No/low gps signal

My Forerunner 965 seems to lose the gps signal in a tunnel with very low or no signal - that’s probably ok. BUT other runners with Garmin 220, vivoactive 4 and other Garmin watches still seems to be able to read the pace correctly. Are the other Garmin watches using other means to calculate correct pace, or are there some settings I should change on my 965??

0 flocsy🤠 8 days ago

For better pace calculations without GPS (that also includes walking indoors for example) you should 1st go outside in a place where there are no obstacles, and record some walk/run (I guess you already did that). Then make sure that the stride length settings is correct: Garmin Connect > Device icon > Forerunner 965 > Health & Wellness > Custom Stride Length. Then you can test it by walking indoors and making sure your arms are moving "naturally"

0 RichardB 5 days ago

If you're using an HRM strap then it will help to read the pace correctly.

0 flocsy🤠 5 days ago in reply to RichardB

Not sure how much. First of all it is only true for Garmin HRM Run or similar that also acts as "foot pod". But I'm not sure how much it helps in case of fr965 that itself knows almost all of those things. For another watch without the running metrics it might help more IMHO

0 flowstate 4 days ago in reply to flocsy🤠

flocsy🤠 said:
Not sure how much. First of all it is only true for Garmin HRM Run or similar that also acts as "foot pod". But I'm not sure how much it helps in case of fr965 that itself knows almost all of those things. For another watch without the running metrics it might help more IMHO

For context, HRM-RUN is literally 10 years old at this point and all newer Garmin chest straps incorporate the same functionality (or more), so actually, any non-ancient Garmin chest strap will (optionally) act as a source of pace or distance (indoors or outdoors).

But you do have a point that only Garmin straps will do so (for Garmin watches ofc).

To call out HRM-RUN specifically isn't super relevant, because again, if someone has a Garmin chest strap at this point, it's probably HRM-RUN or newer. And if they're the type of Garmin user who is clinging to a 20 year old chest strap, they probably don't have an FR965.

flocsy🤠 said:
For another watch without the running metrics it might help more IMHO

Again, you'd have to buy a very old Garmin watch (10+ years old) for it to *not* support pace/distance from the wrist (via accelerometer). A watch that old might not even support pace/distance from a chest strap.

However, anecdotally speaking, Garmin chest straps are said to be more accurate than the wrist for pace/distance, but a real foot pod (especially a Stryd) is said to be even more accurate than a chest strap.

It's too bad that Garmin foot pods are discontinued and Stryd is very expensive.

I guess one of my points is that according to your argument (that pace/distance from a Garmin strap is no better than pace/distance from the watch accelerometer itself), it would make zero sense for Garmin to allow a Garmin strap to be used as a source for pace/distance outdoors. Either this feature is just a pointless marketing exercise (which is possible - idk) or in fact pace/distance from the strap might be better than pace/distance from the accelerometer.

For one thing, think about where the strap is situated, and the fact that you can run without swinging your watch arm, but you can't run without your chest moving up and down.

0 flowstate 4 days ago in reply to flocsy🤠

flocsy🤠 said:
But I'm not sure how much it helps in case of fr965 that itself knows almost all of those things.

By the same argument, a foot pod is useless for any Garmin watch that isn't over 10 years old. And indeed, Garmin discontinued their foot pods.

But they doesn't explain why Garmin would spend money to put similar functionality in all of their chest straps. By doing so, they are implying that such functionality is not worthless (or at least, that's what they want users to believe).

And it also doesn't explain why some people swear by the Stryd foot pod for indoor pace on the treadmill and even for outdoor pace.

Anecdotally, I prefer using a foot pod for cadence, even though I know it comes from the wrist too, because a foot pod will continue to measure cadence properly even when your arm isn't swinging normally (e.g. when you're checking your watch). I realize it's a silly use case but then again I know other people who think the same way (they're in the minority too) and also, I got my Stryd for free. I also use Stryd for the rare indoor treadmill run, and also to record pace/distance when I play basketball.