agreed. will do. i was luckily right at 1 month return limit on this first one (tomorrow) and as a 'bonus' Amazon posted the 6X Sapphire in Prime Day this week, so was able to get the second one on sale...I checked if the Forerunner 945 was in the sale...it was not.

I have been wondering if I should have done some full-GPS calibrations right when I received the watch originally (I believe my first runs were in the woods). I know it is "self calibrating" on the accelerometer, but I'm going to try this for good measure. 

Received my 6X yesterday. While waiting for the shipment I read a lot about the watch and also stumbled over this thread.
I hoped, that I will not be affected by this bug/flaw whatsoever.
Went for my first run with the watch today and - well, I am quite disappointed. Although I was running with  a constant pace that felt like ~5:15 min/km the watch gave me a 5:35, stating 6.86km when finishing.
The watch showed a pace between 8min/km and 4:33min/km while running. The connect graph proves that.
Importing the gpx to komoot results in a 7.3 km track. Thats ~6% off!

I was using a Fenix 5 until now, which never had such a problem, even under bad conditions (trees after rain, which was the case today). Sorry, but  I think I will return the watch. If I bought some cheapish watch from the rummage table, I could deal with it. But not if the watch costs 500€ and is supposed to be one of the premium models of the manufacturer.

As far as I see, the problem already seems to persist for a while. I am unwilling to wait for this bug to be fixed, since the watch is completly useless for training purposes with it.  

almighty said:

Sorry, but  I think I will return the watch.

You might want to give this a few more activities before throwing the towel in.  As far as I can tell, there is some kind of proprietary code in Garmin watches that use accelerometers in the watch to calculate pace/distance if you lose GPS, as described here https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=b5DVXCqrrFAfUh4w997Gt8 and I've copied the text below. Whilst it's not explicitly stated here, it's almost certain these same watch accelerometer calibrations are what's used to augment the pace when running with GPS and the GPS signal gets unreliable.  That being the case, you're likely to see better pace after a few runs outdoors with the watch in good GPS conditions at varying speeds; as that better calibrates the accelerometer in the watch.

How Do I Calibrate the Accelerometer on a Garmin Watch?

Thanks for the encouraging words :-)

I am a little disappointed because of the overall communication from garmins side. This is my fourth garmin watch (F35, Instinct, F5, now 6X).

And there were issues with all, except the F35.

Instinct broken 3 times, currently send to garmin service. F5 replaced 2 times with heavy battery drain and other flaws.

Now it seems that I have instant problems with my new watch.

The only thing garmin does is replacing over and over again.

No comment like "We are aware of that - under progress" whatsoever.

There also is very detailed input from users like AndersB, but nobody seems to take notice of it. So there is nothing which can be done, except hoping for the next update - and that the issue will be adressed.

The pace issue is a major flaw in my opinion, garmin should take care of this. The changelog then states "added some strange symbols for messaging" etc.

If the pace stays this way, it is a better idea to run without the watch. This is more relaxing than always beeing annoyed during the run, because of a watch nit working as excepted.

Did a first running test with my own Data Field and here is a comparison with the built-in Pace in the watch. 

• Yellow line is built-in Average Lap Pace
• Blue lines is built-in Pace and a calculated Average Lap Pace based on the built-in Pace
• Purple line is Pace in my own Data Field

And some distance comparisons:

• 6189 meters according to odometer (calculated average Pace 5:42 min/km)
• 5939 meters according to built-in Distance in the watch (calculated average Pace 5:57 min/km)
• 5710 meters calculated all data points from the built-in Pace (calculated average Pace 6:11 min/km)
• 6059 meters calculated all data points from my own Data Field (calculated average Pace 5:50 min/km)

There is still some glitches and bugs in my Data Field but it works rather good already. Will be back when I have something new to show or if I find some more information related to the built-in Pace function in the watch.

Previously, I used a Forerunner 735XT (until it broke) and then for the past year, a Forerunner 645 Music. Recently, I decided that I wanted a multi-sport watch again. I got swayed by the Fenix sale and have been using a Fenix 6s Pro over the past month; keeping up with a few of these forum posts, as the pace issue has been bothering me on every single run.

almighty, I’d like to tell you that quote about calibration: “The more frequently the watch is used in an activity with a GPS signal, the speed and distance received will be more accurate…” leads to the answer in this case, but sadly I’ve not seen things get any better over the past weeks of using a 6S Pro.

