Shift in GPS track depending on wrist

As an avid heatmapper / run every street I'm particularly interested in more accurate GPS tracks.  I've been perplexed by why has appeared to be a shift of my GPS tracks to the left of where I run no matter what direction I run in.  So if I run an out and back on a road it looks like I've practically run a loop because its shifts it off the road on both sides.  In general my tracks are off the road and sometimes its more egregious than others.  I took to running on the wrong side of the road (with traffic instead of against) to get it more centered.  I then did an experiment and changed my watch to my right hand.  Low and behold my tracks started looking significantly better!  I figured there must be some sort of setting I was missing.  I found the wrist setting in my Fenix 6 and changed it from "left" (the correct setting) to "right" and it made no difference.  


Wearing the watch on my right wrist example here:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4692022516  - I ran on the side of the road against traffic and its shifted to the right, which is closer to the middle of the road

Wearing the watch on my left wrist example:

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4488678027 - notice how all the tracks are to the left where you would be running against traffic off the road

Really neither of these examples are very accurate as they don't capture where I really ran but at least with wearing it on the right hand it will actually show on the road I was running on.   I don't know if this is an intentional shift or not.  Also I'm not a fan of wearing it on my right hand (again wrist setting seem to make no difference in my tests).  Does anyone have any info on this?  

Also this isnt a one off test. All my runs with my Fenix 6 are like this and I found many with my Fenix 5 as well.  Additionally I have done several runs with it on my right wrist and they consistently produce better results every time.

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  • This is already hilarious, what are you expecting from this tests? People start to behave strange, what is the purpose to  wear the watch on inner wrist, or upside down? Even if the conclusion is that he works ok you will start to wear it upside down and inside out? No,  no, no this is strange.

  • The purpose is to find what is causing the bad gps tracks, and to give as much data as possible to the developers, so they can(at least try to) fix some of the issues. Nobody is forcing you to read what people are writing here, so if you don’t have a helpful input, you’re just polluting the thread. 

  • Trying different satellite systems might well show a difference. Moving that watch around the wrist is like playing pin the tail on the donkey and claiming you have a better success rate palm up as opposed to palm down. There are just too many other factors with a much bigger influence

  • This doesn't answer my question, but if you really want to help the developers try to learn coding, there is the problem, not on the way you weare it... Jesus. 

  • The thing is, a lot of people have generally shifted tracks and when changing the watch to the right arm or wearing it on the inside of the arm or upside down they get a lot better tracks. If the results are reproducible it might indicate to the developers where to look for a possible bug or if this is hardware related and can't be fixed.
    Learning to code (which is my day job) won't help as the source code is not public so we can't check it ourselves.

  • thank you for you valuable comments. can you please help me in finding my way in life overall ? You seem to know everything, I am sure that  you can help me. 

  • As long it works fine with a firmware and with the next one is broke but it works good with the new update, tells me that the problem is in the software. Obviously it was a joke from me by recomand him to learn coding, how can I recommend such thing to a person who thinks that wearing the watch upside down or inside out, will fix an issue that Garmin programers cannot fix.

  • In this conditions, I'm pretty sure that you cannot be helped. You know what I mean...

  • I am a programmer, but i’m not working for Garmin. I fail to see the relevance of me knowing to code in order for somebody from Garmin to fix the ongoing issues, their code not being open-source.

    And there is a problem regarding the way you wear it, there are lots of users posting about this. The antenna is situated in a position, turning the watch around changes its position. Also, there are some calculations added, which obviously shift the position in a specific direction.

    If you bought your watch because it’s cool, or if you wanted one for its smartwatch capabilities, don’t judge the ones who bought it for what it should be: a good/premium gps watch.

    Most of us have 4-5 year old devices with better tracking, so Garmin already proved that better tracking is possible. Let’s see how things turn out with the Sony gps chip, because for now the added battery life sacrifices too much of the accuracy. 

  • Agree with this affirmation, I own also a forerunner 25 and a forerunner 235, both are  waaay accurate than GF 6. But also from firmware to firmware GF 6 performs good... at one firmware it's ok, at the next one is awful, and again is ok at the next one. My conclusion, inconsistent software. The way you ware it only influence the position of the antenna and with that the accuracy, but is nothing to do with it, the hardware is like it is and cannot be changed,o variable what can be changed is the software, wearing the watch in other position then usual is unacceptable.