Really poor experience using compass / map orientation when moving slowly on challenging mountain terrain

I tried following a course on a challenging off-trail section on a mountain terrain that involved crossing a large talus field on a steep slope and other similarly challenging terrain. There was no visible trail so I stayed on the map screen the entire time to make sure that we followed the planned route.

The main problem is that every time I looked at the map, more often than not, it was oriented incorrectly, often in the opposite direction. That made it very difficult to reason whether we were to the right or to the left of the planned path. Thankfully, I was able to tell that the map was rotated 180 degrees because of the small directional arrows on the course. But still that was very annoying experience. I understand that at higher speeds the map orientation comes from the vector of movement, however at some slow speed threshold it switches to the compass as the source of the map orientation, and that frankly doesn't work the way it should.

I should mention that the compass was calibrated. If I stopped moving, eventually the map rotated correctly. That was taking a long time, meaning that I couldn't really be using it on the move the way I expected for as long as we moved slowly.

As an experiment, later that day I tried to use the compass app outside of an activity. I found that while the compass is very fluid and responds well to the direction, if I lower the arm that I wear my watch on down, and then bring it back up, in all 100% of cases the compass gets upset. Even if it was already pointing in the right direction to start with, in a couple of seconds it turns to a seeming random direction, usually 90 degrees from the correct one, then it takes another couple of seconds for it to correct itself. One would think, if the arm is lowered and the watch face isn't pointing up, it would be reasonable for the compass to not take the measurement and just stick with its current direction.

Or perhaps there is some other solution - what Suunto calls 3-D compass - Suunto mentions that the compass is tilt compensated so that lowering the arm down doesn't upset it. Why doesn't Garmin implement something similar?

According to this page, Garmin compass is also supposed to be tilt compensated, but in my experience it isn't how it works.

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0 2529455 10 months ago

This is where you need to go back to the old-school method of taking a bearing on a distant object and simply just tracking towards that. Get to it, take the next bearing off the map and repeat the process. This is particularly important in situations where you have got high-walled rock formations on either side of you which tend to balance GPS signals in all different kinds of directions, resulting in your apparent location constantly moving around on a map by up to 100 m at a time. You need to be able to trust your eyes and what you can see around you and understand how that relates to where you are on a map.

You'll also find that you won't even need to use the map if you understand how the physical contours of the landscape around you relate to the topo lines and features like rivers, streams and cliffs seen on the map. You'll mentally know where you are when you look around and can spot a couple of these.

Once you understand all of these fundamentals it becomes very obvious when something is off on any device or compass that you're using e.g the device saying that you're facing in the opposite direction that you are because you'll say something silly, like the toppo lines indicating that mountain falls away to your right, when in actuality it's falling away to your left.

0 silentvoyager 10 months ago in reply to 2529455

However I don't remember having the same experience with Suunto watches. Don't you think that this is something that Garmin should improve? The watch has all the sensors - gyroscope, accelerometer. Once it has determined the azimuth it could try to maintain it through movement of the watch and not reset it every time the arm moves?

2529455 said:
This is particularly important in situations where you have got high-walled rock formations on either side of you which tend to balance GPS signals in all different kinds of directions, resulting in your apparent location constantly moving around on a map by up to 100 m at a time.

That isn't how it works. As I mentioned, at slow speeds GPS positions / vector of speed are not used for the map orientation. Below a certain threshold of speed, the orientation comes from the compass.

Furthermore, the position doesn't move 100m at a time. That is nonsense. I was running my watch in All Satellites + Multi-band mode. The GPS track is actually very clean.

There is certainly some dead reckoning that is already implemented in the watch, because it can maintain the path when it loses GPS. Why that isn't used to just to maintain the compass azimuth somewhat more smartly than what I experienced?Do you think it is normal that the map on the watch end up rotated 180 degrees all the time? How is that even possible? How should I move my arm to make it rotated 180 degrees?

Furthermore, it isn't just the issue with moving slowly on mountain terrain. What I experienced previously is that I come to a complex trail junction where several trails go in different direction. And then I look at the map trying to figure out which of the trails to go, but the map is rotated all wrong, so it is difficult to tell. I usually takes some time for the map orientation to settle. This whole experience isn't designed with with fast paced sports in mind.

0 bluefish 10 months ago in reply to silentvoyager

It can occasionally happen that the spring bars become magnetic. This would cause the compass to become disoriented. There are some old threads about this in the fenix and Instinct forum.

0 2529455 10 months ago in reply to silentvoyager

silentvoyager said:
Furthermore, the position doesn't move 100m at a time. That is nonsense.

This has been my experience. Happy to share tracks over PM where this occured if you'd like some evidence.

silentvoyager said:
Do you think it is normal that the map on the watch end up rotated 180 degrees all the time?

Absolutely not. I'm explaining how I work around it by developing a greater understanding of where I am in the terrain without the need to continuously look down at the map.

The compass often takes a rotation of the wrist before it orients successfully. Be nice if Garmin could make that process faster.

silentvoyager said:
I come to a complex trail junction where several trails go in different direction. And then I look at the map trying to figure out which of the trails to go, but the map is rotated all wrong

I recommend keeping the map always displaying North up. Saves on battery as it's not constantly re-rendering and it won't disorient you by rotating the map. Always tun trails with it set this way and it's never given me an issue.

0 Bitti 10 months ago in reply to 2529455

I agree with the last comment about using north up. When using paper maps, it makes sense to orient the map based on your heading, because it's you doing the turning, so it won't confuse you. But (at least for me), allowing the watch to keep turning the map based on it's compass headings just makes it more difficult for me to understand the map. Especially with a wrist watch where my wrist is not always perfectly aligned with where I'm going. When using north up, it requires some getting used to (so that you are comfortable with left and right when you are heading south), but after that learning curve it's really good. Actually, that's even how I use Google Maps Navigation these days.

0 bluefish 10 months ago in reply to bluefish

bluefish said:
It can occasionally happen that the spring bars become magnetic. This would cause the compass to become disoriented. There are some old threads about this in the fenix and Instinct forum.

i.e:

https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/fenix-7-series/316350/tactix-7-compass-not-working-properly/1534396#1534396

0 Heikoo 10 months ago

Unfortunately I don’t have a solution but i agree 100% - super annoying behavior. I have a Forerunner 955 (basically same hardware) and the map takes always a few seconds to correct its orientation (trail run). You’d guess Garmin had figured this out after several generations of map-enabled watches , but apparently not. Apart from that it would be nice to have slightly more hardware power for smoother map rotation/animation - maybe on a future F9.

0 George 10 months ago

I have the same problem on a Marq 2. It's even worse if you mount the watch on a bike and use it to record a ride. Unlike on the Edge, which always stays stable and orientated to the road, the Marq 2 is all over the place as though it's drunk.

@bluefish I'm not sure demagnetising can be the solution? Compass seems fine when loaded on its own. It's only the map that is unstable. Does the Garmin map use the compass or GPS for orientation?

0 Heikoo 10 months ago in reply to George

There was a claim/guess the compass is used for low speeds and then it switches to GPS. When you use it on the bike, is the problem present regardless of speed?

PS: Does anybody know if this behaved the same on older generation watches? I cannot remember myself.

0 silentvoyager 9 months ago

I had a chance to compare the map experience I described above to Suunto's map implementation on Suunto Race S. Compared to Garmin's implementation, Suunto's map is very fluid and rotates quickly and smoothly. If I do the same experiment I described above - lower the hand and bring it back and look at the map, on Race S the map remains rotated correctly or at worst it takes no longer than half second. All in all, Suunto provides a much better experience, and the compass works extremely well.