Training while wearing the Fenix 6S Pro and my Forerunner 645 Music, I would glance at the watches occasionally throughout an activity. Not saying either watch is perfectly on point for pace, but the Fenix was almost always showing a pace differing from the 645; sometimes by over 1 min/mile. If I held my arms, so the watch faces were toward the sky (and I could see the screen), after a few moments, they would usually adjust to show a similar pace. The Fenix generally making the larger adjustments to get there.

I was still within the return policy for the Fenix and finally gave up yesterday. I swapped for a Forerunner 745 (Yes, I know, I lose maps and battery life, but I wanted to stick to a smaller watch at similar price-point to the 6S Pro when it was on sale). I did all updates (not beta) before using and let it GPS soak, just as I did with the Fenix. With only one run in, I am already happier, as the 745 and 645 were generally close in instant pace throughout. At times, when there were differences, I kept my wrists up for a moment to observe. The 745 usually kept its pace decently solid, whereas the 645 would do some adjustment, with paces ultimately landing close together. There was much less disagreement than with the Fenix. Total distance also landed with 1/100th mile.

I know pace strictly from the watch isn’t perfect, you need a footpad, etc.; I’ve read that many times on the forum and I’m not expecting it to be perfect. This post isn’t based on any exact measurements found by diving into the data. Though I have done some of my own comparisons, they aren’t as in-depth as AndersB, who has done a great job and I am thankful for all the information that has been shared.

This is my observation: I see two watches generally agreeing, and the pace I see on the screen feels like what I am running. Maybe it’s too early to call it, but I think I’ll end up keeping the 745, even though I really liked the 6S Pro.

If I suddenly see odd discrepancies, I’ll report back, but for now, I guess I’ve ended my short stay in the Fenix camp. Good luck to everyone. I do hope a resolution comes to you.

Thanks for your answer!

Somehow I already knew, that the "auto calibration" of the watch would not to the trick.

If there was an easy solution for the issue, garmin would already have adressed it. Having pace issues on the level observed with the 6X is a no-go at the price level of a 6X. We are not talking about slight deviations. Those pace values were all over the place during my run.

Admittedly, the conditions were bad for a gps watch that day. There was a heavy rain before I went for the run, the trees were soaked with water. I such cases also my F5 had some problems. But the 6X values were going in the opposite direction even when increasing my speed.

On a round course yesterday, the 6X performed very well. However, I bought the watch for my trail runs to have a map and the longer battery life. My trails usually have 90% tree coverage. 

I'll give the watch an additional chance. But I am not very confident, that those issues will disappear within the next 25 days ofmy return period.

I did a half marathon yesterday, which was my second run post good-GPS calibration. Still no improvement on pacing. The watch does well in the open space (pace suddenly drops to a pace I perceived as reasonable (ie 10min/mi drops to 8:15/mi), and upon even slight tree cover (even from a single tree...i actually laughed out loud on the run when that happened...) it would jump 1-2 min/mi up. All the pacing issues aside, it does appear to have done OK with the distance and lap averages per mile, but sad on the instant pace.

That watch is going back.

New Fenix 6X has arrived and I will be doing a few calibration runs (and calibrating a foot pod). If the tree cover still proves an issue, I will use the calibrated footpod for speed (GPS used for distance only) and see how that does.

8947930 said:

New Fenix 6X has arrived and I will be doing a few calibration runs (and calibrating a foot pod). If the tree cover still proves an issue, I will use the calibrated footpod for speed (GPS used for distance only) and see how that does.

If you have to resort to the footpod why would you use it for just speed?  If it's calibrated correctly for speed, that means it knows your stride and the speed calculation comes from distance traveled from the pod and not GPS; is this incorrect?  I'm a little confused here and maybe you can set me straight.  If the watch pace/speed is wrong and that's calculated by GPS distance and you find a footpod speed is more inline, wouldn't the assumption be the distance would have to be correct from the pod also?  Otherwise the speed from the pod would have to be off too.  Maybe I'm looking at this wrong?