Blaze loses connected GPS connection time and again

[Aredhel]

Got my Blaze yesterday and have since embarked on 2 short runs (3.3km each) - and was majorly disappointed at how the Blaze performed. It takes ages for the Blaze to establish a connection with my Z3 and when it's connected I get 1 out of 4 bars signal strength - at a distance of maybe 30cm. While running the Blaze then loses that connection and makes up some bogus distance, 2.6km instead of 3.3km, resulting in a 6'19'' average vs. the actual 4'30'' as measured on my Microsoft Band 2. This is an absolute showstopper, I had to actually delete those runs from the fitbit app because connected web sites (e.g. runtastic) actually take those numbers at face value.

I can't even add those runs (as recorded by the Band 2) in the fitbit app afterwards, yet another bummer. I had hoped that fitbit wouldn't release connected GPS without being absolutely sure that this feature works just as well as with the Surge, albeit requiring me to carry a mobile phone at the same time. Alas, my first impressions seem to indicate just that. I no longer trust this thing and will from now on always wear the Band 2 as backup and eventually return the Blaze (and leave the fitbit ecosystem) if there isn't an easy fix.

Major disappointment for a $200 device.

[Julia_G]

Mine works frustratingly inconsistently.  Sunday it connected and stayed connected the whole time I was out -- an hour and a quarter,  Since then I have had two runs and it has lost connection on both part way through.  Since it requires internet to reconnect that never happens for me because my phone has no SIM and I can only connect when I have wifi.  Mine will not ever connect without internet,  

I have not worked out what makes the connection so unstable.  I always have the app open.

[GarethDPhillips]

The whole thing is so poorly thought out and implemented. How crazy making it require internet access, let alone handle the GPS logging on the blaze. There is a phone with us that we are forced to carry, why not do the actual grunt of the work there, and just pass the live stats to the phone. 

Very poorly thought out. What a mess.

[Colinm39]

Below is the proximity of my Telco mobile towers and no tall buildings in the way.  This maybe the reason why I don't lose signal because I'm not switching between towers to have a continuum pickup of the Connected GPS.  My provider has many towers as per the image.

The 1km legend is difficult to see but in every walk area shown I have never lost signal.

Edited and added Next week I have to go down country and the nearest single tower is 7km inland and the sea on the other side. When you consider I'm within a 1+km in the precincts of my home.. We will see what happens. I will have both Surges as well..

[Julia_G]

GPS does not connect through telephone towers.  Once connected you do not need any telephone connection at all.  However if the GPS connection drops you will need it to reconnect.

I think this is a Bluetooth issue, not a GPS or cellular data issue, and assume that the problem for me (and probably others) is the phone -- mine is an older Android.  

It is the fact that it SOMETIMES works well that is frustrating.  If I could work out a pattern... it's always the hope that kills you!

[Colinm39]

@Julia_GI understood that the mobile towers were used to help triangulate your position and feed back to the Android phone, in turn to the Blaze via Bluetooth.

This extract about Location in the Android settings explains this.

Switch on 'High accuracy' mode

To get the best possible signal, you have to be prepared to use a bit more battery than normal. It's a necessary sacrifice, and you can always reverse it later when you don't need to use GPS, like when you're done Pokémon hunting. Enabling this is easy; just follow a couple of steps and you'll be on your way.

Go into your Settings and tap Location and ensure that your location services are on. You should be able to toggle it at the top right hand of your screen. It should be green and the button to the right.

Now the first category under Location should be Mode, tap that and make sure it's set to High accuracy. This uses your GPS as well as your Wi-Fi and mobile networks to estimate your location. This will use more battery, but will utilize all available methods to give you the most accurate location possible.

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@Julia_G wrote:

GPS does not connect through telephone towers.  Once connected you do not need any telephone connection at all.  However if the GPS connection drops you will need it to reconnect.

I think this is a Bluetooth issue, not a GPS or cellular data issue, and assume that the problem for me (and probably others) is the phone -- mine is an older Android.  

It is the fact that it SOMETIMES works well that is frustrating.  If I could work out a pattern... it's always the hope that kills you!

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[The_Lion]

It's a Bluetooth problem, not GPS or cell.

[GarethDPhillips]

yes cell towers should have nothing to do with it. Yes Android will use
cell location info to provide a primitive form of GPS if wants a location
quickly, also WiFi, but not sure this is relevant on a GPS run, as it will
be using the phone GPS for high accuracy.

