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Problem with Ultratrac Mode for Hiking

5711386
over 1 year ago

I enabled the Ultratrac mode for Hiking on my Instinct 2 Solar, but it seems broken. I am aware that the accuracy is reduced, but the tracking is - to put it lightly - ridiculous. In one of two tests today I apparently broke the sound barrier?

Two screenshots to present my case. The GPS-coordinates weren't that far of the actual trail! If the Ultratrac mode had used these points for measuring the distance, this wouldn't have been too far of. But apparently it uses the accelerometer as well? Why? 1300 km per hour?

Is there any other way to somehow increase battery life at the cost of some accuracy? The Ultratrac mode is clearly broken. Expedition Mode on the other hand turns off all the other interesting sensor readings I'd like to collect. Is this an issue of the new firmware? My girlfriend accompanied me and she has the Instinct Solar (so model 1) and it tracked our trail just fine using Ultratrac for hiking, it was perhaps 5% of.

Regards, Max

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Was this tour your first outdoor GPS activity with this watch ? Did you sync the watch with Express just before starting the tour ? Did you check if your CPE file shows "current" under "System - Info" BEFORE starting the activity profile ? This satellite almanac is only valid for a few days and must always be reloaded by synchronizing the watch.

    Did you only start running after your GPS signal was really stable ?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to bluefish

    It was not my first outdoor GPS activity (I regularly use the watch for running). I sync the warch daily. I checked the CPE file after your answer and it was "current" (though I consider needing to check this barely documented feature also a design flaw). The GPS signal was stable and conditions very good (trail around a lake, completely flat terrain, blue sky, no buildings within 100m at almost all times, some trees). Also, the GPS-data for the tracked trail is barely off, some 10 to 20 meters in some cases at most.

    The problem I encountered is not a user issue. Some inaccuracy due to user errors is to be expected and might have to be addressed by me. The fact that the software even considers accepting speeds beyond the sound barrier for activities like _hiking_ clearly indicates oversights in design and/or programming of the software. The idea of basing the tracked distance not purely on GPS data is intriguing, but not including a failsafe when the reported distance exceeds the length derived from GPS-data by a factor of around 200 is a mistake. This should at least trigger a prompt informing the user of a lack in accuracy, better yet provide information on how to increase accuracy, ideally cause additional sensor/GPS-readings to correct clearly faulty data (possibly at the expense of some energy, trading some battery life for data that is not basically corrupted).

    Ultratrac as it is is clearly not reliable. Currently it is better to bring a second power bank than to use Ultratrac. Hence my question for any meaningful alternatives. Are there any? Might this issue be resolved with newer firmware? I'm very happy with my Instinct 2 Solar for the most part, but put off by this - pardon - mess that is Ultratrac mode. We're planning a four week hike through scotland and want to minimize battery usage, the normal modes for hiking use up the battery in three to four days in our use case and we were looking for alternatives.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 5711386

    open ticket with support - the more of us complain - the sooner they will fix it