Innacurate GPS on all modes

you cannot compare gps units unless they are using the same chip, same make and model,

Older devices do not use Sony, and they don't have the battery life either.

Everybody knows the Sony chipset has its problems, and maybe the sighting of the antenna is not optimal, but Garmin say the GPS is accurate to 10m or so, that gives you a circle of possible values 20 meters across. If you think your fenix is not working properly you need to compare it to another Fenix (same model), and at the same time so the conditions are identical, then if one 1 watch is consistently more accurate than other other then you have to decide whether its a real fault or within manufacturing tolerances. Trying to compare different devices is just pointless.

The Sony chipset in my F6X sapphire works great, and I don't care if the track wanders around a bit, I am pragmatic, it works, and in 20m vis up a mountain or hill, it tells me my OS Grid ref to an accuracy I can only dream of,

I have a 60 hour battery life with GPS on and that's what I require.

2572376 said:

you cannot compare gps units unless they are using the same chip, same make and model,

Of course I can. And I did. When I buy a watch I don't ask, what is inside, I just hope is done well and will works perfect. If not, if works worse then my  old watch, it is not worth buyng...

I have conversation to garmin, we will see...

you are comparing apples and oranges, its meaningless. If the GPS chip is different what exactly are you comparing ?. 

First of all you really want to know if your watch is faulty or is it considered normal for that particular make/mode of watch. To do that you need several of the same make/model of watch and test them all together at the same time under identical conditions. Once you have done this several times patterns will emerge, you may find that all the watches have similar results within a statistical threshold. Or your watch may actually be better or worse than the collective average of those watches.

Unless you compare like with like you will have no idea whatsoever if its your watch that is faulty or something else is the issue.

Once you have a definitive answer, if its faulty then send it back. Or then you can then look to other watches and see what comparable performance they have and then start to draw conclusions.

Is the GPS chip different, the watch casing material, the electronic components, the S/W algorithms, antenna site or size, watch size, etc etc etc.

"When I buy a watch I don't ask, what is inside"

Next time I suggest you do some research first. Its well publicised that the Sony GPS chip is not as accurate as the chip in previous Garmin models, they and other manufacturers selected the Sony chip because its power draw is much less therefore a longer battery life. I knew that before I bought my F6x sapphire, and I am very happy with the 60+ hours with the GPS running.

I repeat my previous comment, by your photos you posted you are not looking at the tracks with the same software/service. If you do that it is not comparable. There is the accuracy of the underlying recorded GPX track, and there is how it is rendered. Connect Mobile renders will poor accuracy for sake of visualization. Other apps or services will use many more data points from the GPX file to produce a more accurate track. So to compare anything you need to export the GPX of all your sources (Fenix6, other watches, etc) and plot them with the same service or app. Only then you can compare. Short of doing that you are wasting your time. I know by experience that the same activity recorded on my Fenix6 shows with what appears to be much better accurate in my Strava account than the connect Mobile app. The difference is just the rendering.

To add to the point open an activity in connect and remove the colouring of the track (when the track is coloured based on a selected parameter - speed, grit, flow, etc). When you turn that off the track is much smoother. That's just rendering, the GPX remains the same. 

I replied to you earlier, I exported the raw files from each run and compared them in the same app (its in the album attached in my first post).

The garmin track is still way off

I’ll agree with you to an extent, yes in order to determine if its faulty I’d need to compare it to at least one other Felix 6 to see if it plots the same/similar track with similar problems. That’s why I posted here.

2572376 said:

Unless you compare like with like you will have no idea whatsoever if its your watch that is faulty or something else is the issue.

However, another piece of this puzzle is why its so off in the first place. You can absolutely compare the output of two units on the same path, even if by different manufacturers. This is how you COMPARE them to see which is more accurate, and in this case the garmin is the least accurate overall, which AGAIN is why I posted here just to see if this is normal or not. Manufacturer aside they should produce relatively the same output...

philipshambrook said:

One other thing. Many people posting about GPS accuracy routinely believe that because the track does not exactly follow the path they took that the GPS is inaccurate even when the distance is spot on.

What if its 30m off? Sure, I know where I was. I’m just having this issue because as I’ve demonstrated via the photos attached this is way off compared to other test devices and I want to know if its faulty or just what I should expect from the Fenix 6.

then test it against another F6 same model same make and see if they both give the same results. You don't seem to get how you need to test like with like if you are trying to determine if the device is faulty or just within the manufacturers recommended tolerances. OR you test it against a certified calibrated reference GPS receiver which you know is providing accurate results. Even then the calibrated device needs to be used at the same time as the device under test otherwise GPS satellite positions and weather conditions will be different.

Of course if you think "other" devices are more accurate in a head to head comparison then go buy one of them and be happy.

Personally I think GPS reception is only 1 of many features I look for in a device, and you have to balance the good and the bad against other devices that may have more accurate GPS (for whatever reason) and features they may be lacking in