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Different GPS distance between two the same watches

7742487
over 3 years ago

Hi there,

I bought recently two garmin watches Vivoactive 4 for me and 4s for my partner. I enjoy both of the watches but there is one confusing think - the distance on gps. Anytime we go for walk or running 4s showing large distance then 4. It's not like 10m or 100m but much more. When we walk 5km its about 0,5km difference. When we went for hiking last week mine showed 16km, her 18,5km so it is already 2,5km. We both using the same gps+glonoss (checked the others and its all the same). We both have set inteligent way of recording. I looked at the gps track on garmin connect and its also the same with one difference, her track looks always like zig zig unlike mine which looks pretty straight event though we walk together. Any idea why there is so much difference?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    We have seen before that the angle of the watch can matter. It works better for cycling when the watch face is towards the sky than when it is pointing to the side or down. Maybe you hold the arm slightly differently when walking? 

    I would recommend storing GPS location every second, not the "intelligent" mode.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    I did change it to every second and the result as before. She always has different results, about 100m for every 1km we went through. Try to switch watches for a walk. Probably the result will be the same, anyway check it. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 7742487

    that's interesting case, maybe make a test by wearing both watches yourself either on one hand by distancing them a bit or on two hands and walk 1km just to see if this difference in distance still persist. I could expect such behavior from different devices, but one line of watches should give more or less similar results at least in my imagination.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to sensovision

    The best test is both on the same arm separated by an inch or so.

    One other thing that comes into play is your body.  Where is is in relation to the watch and the satellite.  You body can block some GPS signals.