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OW swim GPS loss, always

PG
over 4 years ago

Note:I edited this original post just to make clear that I am not searching for any proof that the watch can work, but this thread is for troubleshooting issues. Editings are in bold

My Swim2 refuses to track my OW swims. Front crawl, the GPS signal is lost immediately after I start swim. CPE file is current, sync with watch is frequent, I swim front crawl only. This is my second watch, the first one was replaced with the same issue, but the new one works EXACTLY the same. It is highly unlikely that I received two faulty units. As a comparison, FR910XT measures my swims fault free. The result is just a sketch of the track (when I stop, it finds GPS signal, but never during swim - works like it would be in running mode), pace is constant (accelerometer data) with small bursts of GPS signal catch ups, distance is doubled.

my ideas are the followings:

1)- the watch is not designed to my style of front crawl (slow stroke rate, about 40 strokes per minute) - in this case the watch is totally useless, old watch is the way to go - there is nothing wrong with my front crawl and slow stroke rate, watch can recognize it

2)- activity tracking, move IQ is needed for OW swim - this is not mentioned by Garmin, this is what I switched off as I do not need that. I will try with all the default settings next time - no extra features are needed

3)- I received two faulty products in a row - no, the second one is working (but I still need to find what can make it wrong sometimes), and most possibly the first one was correct as well

4)- SW version 2.30 has a big bug with OW swim - most probably there are one or more bugs, but not with the ded reckoning, just general bugs making the watch behaving weird sometimes

5)- Swim2 is a piece of *** - no comment, this note was an impression of my frustration earlier

I really want to hope that option 2 is the right guess. But right now I really lost any faith in Garmin. 250$, and it can not do what it was made for.

Any ideas? Does/did anyone have similar problem?

In case someone runs into this thread, the conclusion is at the end. Everything works perfect.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    It works exceptionally well for me and a friend.  Perhaps you have had faulty units.  Garmin had this on another model last year.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I think that it could be your very low stroke rate.  As an experiment, try to do a swim with a stroke rate at 60 or above and see if it tracks well.

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Finally I managed to get a nearly perfect track from Swim2. I am still in the testing process, should find the perfect settings, but it seems that either there is a bug in the software, or there is a processor limitation causing that OW swims are not correctly tracked sometimes.

    The following changes were made in the settings:

    - I switched on activity tracking. I thought that maybe OW tracking is bound to that. It is still not confirmed by my tests if it is needed or not. With activity tracking set to ON, I had two short swims (about 200m only) this week with terrible results. But that confirms nothing - see next point

    - today I made two changes only (activity tracking remained ON). One is that I switched the watch from left wrist to the right. I guess that this should have no effect, as my swim is symmetrical (breathing to both sides). The second one is that I switched OFF "Physio TrueUp". The first 300m was again a mess, with no result. But after that the watch picked up GPS signal, and could hold it throughout the entire swim, even though I added lots of provoking turns without any stop.

    As an addition, I swam with a borrowed FR945 on my other wrist. It had "activity tracking" ON, and also "Physio TrueUp" ON. The watch could NOT keep the track, it lost the signal continuously - so it is either Physio TrueUp, or, as FR945 was on my left wrist, my left arm moves very very differently - what I doubt.

    (and I had a reference FR910XT under my swim cap)

    I do not know, what Physio TrueUp does, but maybe it uses too much computing resources, causing the watch can not keep up with ded reckoning, and losing the GPS signal continuously. The other options are that there is a bug in Physio TrueUp, or the OW swim is bound to activity tracking

    So I did not have faulty units. Even the first one was perfect. Simply Garmin forgot to tell limitations and settings, so they had to do a replacement for nothing. At least I have a brand new watch after 6 month of use...

    Also my slow stroke rate does not add to the GPS loss. I tend to think that the limitation is computing resources, as the FR945 could hold with the GPS signal a little bit better with Physio TrueUp as Swim2. But it still failed completely (way overinflated measurements, constant pace from accelerometers, but a bit more found points)

    My theory might be wrong, but at least I see the potential in Swim2, and I know that it is capable to record perfect OW tracks. Still I will swim with 2 watch for a while (FR910XT and Swim2) just to find the perfect settings for a uncompromised OW measurement.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    Today I ruled out activity tracking, it does not matter if it is set to on or off.

    Two candidates remained (if I do not count which wrist), Physio TrueUp and Bluetooth. Now I think that Bluetooth might be the most possible candidate. Next time I will try with Physio TrueUp ON to check its effect. I keep bluetooth for the last test.

    With every extra option switched off, OW tracking is now extremely good!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Nope, everything worked as "advertised"...Looking forward (good weather) to go again to the sea...  ;)

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    Still struggling a bit. The watch worked perfect for three swims, today it created an unacceptable track/distance again. Only difference was that I changed pool swim data fields (it was still set to defaults as I did not use the new watch in pool as they are closed). Data field settings still do have a strange bug, as it changed back several times to default. Now I made some soft reset as well. Watch was again on the left wrist.

    Lets see if next time after the resets etc. it starts to work again (on the right wrist)

    Its hard to troubleshoot if I do not have a tool to see the actual processes inside the watch, and how they are working. My theory now is that the data field setting bug ate up the computing resources. 

    Maybe I had BT on again??

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    Sorry, my bad for sure, but I do not understand your post...
    I went to the sea today, everything perfect as before: https://strava.app.link/3ZfthMrOC6.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Paulo_Goulart

    Its about me for finding the way IF things get wrong, what settings are needed to get the watch OW track working again. I DO KNOW that this watch can track OW swims perfectly, I do not need proof of that any more. 

    Basic rule:

    If the watch start to work well, do not touch anything in the settings.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    But what settings are you talking about? There are (almost) no settings at all. It is the simplest device I have or had (I have a Fénix 5s, an Edge 1030 and a Fénix 3)...

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Paulo_Goulart

    "There are (almost) no settings at all. "

    That's the trick. No extra settings, but things still can go wrong. Watch still have several bugs, what can overload the watch, causing malfunction, esp. in OW tracks. I am quite successful at experiencing bugs unfortunately.

    Now I checked HR and stroke charts in messed up tracks, and it can be clearly seen, that they are different from the good ones. This proves that there is no problem with the GPS signal itself, but most probably I ran into an overload situation inside the watch.

    I better stop reporting things here, as everyone wants to convince me that watch works perfectly. I DO KNOW that it can work perfectly (it did that for me, but unfortunately I again ran into a bug - I did not follow basic rule, changed things, and if I change them back, watch do not behave), but unfortunately if I do not describe the bug to Garmin, they will NEVER correct it, as the circumstances are very special. (I will report it to them as soon as I find the exact steps how to reproduce - I know from experience that support is useless unless I can prove and reproduce the situation)