GPS goes crazy, hiking with UltraTrac

Former Member over 4 years ago

I went hiking with my Garmin Fenix 6X. I set power mode with UltraTrack and wrist HR on, almost everything else disabled.

Battery life was very good but the track created was not that great. It is not usable the way it is downloaded and takes a lot of time to clean.

Most time GPS track followed quite nicely. Sometimes it was far away from real track for long period of time. But the biggest problem is a couple of periods, when GPS went completely crazy.

Distance for GPX file for third day is more than 33 km. Garmin connect shows distance 16 km. If I manually clean the track and remove all the jumps the real length is maybe 14 km. I wonder how Garmin calculates track length to get 16 km?

See example images I attach here.

End of hiking day 2 - track was pretty good until it stated jumping around. After messy period, last half km is again better.

Híking day 2

End of hiking day 3 - following real trail ok, there are couple of spikes, but then goes totally crazy

Day 3

Top Replies

skopek over 4 years ago +1

I would say it is a know problem. Mine was looking not that bad.

Have a look here FR645: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-645-645-m/223444/is-there-a-way-to-smooth…

All Replies

0 skopek over 4 years ago

I would say it is a know problem. Mine was looking not that bad.

Have a look here FR645: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-645-645-m/223444/is-there-a-way-to-smooth-the-recorded-track

I stopped using UltraTrac. Especially when you hike really slow or have a break it is all over the place.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to skopek

Thanks @skopek,

I think the answer always is "known problem". It is a shame, the device was expensive.

I have stopped using my Fenix 6X for daily sports, such as jogging or biking. I went back to my old Suunto, it is so much better, much more accurate.

For hiking, I thought maybe Fenix would be a good choice, large battery and everything... Unfortunately not. For next years hiking trip, it will be Suunto again, maybe I will carry a power bank - no problem charging the watch every night, if the collected track is more accurate.

0 skopek over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

I think it is a good choice for hiking. I did a 9 day hiking tour in the Alps. The GPS data was really good. UltraTrac was off and I used a power bank. I noticed only one time that the GPS was a bit off and this was on 4m wide gravel road in the forest. However, my phone had the same problem. I don't own a Suunto and can just compare with my FR645. The Fenix GPS is way better. Furthermore I would never go again /wo the Map feature.