Poor GPS performance (compared to Race S)
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Recently I am having very poor GPS performance during some hikes/runs, especially comparing against my wife’s Race S.
Both watches are updated, we are following the same path, waiting the GPS fix around the same time and syncing the watches with our mobiles (both Pixels) before each activity.Here an example:
I am sure you can appreciate which is the correct one…
Anyone else has experienced similar drop in performance? Is there any known workaround?
While hiking I have tried toggling between the various Battery Modes without any luck. I am tempted by a power cycle of the watch but would appreciate an input from support as I have sent the logs.
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@enneo hey have Sometimes very good GPS Performance, Sometimes little bad. But Most of the time without any Problems.
If it doesn't challenge you, it doesn't change you. #lifewithasthma #runwithasthma #nevergiveup #pushinglimits #adventurestartshere Suunto D9, 9 Baro, 9 Peak, Vertical Ti, Race , Race s Courtney, SA (Beta) Android🏃🏼🧗⛷️🚵
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I’d do a power cycle anyway, just as a test
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@GiPFELKiND that matches my experience: the GPS performance is inconsistent.
I initially thought that this was due to areas with lower GPS coverage (woods, tall buildings, steep mountains…) while now I start to think that it may be more related to a software bug as the Race S, that (as far as I am aware) shares the same GNSS receiver, is less affected by this.
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Unfortunately, I have often had same experience with poor GPS tracking.
I have experienced very poor GPS tracking when doing a running activity. Which has occurred on a regular basis. Looking at the map after an activity compared to the taken route that occurs pretty often. Usually, (when I check) I find some wrong turns, choice of roads doesn’t match etc.
Worst example though, is a run I recorded yesterday. For the first half (5k) the GPS tracking is so bad it crosses canal sides absurdly (without taking bridges), being hundreds of meters off and crossing through buildings.
Suunto GPS tracking - 1/2:
Actual route drawn to the exact path followed - 1/2:
Suunto GPS tracking - 2/2:
Actual route drawn to the exact path followed - 2/2:
Note that in the second half the Suunto tracking does not even come close to the ‘Gentbrugge Meersen’ green patch in the map that I passed through. It is hundreds of meters off!
Overall, I have to say I was astonished by how off this has been. The Komoot calculates the route to be 11.4kms and the GPS tracking 10.1kms, this means that it could be off even in the total distance and thus pace calculation etc…
I hope via the Suunto support we can find some solution to this problems with GPS tracking. Reviewers have evaluated the GPS tracking on the Suunto Race as “great” but frankly I don’t share the same view.
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@NM_gent
battery mode set to performance in both cases ? -
@NM_gent I had the same. Unfortunately the only fix was hard reset, soft reset didn’t help. Now after the hard all is good. I’ve found that roughly month or so and visiting different places the gps starts to deteriorate. After hard reset its the perfect line exactly to where I’ve ran. I do not know why. And same as you in the beginning is so much worse and then sometimes it kinda fixes. I did the hard reset roughly a month or more and now I see some gps drifts in the beginning of activity. Will wait for the new FW and do another hard: I have this on both the SV and the Race but for some weird reason not on the Ocean
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Yes. Battery mode in performance for all the times I had noticed an issue on GPS tracking.
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Thank you for the feedback. I wouldn’t mind doing a hard reset but if it needs to be done on a monthly basis… something is off.
I really hope Suunto can provide support with this. -
my suunto race same problem firmware is suck!!
suunto should do it like coros IMG_8677.jpg -
There may well be some form of calculation bug going on but, honestly, sometimes GNSS is just going to be like this. Summer is harder because of the increased leaf cover on trees and at certain times of day and days of the month you are going to find the orbits of the satellites are not as optimal as others. Every watch will have a different antenna design so will have different good and bad times/days. For actual races this is why Suunto have snap-to-route.
Honestly it amazes me how the engineers manage to squeeze the accuracy they do out of modern GNS systems - a tiny antenna strapped to a moving person listening out for the faintest radio time signals from multiple transmitters 20,000km above the earth that are themselves moving at approx 14,000 km/h and extracting a useable data stream from all the reflections and interference before then crunching through sub-millisecond accurate complex 3-dimensional triangulation maths to work out your position in space to within 1m - repeatedly, multiple times a second.
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@far-blue - I could not agree more! Perfection does not exist and from what I have seen (a race and vertical owner) the performance between the two devices is largely accurate and comparable.
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@EzioAuditore This is an interesting feedback, thanks! Possibly your Ocean and my wife’s Race S have not built up that level of error yet. Will perform a reset now and then…
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@far-blue as an engineer I understand your point and definetly appreciate the snap to route feature as I was using map matching algorithm as backup solution for my positioning algorithm developed during my master thesis.
Nevertheless, I experienced a drop in accuracy of my Race that has been constantly outperformed by my wife’s Race S. Possibly this is a “simple” bug that can be cleared rebooting the device here and then as recommended above, but would love to get it fixed to further improved the amazing whatch I wear everyday.
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Perfection is not what I am expecting but honestly upon looking closely to the map examples given above, at least in my case, the tracking is poor. Not even satisfactory. The first half of the run tracking is terrible which I cannot understand from a good quality smartwatch. I hope it’s a bug that can be fixed in upcoming firmware updates (there was one just released, let’s see!).
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everytime I am not sync app before activity GPS is not good This is a very annoying problem.
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@NM_gent
If you have so bad results, no-one can exclude some hardware issue in your watch (antenna, or chipset).
Recontact the support and maybe ask for a RMA. -
or it’s just bad satellite coverage.
that’s where agps helps a lot -
Update from next activity:
I have been out for a running activity again following almost the same route as before. In the meantime, a firmware update has been released and I performed the update. Additionally, I have followed the advise from Suunto website’s FAQ and replies in this post: performing a soft reset on the watch and making sure I have synced the watch with the phone before the activity.
This time the GPS tracking was nearly spot on.
I will keep checking in the coming activities to see how this progresses. Thank you all for the inputs.
