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FR 230 takes ages to get gps lock

Former Member over 8 years ago

Hi.

I've had a fr230 for a month now and the time to get a gps lock has always been above 15/20 minutes. As soon as I got it I took it for a run and after standing still like an idiot for >15 minutes without a GPS lock I just gave up and run without tracking. And we are talking about a city park...no tall buildings impeding the gps signal, pretty much just clear skies. So since then I reverted to my old polar+footpod for running and I've been taking the forerunner for walks around the city hoping to get a sense of the reason why this thing just doesn't seem to be able to work reliably.

-I tried with and without glonass
-I tried with and without an updated epo.bin file (the file containing the preloaded gps data for a, theoretically, fast lock)
-I've always started at the same point so as to make the FR's life easier, so to speak
-Obviously I've restarted the FR many times.
-The FW has always been up to date.

Through all of this the GPS lock time has always been 15/20 minutes and today the FR touched a new low (or high): 35 minutes...
I live in a large city but the buildings are old (or even ancient) and they are not very tall, so they do not impede the gps signal. And I've always kept on large roads, again just to make the FR's life easier. But it's all been to no avail.

And the worst aspect is that I don't even think that my FR is defective (we are talking about a large and renown manufacturer so the probability of a defective product should be pretty low). I'm beginning to think that this may be a design problem and therefore not fixable.

I think I tried everything to make it work reliably but if someone think I've missed something please do tell.

0 jim_m_58 over 8 years ago

With a 230, I'll get a GPS lock in seconds. What I do is head outside, fire up the app, wait for a GPS lock and then press start and take off...

So, I'm not moving while waiting for a lock.

Are you pressing start and moving while trying to get a lock? I can see where moving while still trying to get a lock would take more time.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

With a 230, I'll get a GPS lock in seconds. What I do is head outside, fire up the app, wait for a GPS lock and then press start and take off...

So, I'm not moving while waiting for a lock.

Are you pressing start and moving while trying to get a lock? I can see where moving while still trying to get a lock would take more time.

Yes I tried both ways. Press start, "wait for GPS" says the FR, and I tried standing still or walking. Same lock time in both cases.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I can add that while waiting for a fix often I keep an eye on the 5 GPS signal bars. Usually they go from blinking to solid one after the other (obviously) very very slowly but sort of steadily. It doesn't seem to be like a mobile phone where when you get, say, 3 bars out of 5 that means that your data bandwidth may be low but you are still able to send/receive. In the FR case it seems almost like the five bars represent the amount of data acquired from the satellites up to that point and not the strength of the signal.
It takes ages to get to five bars but when it gets there it locks instantaneously.

I know it doesn't make any sense but it _looks_ like it's behaving like that.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Hi, I own a Forerunner 235 (essentially the same watch as the 230), and it also takes a very long time to get gps lock. I live in a city, but I always start my runs from a park downtown with a clear view of the sky. Some days it takes 4-5 mins to get gps lock, some days it simply never catches the gps (the watch eventually catches the gps about 5kms into my run).

I do not move while waiting for a lock and sync my watch at least every week.

Anyone else experiencing this? Any idea if this could be a sign the gps in my watch is defective (I have zero issues with it other than this)? Thank you!

0 ASmugDill over 8 years ago

I live in a city, but I always start my runs from a park downtown with a clear view of the sky. Some days it takes 4-5 mins to get gps lock,

My situation is similar, and as a habit I always prep my Run on the FR235 once I'm outside. In the eight to ten minutes it takes me to walk to the park, I usually (say, 95% of the time) get the “GPS is ready” toast notification approximately halfway there.

It takes significantly longer after the occasional hard reset (including where the watch spontaneously reset itself without user intervention; that happened on my FR235 twice in four months).

0 ASmugDill over 8 years ago

-I tried with and without an updated epo.bin file (the file containing the preloaded gps data for a, theoretically, fast lock)

I cannot help but find that an oddly technical description. Did you use Garmin Express to sync your watch – and merely want to convey that you checked in the \Garmin\REMOTESW directory on the device, confirmed that there is an EPO.BIN file, and took note of the file's timestamp, while the watch remained connected to your computer by the USB docking cable? Or did you use some other means to download an EPO.BIN file from somewhere and then manually dropped it into the device's directory tree?

It doesn't seem to be like a mobile phone where when you get, say, 3 bars out of 5 that means that your data bandwidth may be low but you are still able to send/receive. In the FR case it seems almost like the five bars represent the amount of data acquired from the satellites up to that point and not the strength of the signal.

I don't think it's a representation of the strength of the signal at all. This is what Garmin says about GPS:

A GPS receiver must be locked on to the signal of at least 3 satellites to calculate a 2-D position (latitude and longitude) and track movement. With four or more satellites in view, the receiver can determine the user's 3-D position (latitude, longitude and altitude).

so I expect the number of bars to be somehow representative of the number of satellites from which the watch is able to get a lock on the signal. Just to be clear, I'm not saying three bars equates to three satellites, because even though that would make logical sense I simply have no idea of how it's scaled; in the Connect‑IQ API, there is a numeric attribute for GPS positional accuracy, of which the range is unclear to me.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I cannot help but find that an oddly technical description. Did you use Garmin Express to sync your watch – and merely want to convey that you checked in the \Garmin\REMOTESW directory on the device, confirmed that there is an EPO.BIN file, and took note of the file's timestamp, while the watch remained connected to your computer by the USB docking cable? Or did you use some other means to download an EPO.BIN file from somewhere and then manually dropped it into the device's directory tree?

Yes, I used garmin express to update the epo.bin and checked if the modification time of the file changed after the sync. And it did and does regularly. What I meant is that I tried to get a lock with a "fresh" epo.bin (i.e. right after I used garmin express to update it) and with an epo.bin several days old. Same lock time in both cases.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Yes, I used garmin express to update the epo.bin and checked if the modification time of the file changed after the sync. And it did and does regularly. What I meant is that I tried to get a lock with a "fresh" epo.bin (i.e. right after I used garmin express to update it) and with an epo.bin several days old. Same lock time in both cases.

Same for me. It does not seem to matter when I last synced the watch with Garmin Connect or Express, lock time is the same.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

I did a simple experiment: I removed the epo.bin file from the filesystem and then went outside.....and it took the usual long time to get a gps fix.
It looks like that file doesn't do anything or it's just ignored by the software.

I'm baffled.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Just an update.
Garmin support contacted me via email and asked me to send them a zip archive of the whole GARMIN directory in my FR230 so that they can see if something abnormal is going on.
So...I'm impressed. Very professional of them, I must say.