How long to wait after the watch says "GPS is ready"?

No issues for me, when GPS is ready...its ready.

Once it pops up I hit start. The way I see it once the watch tells me it has good GPS signal it is good to start recording

Garmin says at least 2 minutes for a good GPS soak. I usually just start right after GPS lock, though.

I give it 30 seconds. Green bar means 4 satellites minimum, enough for a 3D lock, but more is better. The extra time also gives the watch more time to identify any multipath signals and pick up ephemeris data direct from the satellites (the CPE should take care of this so this should be the least important of the reasons).

I'd love to see the return of the satellite map watches up to the 610 or thenabouts had. 

If I remember to do it, I try to open my activity 5-10 minutes before I plan to start, so it can get a good GPS soak. The reason is because the green "GPS Ready" thing will pop up as soon as it has as few as 4 satellites locked. But the longer you let it sit there and connect to more, the better. Usually after 5-10 minutes it's connected to as many satellites as it can, and waiting any longer than that wouldn't change anything. There's a big difference in accuracy between having 4 satellites locked, and having 20+ satellites.

That said, it will still continue to connect to more satellites even after you press start. So worst case scenario is your tracks might not be as pretty for the first 5-10 minutes of the activity.

So for me, I try to remember to let it soak up more satellites before I start. However, often I don't remember to, and I don't want to stand around doing nothing while I wait, so I'll just start it as soon as it lets me. The result is fine either way.

It's less important to do a GPS soak on multiband watches with multiband turned on, because they really acquire satellites so fast that it doesn't make as much difference as it used to on older generation watches.

A green GPS signal means for me > position acquired.
Whether these are now 4 or more satellites, one cannot determine due to missing satellite overview.
I would like to see a widget or an app, even from the store.

Store apps don't work because of the bug with the API I mentioned. They can only show zero or full signal but nothing in between. That's why I'm thinking Garmins internal status could have the same problem.

Ok a satellite overview could work if that's data that is available, but simple accessing the signal strength data from the watch is broken since years.

Uh huh. What is your explanation for the band turning amber between red and green, then?

KrapfenKringel said:

They can only show zero or full signal but nothing in between.

mcbadger said:

Uh huh. What is your explanation for the band turning amber between red and green, then?

What is your explanation for an amber band when the signal is full ?