accelerometer data + data correction for the GPS points to "improve" the distance. The pure GPS distance is almost always be false and longer than expected. Garmin is a bit too aggressive with the data correction though, that's a pity. The idea is good, but the calculation is unfortunately too strong. If you are pushing everything to strava, you can go back to the pure GPS distance easily though. That's a way to get rid of Garmin secret calculation.