I've been playing around with the Blaze this morning, and started a GPS run
indoors to try and see if I could make it do what it does almost right away
on a run. I struggled!

I started the run with internet access present (WiFi was off but I had 4G
service) I then turned the phone radio off so that there was no WiFi or
cellular internet access. this made no difference. I toggled WiFi and the
phone radio on and off a number of times, no difference.

I then thought I would see what happens if I could replicate loss of GPS
lock or bluetooth connection. I left both WiFi and cellular radio OFF, and
walked to all 4 corners of my home. It's not a huge house, but its a fairly
average UK 4 bedroom family home of modern construction, and there is
nowhere is the house that I could walk with my Blaze to cause the Blaze to
disconnect (left phone in one place,) Likewise, I struggled to find a place with no GPS lock (i have
a GPS info app which shows lock status, and if the lock is lost, the Blaze
shows the error after around 10 seconds, as it does if Bluetooth is lost)

It may sound crazy, but I put the mobile in my oven (it was turned off!!) as
its a metal box, and that was the only place I could find that had very
poor, to no, GPS signal. Eventually, when the GPS app I use showed no lock,
the Blaze showed the disconnected error. I repeated this test two or three
times, but every time the GPS lock came back, the Blaze re-connected. (I
dont think the phone is ever losing GPS lock outdoors, its very difficult
to make it do so even indoors!)

Next I wanted to test the Bluetooth range. I put the phone  in a window so
it had good GPS, and walked all over the house. I couldnt find a place
where the signal was lost. I connected my bluetooth headphones, and
disconnected them, over and over, this didnt upset it!

Next I walked outside with the Blaze (leaving the mobile in the window
indoors with strong GPS) I got in my car, and finally the Blaze lost
bluetooth, and gave the same disconnected error on screen. Interestingly, I
then walked indoors, and even though there was no Wifi or Cellular radio on
(i.e. no internet access on my phone) the Blaze reconnected within around
20 seconds.

I will do more testing of the Bluetooth range test, but in summary, it is
actually quite robust in these conditions! Why then will it go crazy
outdoors, when the distance between Blaze and phone can never be more than
a foot or two !! Often after a disconnect the Blaze will recover on a run,
cutting a corner or two, but equally as many times, if not more, it will
disconnect and not recover.

I struggled to replicate any of this in this test.

Id be intrigued to see if any others have time to perform similar tests.

I just dont know what the specific condition is on my runs which causes the
problem, I just cant think what it is other than shaking / moving, but that
seems illogical.

Ive proved this morning that neither WiFi nor cellular need to be on, and
it will still recover without internet access being present (once a run is
underway) and I have used this same setup on a run (cellular and WiFi off)
as recently as last night, and it had cut out before I even walked to the
end of my street !!

arrrrgh

[The_Lion]

That's really annoying. In my case it worked as I described it. Although my sports app and the Blaze use the same GPS there were differences at the pace. I don't know why. Connected GPS is just a crap. Since January I use a watch with built-in GPS. It's even more comfortable on my very small arm. For some runs I didn't take my phone with me because it was too cold for it wearing it in a pocket on my arm. I had no place anywhere else where it wasn't jumping up and down while running so I left it in my car. As I had everything on my wrist nothing was missing. 

[Colinm39]

@The_LionHow much of the Blaze was East/West because that is where the pace error appears for me..and distance is exaggerated at about 30cm or (12")/second..  The route is plotted perfectly.

This is what the Charge HR 2 users have found in the Southern Hemisphere, and are trying to determine if it is elsewhere.  I'm Southern Hemisphere

[GarethDPhillips]

Using last night as an example, it disconnected when running West, and then reconnected. Then it disconnected running roughly south, and recovered, only to disconnect when turning to run East, and it then never recovered fit the remaining 8km approx, which makes little sense, as i cant think why not. 

[mvan231]

Internet is not required for connected GPS to log data

[mvan231]

Yes you are correct. It is not a good algorithm to lock the GPS.

[mvan231]

Fantastic!

That is odd

[Julia_G]

If some of you who are saying you can initiate a connected GPS activity on your Blaze without internet turned on on your phone. then it must be something to do with the phone OS and not Fitbit.

