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GPS malfunction ? (Open Water and Running)

Baptiste_Yahya
over 4 years ago

Hello.

I have tried the Open Water activity and was completely disappointed.

I wanted to swim about 800m. My watch started acting crazy and vibrating constantly at ~ 500 m.  I think it was notifying me 500m laps.

So from ~800m it went to 8km, in 15 minutes of activity. The GPS tracking went on the ground in a straight line, then came back.

You can check this magnificent result on the followinglink: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/4998903454

 ___

My Swim2 is on v2.30, won't auto update.
French support on Twitter asked me to factory reset it. Which I did (there procedure was not even giving the right buttons to press...). Then they asked me to update to 2.90  with WebUpdater.

Website download link is not working. Hopefully, my brother had it on its computer. Tried updating from 2.30 to the new firmware.... but nothing is available. Tried to reinstall the current version, and it's still offering 2.30.

How can I update my GPS firmware to 2.90 ?

Also, my running GPS tracks are completely random too ... Apparently, I can run through houses. All my running tracks are showing this kind of track

Finally, my HR won't work when cycling. While I hould have ~160 bpm, it shows ~90 bpm... any solution ?

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I think there is a misunderstanding.

    You have firmware version 2.30, and this is the latest version.

    Please check the GPS version, that should be 2.90. Menu, About, press down button 4 times, it will tell you the GPS, BLE, ANT, sensor hub, CIQ, WHR versions. If GPS is on 2.90, you are set correctly.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    Oh thanks for the clarification. I wish French support told me that before...

    Then, does it mean no update will improve my poor GPS performance?

    Is my swim 2 faulty or is it just the regular quality?

    Please tell me I didn't spend 250 € for this low quality GPS tracking?..

    My previous watch was a VA3 with a faulty battery, and it's replacement has a faulty HR and elevation sensors...

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Baptiste_Yahya

    These issues, having a track a bit shifted to some direction, or having a sudden wrong measuring point can happen, at least I have seen people reporting similar issues for different products. I think that the factory reset should have solved it. Make sure that you have a current CPE file - that you can find in the same menu item than SW, GPS, etc. versions, but you have to scroll it further. If you synced the watch with Garmin Express since the factory reset, you do have the current CPE file.

    I do not have issues on dry land with the GPS, all the tracks are perfect. However I have some issues with open water swims, I think that there is still a bug there what sometimes prevents the watch to track correctly (sometimes the watch loses GPS at the first stroke and never finds it, sometimes there is a perfect track), I hope that Garmin will solve that.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to PG

    Hm I fear this sounds more like a hardware issue than a firmware bug.

    I really hope I am wrong... I'll see with my next activities. But this was the last purchase I placed with Garmin.

    I don't understand how you can justify such prices when the quality of precision / specialized devices is getting poorer.

    If it were for 1 device, that could be understandable. But I have been comparing 2 different Vivoactive 3 watches with individual hardware defaults, one vivoactive 3+music as well, a Vivosport and a faulty Index Scale....

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Baptiste_Yahya

    It seems to be pure SW issue. One thing is that if it works, it works correctly, and extremely well. If it does not, then many different things can happen. Last summer there was a major issue with most of the Garmin watches at OW swims. It seems that the issue continues, but with a little bit different symptoms.

    Check this old thread:

    forums.garmin.com/.../894693

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to PG

    I've had my Swim2 for over a year and it has been tracking OWS well, until the last week.  Now it seems to stop tracking mid swim.  However, I have to admit that it got impatient with it trying to lock onto a satellite, and just pressed Start anyway.  Would that lead to the faulty tracking?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to 4606315

    If the CPE file was expired, then in case of mid swim GPS loss it can happen that the GPS signal recovery can not work.

    I always wait for a GPS lock, with current CPE file it should not last long (usually within 15 sec, but if too long, maybe up to 1 min)