This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Apple Watch Convert

Former Member over 8 years ago

For years I had been hoping for an Apple watch with GPS that could run the Strava app autonmuosly without the phone. I bought the Apple Watch series 1 but it didnt have GPS so had to keep waiting

I bought the Apple Watch Series 2 when it came out in September of last year but took 6 months for Strava to release its autonmous app.

I finally had it have been using it for a month. Unfortunetly I was very disappointed. The GPS distance determinations are often way off and the HR monitor is also way off.

After running a 12 miler last weekend and having the app show it as 8.6 miles I finally gave up. After some research I decided on the Garmin 935. Was lucky enough to snag one and get it shipped overnight and today went for my first run.

Unbelievably my 4 mile standard run showed up as 4.8 miles. I think I didn't let the GPS connect before I hit start the second time. Afterwards I learned (from this forum) I could enable both GPS and Glonass, and did so.

Fingers crossed that is nails my distance tomorrow. I was very happy with the accuracy of the OHR.

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

If you post your Garmin Connect link we can see what might have happened. Did you get a GPS track for the whole run? If so does it look OK? It kind of suggests you did not have a good GPS fix.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

If you post your Garmin Connect link we can see what might have happened. Did you get a GPS track for the whole run? If so does it look OK? It kind of suggests you did not have a good GPS fix.

I actually deleted the activity from the watch and garmin connect.

I saved it on Strava here:

https://www.strava.com/activities/948736561

It is displaying only the final 1.4 or so miles of the 4 mile loop I ran, the first 2.6 miles is missing from the map though oddly it is showing the run as being 4.8 miles. As I was looking at the watch during the run I saw it was displaying a greater distance than I actually ran from the very first 1/2 mile and on to the end. Wound up estimating a high VO2 max for me- that I haven't figured out how to delete yet.

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

Yeah no GPS for a lot of it.

What happens in that case is that the watch tries to compute it based on arm swing rates modelled to your observed pace at such rates from your GPS runs. However on a new watch, there is no such info available so what you get is effectively "pot luck".

Try to make sure if you get the green GPS indicator next time before you start and should be a lot better.

0 Former Member over 8 years ago

Great news. I actually waited for the GPS to connect today...duh. Very impressively accurate run distance and OHR.

https://www.strava.com/activities/950094284

Much better than current AW series 2 + Strava app

The VO2 max calucation I got today was almost the same as the one yesterday in which my pace was incorreclty determined to be 3 min/mile faster. Are the VO2 maxes differnet for each workout or are we shown the combined average from all prior efforts?

0 timgrose over 8 years ago

With VO2 Max it generally takes about a week to settle down to a stable value then does not tend to change too much as basically your real VO2 Max should not anyway.

I suspect there must be an element of correlation with the current value as it never say falls 10 "points" then back up the next day.