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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 PG over 3 years ago in reply to PG

Hah, just a note, another disaster measurement. (just 2 days ago it looked like the watch finds itself again) All of the extra features were switched off, BT off, CPE current, long GPS lock, soft reset earlier, phone sync, clear sky, etc.. I tend to think that it is not about settings, but either there is a bug in the OW software, or in the watch what I manage to call always.

The watch either measures everything and is the BEST OW watch ever, or it does not measure anything (just some distance and stroke measurement from accelerometers), and is the WORST OW watch ever. I experienced both, so there is no problem with my swimming style, stroke rate, GPS, hardware, anything. It is just about luck. I really envy those lucky people who have only perfect measurements.

0 Paulo_Goulart over 3 years ago in reply to PG

Hi, what can I (we) say? If you have this different behaviour within the same conditions, you have a malfunction, not a bug...

Before sending it to Garmin, try a factory reset (with the PC). For an engineer it's almost a switch off and on (or a kick), and maybe a miracle happens...

0 PG over 3 years ago in reply to Paulo_Goulart

Hi Paulo,

I did that (all kinds of reset, soft, data reset, factory reset), it did not help. Believe me, I tried every possibilities. This is a bug for sure, and a nasty one, well hidden.

I reported this to Garmin. I do not know if they are able to troubleshoot it enough, but I hope so. Also believe me, I am not the only one experiencing this. Actually as I wrote it before, FR945 has the same issue.

0 PG over 3 years ago in reply to Paulo_Goulart

I performed a new factory reset, but this time I did not customize the watch after that. I switched off activity tracking, and set basic functions like backlight and sound settings though.

I can say, miracle happened. Or at least the track line was perfect again, even if I can see some short GPS signal loss and a resulting 100m distance over measurement. There were some thunderstorms around (not so close to be in danger), so the short signal loss periods might be a consequence of that. The watch always found the lost signal during swim, no stops were needed.

Earlier I always customized the watch, data fields, etc. right after the factory reset. This might explain my bad experience.

From now the next step will be to slowly add all the custom settings, fields what I need. The bug must be there. This also might explain why appears the problem only for some people (but for them always) and why never for others.

0 twobeatkick over 1 year ago in reply to PG

I think your experiences are spot on. They now talk officially of "GPS drift" and suggest you "GPS Soak" for a few minutes before pressing go but all this advice is just a bodged workaround for a buggy watch.

0 PG over 1 year ago in reply to twobeatkick

Its my bad, that I did not update this thread. Actually it turned out that the watch works correctly, and my swim style needs improvement. Since then I made numerous OW swims, and the watch worked correctly. The magic was that I switched the watch from left to right. No tweaking of settings are needed, the watch is capable of tracking in OW. After a video analysis I see that my swim is far from being perfect, and my arm strokes are far from being symmetrical, at least underwater. That might have a high impact on tracking. Also I make/made more faults on the left side, that explains why the right is the preferred side now.

Hint: The watch does not like over rotation and any rotational imbalances. Or more precisely, if you have balancing issues in the water, chances are high that OW measurements will have issues.

Now I think that the problem is with the complexity of the GPS tracking algorithm. If you make some extra movements underwater, it might screw up the tracking. I just assume that the algorithm also checks when the watch should be over the water surface, and if it fails (e.g. because of a wonky movement the watch is still underwater but it thinks that it is in the air), the measurement will fail and the algorithm should start everything from scratch. This is the drawback of the very sophisticated algorithm. If your swim style is wrong, the measurement fails completely. With the older algorithms the measurement can keep track as there are not many inputs, but the accuracy is worse. Now as I know what to expect, I really like how Swim2 operates.