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Gps / glonass / galileo

simonlane1
over 5 years ago
Hi, I've always had my Garmin set to "GPS only" as I read here that using "GPS + GLONASS" used battery life more intensively. And I have to say, it always works fine. Perhaps some slight inaccuracy if I'm cycling under tree canopies, or close to tall buildings, but never enough to make navigation difficult, or to make any recorded routes inaccurate.

Are there any advantages to switching on the GLONASS or GALILEO settings?

Is GALILEO any kinder to batteries than GLONASS?

I can see some technical differences between these systems via a Google search, but in terms of what works best out on the road, why do we need a choice of settings? What's the advantage of the third option included in the latest firmware?

Can anyone help with any of this?
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    Hi,
    I’ve never had battery issues using GPS+GLONASS. Since 11.0 ive been using GPS +GALILEO. No battery issues.

    I don’t know which is best - I assumed that GPS+GALILEO was better than the other options. Hopefully someone will enlighten us.
    Nick
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    nickdodo simonlane1 I have used GPS/Glonass then GPS/Galileo since they were introduced - I have not noticed additional battery drain. I'm not sure how much benefit they give but I believe from reading various threads on here that the additional benefits of Galileo or Glonass will vary according to your location. I suggest you research the threads on here for people's experiences. If you are generally getting good GPS tracks however you may as well just stick with what you have.
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    The accuracy of the GNSS will pretty much depend on the number of satellites covering your location at a given moment. The higher the better, and this mostly affects vertical position accuracy. If you are fine with GPS there is not a strong reason to use others, but using the other options should not impact your battery much, either. If you want to have an informed guess about what works better at the location and time of your trains, you wan download a phone app showing you the number of satellites from each GNSS choice. If you are on iphone, GNSSview and GPSPlan are free options.
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    Thanks chaps.
    I don’t have battery issues but might do some research into satellite availability.
    Nick
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    If you decide to use Glonass, you should probably test it first. A lot of Garmin owners have reported that GPS accuracy is worse with Glonass enabled. The only positive experiences I have heard about is people living very far to the north, where the Glonass satellite constellation apparently has better coverage.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago
    I have an app on my phone that shows the current satellite positions. I live in the Pacific Northwest and use GPS only. I've tried Glonass; where I pick up several satellites, and found no difference then using GPS only. Same with Galileo, but I've never had more than 3-4 Galileo satellites in view to really make a difference. Normally, I'll have 1 or 2. As stated earlier, it comes down to your location and what satellites are in your view. I have no idea if adding a second satellite option increases battery consumption, but I didn't notice and difference in the limited testing I was doing.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 5 years ago
    Duplicate post.
  • 0 over 4 years ago

    So here's an odd response/experience from my Edge820 head unit. For context; I have all of my activity profiles set to use GPS+GLONASS since the very beginning of owning Garmin head units that contained this feature. Racing and riding MTB has me in deep woods on the East coast of the U.S. quite often and, with GPS only; I would find myself losing coverage, having erratic tracking lines, and especially strange speed readings. The speed consistency was later fixed with their new ANT+ speed sensor on the hubs but I still needed the GPS+GLONASS to pierce the tree canopy for good resolution.

    Now, I train quite extensively on the road and will quite often make myself a route on Garmin Connect to follow on a training ride. Prior to this past week; I could navigate those routes without much error and/or loss of resolution from the Edge head unit. I might have gotten 1 or maybe 2 instances of "Off Course; Course Found" beeps on any given navigation.

    Now, after upgrading my Edge820 to v11 that added the Galileo feature; those same activity profiles, set to use GPS+GLONASS as they always have been, and navigating similar routes in the same geographic area... I suddenly received multiple (as in annoyingly multiple) "Off course/Course found" beeps on at least two training routes. Both routes were created and downloaded from Garmin Connect as I've always done and navigating using the same activity profile as before.

    Then, as a curiosity hypothesis; I changed one activity profile to utilize GPS+Galileo and suddenly no more "Off Course/Course Found" annoyance beeps/reminders... VERY, VERY ODD!

    The very next day, I created/downloaded a new course through Connect, and navigated at first using an activity profile that was still set to GPS+GLONASS... as predicted; there were the numerous and unrelenting "Off Course/Course Found" beeps. I then stopped, changed the profile to another that uses GPS+Galileo and the beeps suddenly went away.

    Prior to upgrading my Edge820 to v11, I NEVER experienced so many "Off Course/Course Found" beeps on a route... so why the sudden change/loss of resolution with GPS+GLONASS???? Why is GPS+Galileo suddenly giving me better resolution on road courses and will GPS+Galileo still provide the same needed resolution under deep tree canopy as GPS+GLONASS provided?

    Just off the cuff; it seems like Garmin is trying to move away from GLONASS support in its head units. I really don't have any other explanation/theory why I would so suddenly lose reception with that combination...

  • 0 over 4 years ago
    Just off the cuff; it seems like Garmin is trying to move away from GLONASS support in its head units. I really don't have any other explanation/theory why I would so suddenly lose reception with that combination...

    It's not a good hypothesis. Users will just get an impression that the device doesn't work. It doesn't make sense that Garmin would see that as a useful result.

    Supporting glonass (or Galileo) means Garmin is an option for users who might not want to rely on US services.

    Galileo is new (it wasn't really useable until recently). It has (now) more satellites than the others (which means it should be more accurate).
  • 0 over 4 years ago
    Supporting glonass (or Galileo) means Garmin is an option for users who might not want to rely on US services.

    ...amd might need access to a larger number of satellites to improve position information, particularly in the higher latitudes in the north and south hemispheres and urban environments.

    As to why one is better than the other? There are phone apps that will tell you what satellites are overhead at any particular time. It could simply be that at that time one group was present while the other was not.