So we just live with the fact that the Fenix 6 Pro's GPS has issues?

Glad to hear it! We also need some of these "Worksforme" comments. 

silentvoyager said:

I bet the distance you had actually run was even longer than that.

Actually I ran in quite a good spot in the field, and was able to pay extra attention to the blue marks which indicated the "ideal" course. While I agree that 1% is not that bad, it was still a bad experience. But you know what, I can live with this inaccuracy.

silentvoyager said:

One thing that I realized after spending time on forums is that for a majority of Fenix users it is a glorified Fitbit with long battery life. Relatively few people actually care about GPS accuracy.

Haha, this is so funny and so sad at the same time. Probably because it's so true!

Sad to hear this, but I'm glad you were able to return it.

Everything is on $latest (but no beta). As of writing this, 

• Software version 19.20
• GPS: 5.30
• Wi-Fi: 2.60
• CIQ: 3.2.6
• BMX: 2.0.4
• WHR: 2.00.04
• ANT/BLE/BT: 6.11
• Sensor Hub: 11.01

Thank you so much for this whole comment @silentvoyager

silentvoyager said:

GPS is still shifted to the left relative to direction of running - always to the left in what seems to be 90% of the time.

Exactly! I ran a marathon today on the same route I uploaded some screenshots of, but this time I didn't do a full circle, but ran ~18 km and then turned back and ran the same route again (plus a ~5 km plus at the end).

Here are some screenshots which support your statement:

This one especially hurts, since I was running on the... *** (I hope this is the correct word) of the river. There were no trees in a radius of about 20 meters:

Here the tree-less radius was even bigger, but in one case the watch was almost able to accurately record my track. Wow, not bad from a flagship modell:

And last but not least, this is an area with many trees (omg! a tree! no GPS accuracy is possible anymore, as trees are made of concrete!) so I just include it because I laughed so hard when I saw it:

So this left-shifted, only the satellites on the left can be seen and tracked theory seems to be a fact for me. I wish the F6Pro wasn't just a peace of plastic, but a powerful computer with 1000x of more computing power, memory and storage than the computer which made the moon landing possible. Then, Garmin would be able to fix the wrong data ;)

silentvoyager said:

Basically I can't think of a single core feature of Fenix 6 X that I bought it for that is working correctly.

Sad but true. Basically, when people ask why a Fenix costs so much, or what can it do better than their Apple Watch, Garmin users (including me) tend to tell them that Garmin watches are sports watches with smart functions, and not smart watches with sports functions.

But if an Apple Watch would produce such GPS accuracy, we would laugh our ass off :D 

silentvoyager said:

But what this $1000 watch is doing than?

:D :D :D 

subra said:

When I look at the pics I don't know what OP expects in the mostly urban canyons. Even an open area and a clear sky are useless when the antenna points to the side or ground.

I expect the watch to be accurate under any circumstances. Even in urban areas. The reasons for this are that a.) every other watch, including other Garmin watches, are able to do this and b.) Garmin stated nowhere that the GPS accuracy will be miserable if I buy their product.

But other than that, I literally included pictures of crop fields and other places where no building, but not even [ ] trees are in a radius of dozens, if not hundreds of meters :D

ejdzsin

Moderator: Approved moderated post, but edited for profanity. Voicing our dissatisfaction is welcome as long as we are civil and on topic. Thank you.

<3

But you know what, I have an idea. Since some people here are stating that the watch works ewll enough for activities like golf or biking, I'll advertise it one day telling people that I'm (mainly) a runner and don't recommend this watch for it, but if they have something else in mind, it can work

Dear brethren,

thanks for everyone who took the time to write a reply, let it be more or less constructive.

Basically my statement about the watch's inability to record accurate data has not been debunked, but confirmed (even tho that probably the same people who say worksforme, see the thread as a confirmation that everything is ok :) . 

