Charge 5 is not tracking my whole run.

[iheartcookies]

Once or twice a week for the past month, my GPS fails to track all of my run. It will skip up to .5 mi. On either the beginning or end. I do the same thing every time I log a run, so it’s not me! First pic is what my Charge 5 said my run was (2.03 mi.) (the yellow is the part that I drew in to show the parts of my route that were missed by my Charge 5) when my run was exactly the same route as the second pic from a run on May 1st (2.5 mi). Any ideas as to what’s happening? (And no, my fitbit did not slip down my arm or anything.)

 

 

[Talahthas]

Welcome back to the Fitbit community, @iheartcookies!

Sad to hear that you're having issues with GPS tracking on your Charge 5. GPS reception might be a little tricky from time to time for such a small device as the Charge 5. I think that's why Fitbit has made this device capable to do dynamic GPS tracking for better GPS accuracy. To see how to set this up, please have a look here under "How do I manage the GPS settings on my Fitbit device?":

How do I use GPS on my Fitbit device? 

[iheartcookies]

My Charge 5 was/is already set for dynamic GPS.

[Talahthas]

Thanks for your feedback, @iheartcookies.
If even your phone didn't have reasonable GPS reception in that moments, I'd assume, there would have been GPS interference probably caused by atmospheric disturbances, clouds, trees or other obstacles. Otherwise your Fitbit app would have been tracking your route with your phone's built-in GPS to fill those gaps.

You could use a GPS test app on your phone to check general GPS reception in that corresponding area.

[iheartcookies]

As an experiment, I switched my Charge 5 to the GPS “phone” setting yesterday and was was able to track my route just fine. So clearly, when my fitbit was set for “dynamic” GPS and having trouble tracking my run (we do have lots of large trees in my neighborhood) it was not switching to my phone’s GPS as it should have. I generally carry my phone when I run anyway so this is not a huge deal for me, but perhaps the Charge 5 is not the best device for running in tree-lined areas.