Instinct not very instinctive!

I’ve had the instinct for a year now. 

It was never very accurate to start off with. We run in a group and my stats are off by at least 15-20% every run. While others have stats on 10km my Garmin instinct will show around 8-8.5 kms. 

Now all of a sudden it has started reporting really strange stats. Like this morning I ran in a small loop (we are in a lockdown and running in the parking is the best available) and my stats were ranging from a pace of 9 min to a km to 5.20 mins to a km. Also, this is a completely flat loop. My Instinct showed that I had done 178 floors in the half an hour I ran.

I’ve tried all the obvious fixes. Reset the watch, changed the GPS to all satellites settings, waiting 2 minutes under clear sky after catching GPS....

What am I missing? The step count seems to be working fine. 

Top Replies

All Replies

  • I find it with simple experiment.

    OK, perfect. Thanks, it is a valuable information. I did not see the EPO updating over Connect, but it was likely because I never let it long enough without connecting to the PC with Express. Still, the claim in the official document that EPO must be updated over USB cable and Garmin Express, sounded weird.

  • Ok thanks.  I tried both combinations and couldn’t tell the difference really but figured the Galileo system might get better so stuck with that.  I downloaded an app that can ‘see’ the satellites in the sky and whenever I checked them out there seemed to be roughly equal numbers of glonass and Galileo satellites above the horizon.  

    By the way, I think you’re right about the gps lock taking slightly longer now and I think Garmin probably have changed the way it works so that it forces a bit of a soak.  It definitely seems to be much more important to keep the epo updated too and in that respect it now reminds me much more of my old tomtom watch (which behaved similarly and was very accurate).

  • My Instinct updated from 7.0 to 7.20 last night when I connected it to Garmin Express. 

    The GPS lock on is still really fast for me, less than 10 seconds when I tried it out tonight.

    I still let it Soak a few minutes before starting my activity. Accuracy was good.

    I use the app GNSS View to check satellites, making sure it has my location correct in the app settings. There's not much in it between Galileo and Glonass, usually an even number. I found accuracy when using GPS + Galileo to be pretty good. Gonna have a go back on GPS + Glonass just to see how that is.  When doing the same routes I think it's more a weather and satellite position at that point of time, that makes any real differences. I did read somewhere that Garmin have spent more time configuring and refining the GPS +Glonass setting, as that's the most popular choice. 

  • I downloaded an app that can ‘see’ the satellites in the sky and whenever I checked them out there seemed to be roughly equal numbers of glonass and Galileo satellites above the horizon.  

    Does your app show signal strength?  I changed to one that has a color code for signal strength. My old app didn't do this and that's when I discovered more in view doesn't necessarily mean better. 

  • Would that not require your mobile phone to have Galileo and Glonass capability to see signal strength in your area?

    I had an app on my phone that only showed the ones my phone could connect to, which is why I was first put off using Galileo as my phone doesn't have a chipset with Galileo capability.

  • Thanks, that’s something I hadn’t thought of!  What app did you use?  

  •  What app did you use?

    GPS Test by Chartcross Limited for Android. 

    Would that not require your mobile phone to have Galileo and Glonass capability to see signal strength in your area?

    I would assume so.