Inaccurate pace/distance on Ionic

[Borderer]

I have had the ionic for 12 months now and have noticed that a run that I have done at least 10 times with my daughter keeps showing a different distance , between 3.47 miles and 3.51 miles and today 3.68 miles. My daughter has  a garmin watch which consistently shows 3.51/3.52 which we believe is the correct distance. Even more strange today I noticed that our 1 mile times were also different despite running together.  My ionic pace first: 10.03 v 10.57,   10.01 v 10.29,  9:50 v 10.03.  This is frustrating as I am trying to pace my daughter to a new PB for the route. Based on my pace figures we should have smashed it today but because of the supposed longer distance it was not to be.  Is their something wrong with the ionic or is it incapable of recording accurate distance and pace?

Moderator edit: subject for clarity 

[LiliyaFitbit]

Welcome to the Fitbit Community, @Borderer.

Thanks for the details shared in your post. I am sorry to hear about the frustration this situation has caused. All devices with GPS sensors require a direct path to GPS satellites to calculate location. A weak GPS signal might affect the accuracy of your route and other activity data. Your device uses your step count to calculate distance until it finds a signal, so the total distance calculated for a workout may be slightly less accurate when GPS isn't available for the entire time. I recommend checking out this article with information about the different factors that can affect GPS tracking.

For more information about accuracy of Fitbit devices, see How accurate are Fitbit devices?

Hope this helps. 

[Borderer]

Thanks for reply. I am aware of possible discrepancies if signal is not strong enough however there is no reason why that should be the case on this particular run in open countryside. In fact today I have done another of my regular runs and distance has once again shown about 1/4 mile further than it actually is. It looks as if I will have to accept that the ionic is not suitable for accurate run recording.

[rahulganatra]

best option is to use same device and just use it as benchmark for your performance rather than comparing two seperate devices. I have not seen any two devices giving exact same results anywhere , anytime. if you use garmin XXX model, just use it on same run to compare everytime rather than comparing with ionic. One device being more accurate than others is not the question. Question will always be "what is accurate" ? 

[Borderer]

My problem is that the ionic has suddenly become erratic with the distance on my runs. The run that I do with my daughter was always recorded as between 3.46 miles and 3.48 miles however last 5 runs have been 3.52, 3.51, 3.53, 3.68 and today 3.59.  I believe that the actual distance is about 3.51. This recent discrepancy makes nonsense of the matched runs feature on Strava as it is based on a calculated average pace.