I have had the Blaze for more than a year, and Charge 2 for six months.  They both use connected GPS and I have never once, zero, nada, never ever been able to connect (or reconnect if connection is lost) to a "connected GPS" activity without internet.  

Internet is no longer required once the initial connection is made (but if connection is lost, then it is required again to start over; it will never spontaneously reconnect).  I can go for a run using my phone with no SIM at all and wifi turned off and it will make me a lovely GPS map, as long as I don't lose connection en route.  If I do lose connection, no reconnection is possible without internet,

Obviously internet is required again to sync the data and view the map.

My initial connection is made via wifi (because my phone has no SIM).  I had a theory that having wifi turned on made my connection less robust, because scanning for wifi networks might break the BT connection, so as soon as my connection is made I turn wifi off.  When I mentioned this, @bbarrera said wifi and BT share the same connection (or something to that effect) which suggested I might be correct in my theory...

Something @Colinm39 mentioned this morning made me go look at my "location services".  As I have mentioned before, my phone has no SIM, so cannot access internet except via wifi, so I thought that with wifi turned off location services were not relevant.

But I see under "improve accuracy" there is a setting ON by default, which allows apps to scan for wifi even with wifi off.  I have now set this setting to OFF.  So absolutely no wifi scanning.  I will see if this helps my Bluetooth connection be more robust.

[GarethDPhillips]

You are absolutely right, internet access is required for the blaze to
connect to the app. But I CAN initiate a connected GPS session with WiFi
and cellular radio off, but only if the blaze and phone have been
connected. I have always connected on, so the connection is maintained in
the background, so i guess this is why the start run / GPS session will
work with no data.

In my testing earlier today, i observed the blaze reconnect during a test
run when i simulated both a gps signal fail and a Bluetooth signal fail.

Frequently on runs however, i will notice a disconnect and no reconnect. No
idea why

Regarding the location settings, i have done the same. I have the WiFi and
Bluetooth location assistance set to off. It's annoying though, as apps
complain about this setting.

[bbarrera]

@Julia_G In smartphones Bluetooth and WiFi share the same antenna. Turning off WiFi will give Bluetooth full and complete access to the antenna, *possibly* improving reliability of a BT connection between Blaze and smartphone 

[GarethDPhillips]

So I got a Surge, its horrible compared to the Blaze, but it works! The blaze has such a clear screen, and is brighter, bigger, higher res, and has better laid out stats in a run. The Surge shows it age, its got poor display res, its very dim, and I cannot get it to display all the stats I would like at one time.  Now I  remember why I selected the Blaze, its just a shame Ive had to accept that it is never going to work the way I wanted. I so wanted the Blaze to be my "one stop shop" solution, but sadly it cannot be. 

Anyhow, the surge may be showing its age, but the GPS onboard is great, it just works. I ran 5k tonight with both watches, the Blaze on one arm, and the Surge on the other. The Blaze, predictably died once, cutting out a huge corner, then at around 70% distance, it disconnected and never reconnected, so the mapped run stops there. The surge on the other hand gave me a 100% accurate GPS track, so that is great. 

I had WiFi off and the phone radio off, so I cant do a thing more than that. 

People are suggesting that the Blaze disconnects in a West / East direction, Im wondering if there is something in that.... But seems difficult to understand how that is the case. 

[Colinm39]

@GarethDPhillipsThe East/West (E/W) issue is, that the calculation is out.  When I walk with the Surge and the Blaze on a planned E/W route only, I gain 2mins/km in pace immediately compared to the Surge. The map tracking on both are identical but the distance E/W is greater by approx 12"/sec or 30cm/sec.  The same as the Charge HR 2 are reporting

Still no dropouts for me today on the Blaze. I'm testing for the Topic where others aren't getting their Exercise Maps synced across to the server. All OK here.

My "clunky" Surge is accurate but I try not to wear it because it doesn't allow air around my wrist bones because I have a large wrist and the irritation begins. I just wear it for comparisons.

Thanks for the feedback..

[mvan231]

Regardless of all efforts tried. We shouldn't have to do anything.
Especially disable other phone features to make this work.

[bbarrera]

There are many good reasons to not purchase the Surge (to name 3 - band issues, stagnant features, can't swim with it).

If I had issues walking/running with Blaze, I'd continue wearing Blaze and just use the app's MobileRun for walks/runs until Fitbit gets its act together and rolls out a replacement to Surge.