GPS accuracy

the recording rate in your 955 is smart, i think it is the problem. set to every sec ( 1 sec recording), and it will be flawless

From https://support.garmin.com/en-CA/?faq=s4w6kZmbmK0P6l20SgpW28 -

Smart Recording 

Smart Recording captures key data points as changes occur in direction, speed, heart rate or elevation. This method is recommended as it saves space on your device and has no negative impact on GPS accuracy. This setting will also be the most beneficial to your battery life. 

Has been pretty good, better than previous. Not counting that there's some weird openwater thing that it's not using distance from the track it records but from some unknown algorithm that does not work.

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-955-series/298162/open-water-swim-distance-differs-from-the-track-recorded/1443414#1443414 

i concur with Flipstone. it's unclear to me which is a more faithful representation of reality. i know from my experience running, my 955 with All Satellites or Multibad is definitely superior to my prior 935 and 945LTE in two ways: it seems to very accurately represent what side of a trail or path I'm on, and i get more reasonable instantaneous pace estimates. (with the older watches, going through tree cover the instantaneous pace would plummet (slow) only to overshoot to faster than it should be after i get the through the covering and then restabilize to a reasonable pace...all of this during a time i know my pace hasn't changed in any appreciable way.

i know it, but if the recording rate is smart, then there are much less gps datapoints and the track could be jaggy (not so smooth if there are much more datapoints, in every secs). (i checked only the quality of the track, and not the speed/pace chart and for me it looks.like jaggy)

btw the poster linked GConnect maps  and that was showing not the real track quality in the past (i dont know what is the situation now), that is using some kind of "compression" (lowering the resolution of the gps datapoints), so if you wanna get real comparisons with the most gps datapoints from your activity files, you must upload it to a different analysis site (like strava or quantifiedself.io)

btw this smart is totally pointless in year 2022, this watch has 16 or 32 or 64gb storage, this smart recording was introduced apprx in 2010 or sooner when the watches had 4mbyte or less storage... so thr Garmin should kill this feature , nobody needs a FIT file with less datapoints, the storage is nearly unlimited already...

My local parkrun has lots of tree cover and many sharp turns. The vivoactive3 consistently under-recorded the distance, usually by 300-500m. It should be 5km exactly. The paces were wildly out, too, so much so that I recorded the runs on Strava on my phone instead.

On a beach parkrun (with a totally clear sky view and an out-and-back course) the va3 recorded 5km exactly.

The Forerunner 955 Solar in All+Multiband GPS actually has over recorded the distance at my local parkrun by about 300m consistently the last two weeks. The recorded track looks very clean too, and the paces recorded look realistic.

On other runs I've done recently, the tracks have been excellent, usually better than 2m accuracy.

I don’t know what watch is accurate but I had ran with a 935 for 2-3 years. The past year I’ve ran most of my runs with someone that has a 245 and my 935 is usually a little behind in mileage. A couple months ago I bought a 945lte and it is close on open areas but on a 9 mile trail run I had a .5 mile difference between the 935 and 945lte with the 945 showing longer while the 245 is usually in between my 2 watches. Last week I got a 955 and on a 9 mile trail run it showed even longer than the 945lte by about .3 . I haven’t got to run with the 955 and 935 yet on a long trail run but will soon. In my opinion that’s just too much difference in mileage . 

Hey!

It's set to 1 sec.

:(

I was expecting the"holly grail of gps" like someone said. Instead, I got same straight lines and sharp angles.

The 955 is definitely a great upgrade to 935.im not questing that.

The 3th track was 7:40h and left me with 68% battery. That's rock solid