GPS dies at around 7-10 miles consistently

[dblockdotorg]

I often run Central Park in loops, including yesterday's 15M TCS marathon training series. The Ionic GPS stopped working sometime on loop 2, and just gets stuck in the laconic "Connecting ..." state. It's not the first time, and often happens after 7-10 miles or on loop 2 in CP, I can't tell. It's like it can't do loops 😞

Seems similar to https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/GPS-Dropping/m-p/2687370#M52000, too. Anyone else seeing this?

[SantiR]

@dblockdotorg Welcome to the Fitbit Community! Thanks for reporting the situation you are experiencing with your Ionic's GPS feature. Thanks for sharing those links.

How is the environment in which you are running? Things like tall buildings, dense forest, steep hills, and even thick cloud cover can interfere with your watch's ability to connect to GPS satellites. 

Also, is this always happening when doing loops/intervals? Is it happening with other GPS activities? 

Please feel free to perform a restart on your Ionic. This usually helps when features are not working properly. 

Hope this helps. Keep me posted! 

[dblockdotorg]

The environment is Central Park, so no dense forest or very steep hills. Again, the GPS works fine for the first loop, every time, then goes out and never reconnects. Stopping the run and starting a new run connects to the GPS just fine.

Other runners with Fitbit watches don't seem to have this problem. I ran a race with 5000 runners and many people I know with Fitibit watches have not had this issue.

That's for advising to restart the watch, reminds me of Windows 3.1.

[soss3osp]

There are many people in this forum reporting this problem. For me personally this ist the biggest bug I have as well. That way it makes no sense for me to use this watch as a runner.

[dblockdotorg]

@soss3osp care to dig up similar threads and link them here, maybe someone at Fitbit will hear it (via @SantiR)?

[soss3osp]

for example: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/GPS-Constantly-quot-Connecting-quot/m-p/2232046

you can just search with "run GPS connecting".

Some threads have been already deleted because fitbit thought that people did use inflamatory language.

in my case my run does not complete its GPS recording (GPS state stays in "connecting mode") in about 50%. it has happend between 4km and 11km.

[SantiR]

@dblockdotorg @soss3osp Thanks for your replies and for sharing those details regarding this situation. Also, thanks for trying the troubleshooting steps in order to sort this out.

I went ahead and created a case with customer support in your behalf. Please keep an eye on you email inbox for next steps.

Keep me posted! 

[dblockdotorg]

This morning's 18M training run in central park was exactly the same thing.

Part 1: https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/16883662346

when GPS went into "connecting ..." mode I stopped the run and restarted, it connected immediately

Part 2: https://www.fitbit.com/activities/exercise/16883662347

Interesting that this run started in a different location, but GPS died approximately after the same amount of time.

Looks like a bug to me.

[SantiR]

@dblockdotorg Thanks for your reply and for sharing those links with the details of your GPS runs.

That is interesting indeed. By any chance, did customer support got in touch with you? Once they do, please share this information with them. This way, they can check further on it and let you know how to proceed with this.

Once they share any important data with you, please let me know so we can get more insight about this situation.

Keep me posted! 

[dblockdotorg]

They did. They offered to refund my Fitbit out of warranty and return policy, but I didn't buy it on the website and they said they can't do anything about it.

Frankly I am disappointed. If I were working at Fitbit I would have engaged a developer to take a look, get some logs from the watch, give me a beta/alpha version to run with more information, whatever. This is the support experience I get with, for example, Slack.

[AdamMSC]

I've had similar problems in the past. I used mine to log training runs for my first marathon. I didn't have many issues with gps; when it had connections problems, it fixed them and reconnected. However, my actual marathon was through trails and it was cloudy, and I guess my GPS connection wasn't great; I ended up losing connection at about mile 8 or so, and I let it attempt to reconnect for miles. I eventually turned it off and stopped focusing on it, but that was a big disappointment. 

[dblockdotorg]

More examples in these forums of the same behavior:

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Ionic-losing-GPS-connection-during-activity/m-p/2784251/highli...

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Ionic-losing-GPS-connection-during-activity/m-p/2784262/highli...

https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Ionic/Ionic-losing-GPS-connection-during-activity/m-p/2925701/highli...

... many more available

[evillama]

Thanks for assembling all these. Fitbit has got to acknowledge this is an issue and do something about it (at least look into it) else they'll start losing customers to Garmin and Samsung (whose new watch looks intriguing.) 

I looked into GPS Connect for the Ionic and apparently since it has GPS built-in, there's no way to make use of the phone's GPS to save battery (or connection dependability.) I'd think this can be changed with a software/firmware update though, so there's hope?)

The other possibility could be to have the Ionic work in conjunction with the Fitbit (or Strava) phone app so you can start your run on your watch and it starts the app(s) at the same time, and when you end activity, the apps will "merge" the data together, either scrapping any "lost connection" time, or asking you to choose which of the two to keep. For yesterday's 20 mile run I had to keep two instances on Strava - one that shows crappy GPS data from Fitbit (ran 20.35 miles) but it kept my HR records, the other from the Strava phone app (ran 19.9 miles, which now I think is more accurate, dammit!) So disappointing.

I do REBOOT my Ionic before long runs, yet still it loses connection more than 50% of the time, unfortunately.

[dblockdotorg]

My ionic worked yesterday for the entire NYC TCS Marathon, 3h42, with music on for about 20 miles.

The course is not a loop, and it was extra sunny. Saw a "Connecting ..." in Central Park south during the last mile but it reconnected at the finish looks like. Battery went from full to ~30% in the late afternoon hours after the finish. It's the first long over 10 miles that it recorded without a glitch. It's the old 32.10.20 firmware, btw.

[evillama]

GPS worked for me the entire Marine Corps Marathon (5:53) but I opted not to use music since I'm so slow and my BT headphones probably wouldn't last either... 😉 Still had more than 40% battery life though, so that's good to know for all day hikes.