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GPS quirk/error

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‎05-31-2018 03:24

‎05-31-2018 03:24

Just noticed a weird quirk of the Ionic's GPS. I did a 5k yesterday and on finishing, pressed 'stop' on the activity. You then get a screen saying 'are you sure' and then you have to press End to close out the activity. 

 

As I was distracted and out of breath from the race I didn't press 'End' until getting back to the car. However the ionic has recorded the track back to the car even though the recording was paused. It hasn't however recorded the additional time or the additional distance as part of the activity.

 

This means that when you export to strava you get a crazy looking last split as strava uses a different calculation of total time and distance and uses the actual GPS track from the activity to calculate splits.

 

I would suggest that continuing to record a GPS track while paused isn't very useful and best if all recording is totally paused when someone presses stop/pause without closing out the activity. The ionic's own software doesn't appear to use the data for anything so I'm not sure why the track is being passively recorded?

 

At least I know now that it's essential to properly close out the activity rather than just pause if you want accurate recording! 

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‎05-31-2018 03:56

‎05-31-2018 03:56

There's an option on strava to correct the distance or something - it seems to calculate everything a little differently. It only seems to show up when I look at strava on my pc, not my phone. When I don't click this option it displays the same distance as fitbit has recorded, which, as far as I can tell, is always a bit less than I actually ran, and gives time moving as a little less than I actually ran (I don't use autopause, but I reckon some algorithm thinks I'm standing still for a second or two while I turn). As far as I can see, the pauses are removed from calculations.  When I click this option, it seems to make the distance and time of the run more accurate, so I'd rather use this option, but all pauses, including the one at the end that you noticed, seem to be added to the time.  For some of the pauses this seems a good idea - perhaps you paused it to cross the road and forgot to restart, but it means that whenever I race my strava feed either has the one with inaccurate time and distance, or the corrected one with a second or two extra at the end where I'm looking at my watch and pressing buttons. Maybe you have this second algorithm by default. I don't like it either, I wish the last pause was just treated as a stop by strava.

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‎05-31-2018 04:02

In response to SunsetRunner

‎05-31-2018 04:02

The weird thing is that strava is not adding the extra distance there which I can see on the GPS track, but it is adding the total time while the activity was paused before I closed it out (so elapsed time was 40 minutes rather than 25 minutes). Neither fitbit nor strava is using the distance I walked while the activity was paused in the total calculation so i cannot see the point of it being there.

 

So I have a 5k run which took me 25 minutes showing up on fitbit as 25 minutes with the correct GPS track recorded, but when it pushes to strava somehow it shows up as distance 5k but the GPS track shows activity while it was paused and a total time of 40 minutes (ie including my walk back to the car). Splits are correct up until the last one where it shows a pace of 28:00 per kilometre.

 

Maybe this is a strava issue rather than a fitbit issue?!

 

 

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‎05-31-2018 04:08

In response to weasellyone

‎05-31-2018 04:08

To update further, I used the 'update distance' feature on strava and now it thinks the total activity was 5.9km in 40 minutes rather than a  25 min 5k race followed by a pause before being closed out. I can see a more accurate representation of my final kilometre split though. 

 

I can see logic to GPS lock being maintained while watch is paused (you may want to restart and need a lock straightaway - I don't use pause features while running normally though) but agree that the 'final pause' before activity is closed out needs to be removed from whatever strava calculates as the total time and distance. 

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‎07-02-2018 01:10 - edited ‎07-02-2018 01:12

‎07-02-2018 01:10 - edited ‎07-02-2018 01:12

I've noticed this too.  I've driven home and then seen that I hadn't pressed on end. When I look at the fitbit app everything looks ok but it's not on the website.  When I look at strava it includes the drive so the gps must still be tracking since my drive is accurate.  So it must be an issue with the app sending the data to strava.

There are a few issues;

  • Why does it keep tracking when it's paused?
  • The strava tracking is inaccurate because I now have a run/ride with the car journey tagged on the end.
  • I've broken some 'course records' on strava which after a few days gets challenged by strava.
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