My conclusion is that:

• the distance seems to be not that bad, so I can live with that.
• I will just not care about the GPS inaccuracy on the map, because I can't change that.
• the pace is horrible, that really hurts.
• I'll try to run single distances, or run the same tracks back and forth, and not circles anymore. Depending on which direction I'd run a circle, the distance would be more (clockwise) or less (counter-clockwise) so I have to pay extra attention for that.
• winter is coming, the trees will lose their leaves very, very soon. That hopefully means I'll have improved GPS accuracy even in the woods, at least until spring.
• Hopefully the Fenix 7 will come out soon-ish, and will arrive with improved antenna design. I'll give it a try, but test the sh*t out of the watch in the first 14 days, and if it's the same I'll return it without hesitation and I'm done with Garmin. 
• If the Fenix 7 is ok (or if it's not) I'll try to sell the F6Pro as honestly as I can, because I can't lie to people, but it's not possible that I use it on the long run (pun intended). In exactly one year, I'll run the New York marathon, and I won't train a year with a hot garbage watch.

Thank you, I love you all!

ps: the whole thread (and many other similar ones!) reminded me of the Apple iPhone 4's antennagate. It was really funny to be told that I'm just holding the watch wrong!

Ɛpsilon said:

silentvoyager said:

. The navigation still has issues - the watch is basically unable to stay on a course when running on trails and keeps going off-course / on-course multiple times per hour. Pace Pro is unusable because of that

Now that's weird because I just don't see that at all. This summer I did three map-navigated ultra's, 30, 40 and 50 miles and I had nowhere near this. In fact for the one I saw it once. I use routes a lot and they've always been pretty rock solid for me. And in wooded areas as well as open moors.

Plus my distances also add up. I've no idea what's going wrong for you, but it's bad. There's some underlying issue there for certain/.

When I am running an ultra, my Fenix 6X is reasonably accurate too. For example, earlier this year it measured 101.6 miles on a 102 mile course, which is very good! But that was, for the most, part, a very slow slog with plenty of walking.

But the result is quite different when I am running fast. Here is a good illustration from today's run:

Here is the same trail that I ran very fast downhill (red line), then turned around and walked it slow uphill (blue line). The blue line actually follows the trail quite well (if you look at an OSM based map rather than Google map. But look at the red part of the track! First, notice how it turned into the downhill part way earlier. Can you explain that with just GPS accuracy? That is some magic that Garmin is doing to make it work at slow walking speeds. I find that the "current" position may trail behind as much as ~10 seconds when running on trails. But while the position is delayed it seems to react to the orientation promptly which often leads to entering turns too early and then cutting corners. Then at the bottom part, look at how the red line goes straight pretty much cutting through two switchbacks. Here is why it shortens the distance and fails to follow courses and Strava segments!

But that isn't all. The actual distance recorded by device is even shorter than the distance along the track. When I did distance correction on Strava I've gained extra 0.7 miles on a 14 mile run - that is 5%, which is typical for me when I run on local trails and do distance correction afterwards. The way distance correction works on Strava is that it just adds up distances between all points on a track. And I am pretty sure that even the corrected distance is still short considering how corners and switchbacks are being cut through.

And here is another screenshot from Strava, which shows the actual trail a bit better:

What I don't understand is why Garmin doesn't give a lock on the road option on recording only on map.This would solve a lot of problems, not all like swimming but for a good percentage of users it will be enough.

Trying to use acceleration and GPS on Kalman filter (it looks like it) Doesn't seems to work.

silentvoyager said:

Here is the same trail that I ran very fast downhill (red line), then turned around and walked it slow uphill (blue line). The blue line actually follows the trail quite well (if you look at an OSM based map rather than Google map. But look at the red part of the track! First, notice how it turned into the downhill part way earlier. Can you explain that with just GPS accuracy? That is some magic that Garmin is doing to make it work at slow walking speeds. I find that the "current" position may trail behind as much as ~10 seconds when running on trails. But while the position is delayed it seems to react to the orientation promptly which often leads to entering turns too early and then cutting corners. Then at the bottom part, look at how the red line goes straight pretty much cutting through two switchbacks. Here is why it shortens the distance and fails to follow courses and Strava segments!

This is weird because I see very little corner cutting, some but not a lot. I run roads in the week and they're a little faster. I don't know if I'm lucky, it's the elevation/latitude/topology of the area, but I see little even with fast trails. 

But yes, that's pretty crap on that trail. No argument from me there. Just wonder why I don't tend to see it. I run every day, at about 120k per week  at the moment. I will keep an eye on it because perhaps its just happening for me sporadically but in my experience there are only a few places where it goes a bit haywire - and one is with a plethora of pylons in a wooded area which is sort of expected....