Feedback for GPS 2.60

Comparison of V2.60 versus version as at 26 June.  Both GPS + Galileo with all other settings the same.  One run 100km the other a marathon. I ran around the corner of the intersection of the sidewalks on the two streets with no shortcut across the park. Accuracy looks better on 26 June.  This continues my love/hate relationship with the 945.

I will not post tracks, instead of that I will post a picture of the reported pace after the update on one of my workouts (which is what bothers me with the GPS accuracy actually)

What it shows is that it takes a long time in order to even reach the pace I was going/targetting, and it still is very erratic. I'm certain I was much more stable in the pace than what it shows...

And if we are to believe the change log, it's just you think so, or your measurement are different from some other reason.

The update should not change anything else but the "Bug fix for time output when GPS is not used for an extended period of time.".

This should not affect that. Then is it your measurements or Garmin not telling that the GPS update had something else inside? Which one you think it is? 

Certainly, it's probably just as crappy as it was in the GPS accuracy, no change there. I just took one run and it probably happened to be a bit worse than the average, and I still miss my Fenix 5 which was actually better...Hoping that when they get the Fenix 7 out, probably in the next year, they will have improved.

For me GPS accuracy is not particularly important, to get good distance measurement and also a reliable instant-pace I use a foot-pod. Once that is in place GPS is only about the maps: (1) Looking at where you ran after you ran (e.g. on strava) (2) Looking at where you are (e.g. following a route) during a run. Both 1+2 are completly accepatbly met even when GPS is not super accurate, so I do not understand why so many people have such strong feelings about GPS accuracy. Get a foot-pod and use GPS for what it works well: A nice map overview of where you went :)

I might just do that, however, wouldn't it be nice not to have 2-3 extra accessories just to get the basics right? Already using a chest strap, will also get a food pod. Now, we could be also using the GPS on the phone (which a lot already carry when running, for music and whatever else), and then what use would the nice and expensive watch really have? Nothing! In any case, what foot pod are you using, the Garmin one? Do you recommend that or something else?

I would guess that it's because people have different needs.

For me the instant pace is not important, for me the accurate GPS far more important.

And as the accuracy was better with 935, it's pretty annoying that newer model has worse accuracy. And then why the accuracy is more important for me? I do orienteering and trail running, so it's not like "this was the street which I took" and pace is not so constant that you would want to monitor it often. Of course if running flat I look at the pace, but usually just what the pace was with last kilometer.

It would be nice, sure, but expecting good results from the "wrong" tech always leaves me puzzled. OHR is technologically not able to track heart-rate very well during activities, especially when the arms move a lot. A chest strap is the obvious solution for anybody who really cares about his HR. Same with GPS for distance and pace, a foot-pod is the obvious solution to this problem, GPS is more of a step-gap for situations where you only need a guestimate and not an accurate measurement of distance/pace.

The foot-pod I use is the stryd, it is probably the most expensive but maybe also the most accurate (from the tests I saw). Probably you can get cheeper foot-pods to work well, but maybe you need to invest some time to calibrate them well.

Full agree that 935 (the older gps chipset in general) had better accuracy. But the accuracy really is sufficient for all use-cases I highlighted, and battery usage is *way* more important to 95%+ of users than how perfect the line is on the path when zooming in on your strava map :).

Trail-running is also my main usage for the watch, I do not see a problem with GPS accuracy doing so, using the map is really only usable for way-finding in my opionion if you have pre-loaded a course/route, but just the map itself is really not very usable to navigate (due to resolution, slowness of rendering and size). If you really want to decide on-route which paths you want to take to get some place, I highly recommend a smart-phone with great offline maps loaded, the larger resolution and screen-size (and contrast, render speeds, usability...) will make it actually usable.

When trail-running with pre-loaded route (because I planned it ahead), the gps accuracy and map fuctionality works great to tell me which trail forks to take.

The battery advantage over 935 has been pretty negligible, and I think with 945 people have had more battery problems than with 935 (granted most of them without activity).

I would take the accuracy that 935 had with it's battery usage. Of course this has faster processor and that probably uses more power, so getting 945 battery usage to be pretty similar to 935 probably needed that crappy Sony GPS-chipset.

But the end result wasn't good. Yes, if there are few trails and their forks the GPS accuracy is enough, but then with orienteering I'm not taking trails, I'm just running in the forest and having errors there might make me do wrong conclusions on my route choice. 

But there's no point of continuing this. I tried to explain to you why people want GPS accuracy over something else, and apparently failed to get you to see the view why people want it, you just went back to you don't need it, in your use case it's good enough.