GPS accuracy Fenix 6x Pro vs Instinct Solar

Only you can know which track is more accurate! As my cristal ball is just broken, I have no clue!

Thanks, Alan. Just didn't know if one watch had a better reputation for GPS accuracy. Thanks again.

You could compare both tracks and see which one is more accurate. This would be a helpful post.

Many thanks for this Alan. All the best. 

Good idea to check the tracks. It looks like the 6X Pro did a better job here. The 6X Pro did show a discrepancy of about 50 feet or so all along my track (the track back makes it look like I ran on a parallel track  50 feet away from the  path out even though I ran the exact same  path both ways). This is a discrepancy similar to what is written about here https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/01/gps-accuracy-impacting-devices.html

Even with this discrepancy it looks like the 6X Pro is more accurate because it marks the turnaround Point accurately, while the tracking for the Instinct solar only shows the path for the last six and a half miles of the alleged 22 Mile Run. I can only guess that the Instinct was guessing for most of the run before the GPS was finally able to pick up for the final six and a half miles.

Thanks for your help. Let me know if you think I missed anything. I did get the tracking information for the Instinct solar from the Strava website instead of from the Garmin Connect. For the 6X Pro the tracking for Strava matched the Garmin Connect data.

Are you sure both devices have the same recording settings? There are a few potential culprits:

1) Do you have the same run time?

2) Does your device have auto-pause turned on? If so, it may stop recording briefly while satellites are unavailable for one reason of the other.

3) Are you recording with the same settings? I.e. if I remember correctly there are two options - smart and record all points. In the latter case the track will be more correct, but in the first one it will save memory.

Alex,

Thank you. I hadn't thought of some of the issues you brought up. 

1) we do have the same record time

for 2 and 3 I am only answering for Fenix 6X  Pro

2) auto pause was not on for 6x - it recorded the shorter distance

3) I didn't know about "every second" record option. it was not on for this run, but I just enabled. Looking forward to seeing if I get different results in the future

Thanks again.

AlexSmallet said:

smart and record all points. In the latter case the track will be more correct, but in the first one it will save memory.

There will be no change in distance using smart recording vs. every second recording.  They both track every second of your run. Every second recording will just give you a more defined track.  See the link below. 

support.garmin.com/.../

Ok. I understand now. Thank you

RunR said:

You could compare both tracks and see which one is more accurate. This would be a helpful post.

Checking the tracks isn't sufficient. In my experience the distance reported by my Fenix 6X is almost always shorter than the distance along the track it produces. It seems to be using some sort of smoothing algorithm for the distance which straightens the distance by cutting through curves and corners. That is especially noticeable when running on trails where I get up to 5-7% difference between the reported distance and the distance along the GPS track.

Please note that you can see the GPX distance in many 3rd party apps by uploading the track. For example, Strava can tell you the GPS distance if you do distance correction on Strava activity web page.