Ionic GPS Inaccuracies

[MP4]

Hi, 

I'm a new Fitbit user, bought an Ionic on Monday and I'm having some issues with the GPS. Went on a couple of runs (at a track) and the gps seemed to be completely out both on the distance travelled and pace per kilometre.

I'm a long time strava user so yesterday I went for a run with both the Fitbit Ionic going and the strava on my iPhone running at the same time. Here are the results:

Strava - 7.9km   @ 4:15/km

Fitbit - 7.2km     @ 4:34/km

The difference of 0.7km is quite big and the difference in pace is also worrying. I waited till both had connected to gps before starting the run and I run in London where gps signal should be good. 

Is my Fitbit Ionic GPS not working correctly? Any help/advice would be appreciated. 

Thanks

Matt

Moderator Edit: Updated Subject for Clarity

[SunsetRunner]

I suggest looking at the GPS tracks in more detail to find out where one is going adrift. Also you could try DC Rainmaker's comparison tool for in depth analysis  https://www.dcrainmaker.com/analyzer

[DTFC1907]

I'm having a similar issue, I run the same routes week in week out but this week, with the new Ionic, all runs are showing 10% shorter than they did with the Surge. Today I ran alongside a friend with a Garmin, who's results always used to align with the Surge, yet today they show as 3.2 miles, I show as 2.8 miles.

There is clearly some error with the GPS accuracy on the Ionic, I hope someone will advise real soon.

[Pd1972]

I always think GPS on a watch has a high margin of error anyway - like you I've run the same route 60+ times and cycled it 100's of times (not insane- it's a commute!). Garmin (with a calibrated footpod) has varied between 9.8 at 10.2 miles, a Samsung phone (GPS, on the same runs) shows 10 to 10.5. Ionic yesterday was showing 10.9. I've measured the route as best as I can (on Google Maps) and it's 10.1 miles. Ionic is at the high end but I'm not sure I'd lose that much sleep over it yet - it may improve. 

I was less impressed with the GPS trace though - understandably wobbly in built up areas but once I got to rural bits of the run the track was very erratic and had me running in a river at one point. 

Nothing's perfect but I reckon there's more to do on GPS for Fitbit.

[shipo]

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@Pd1972 wrote:

I always think GPS on a watch has a high margin of error anyway - like you I've run the same route 60+ times and cycled it 100's of times (not insane- it's a commute!). Garmin (with a calibrated footpod) has varied between 9.8 at 10.2 miles, a Samsung phone (GPS, on the same runs) shows 10 to 10.5. Ionic yesterday was showing 10.9. I've measured the route as best as I can (on Google Maps) and it's 10.1 miles. Ionic is at the high end but I'm not sure I'd lose that much sleep over it yet - it may improve. 

I was less impressed with the GPS trace though - understandably wobbly in built up areas but once I got to rural bits of the run the track was very erratic and had me running in a river at one point. 

Nothing's perfect but I reckon there's more to do on GPS for Fitbit.

---

Yeah, I have run a specific 10-mile course up into the hills and around a lake near my office maybe 100 times; the measured distance is 10.15 miles, the GPS tracking in my Surge and my previous Garmin Forerunner have measured it anywhere from 10.03 to 10.25 miles.  I'll probably run that same route tomorrow with my new Ionic so it will be interesting to see how the course gets measured.

[BillBalmford]

I’m having similar issues, where my Ionic is giving me far shorter distances than my Charge 2 with connected iPhone GPS was, on par with yours. I agree that it is quite worrying. I wonder if it is the Ionic underestimating or the Charge + phone GPS underestimating? Hopefully we get some answers soon, it does feel like the Ionic has had a few teething problems, which I guess is to be expected?

[DTFC1907]

I've had confirmation from Fitbit that there is an issue after I provided 3 lots of evidence. Looks to me like the Ionic doesn't start logging distance properly until you've run at least 500m. They said they are working on it.

Get Outlook for Android

[BillBalmford]

Hmmmm, interesting! I just went for a short walk with my partner who used strava, and the Ionic was shorter. She got 1.60km and my Ionic got 1.46km, which is a difference of 150m — right in your 10% error.

Good that Fitbit is looking into it. Hopefully we get a firmware update or something soon that helps.

[Snowcrash]

My observation here has been that the Ionic seems to have less of an ability to deal with trees blocking they sky above my run.

On my known 1 mile wooded path, the Ionic has measured anywhere from 0.93-0.98 mile. So with the trees I can’t seem to get even a consistently under measured distance.

Compare this to my run on a 1/3 mile measured loop in a wide open field around an NCAA track.  I completed 9 loops and it measured 2.98 mile, which is basically perfect/within my ability to run the loop perfectly.

Yes, the actual path cuts harshly around the jumping lanes on the right side of the track.

[Colinm39]

@DTFC1907Thanks for confirming what I was about to post.  Mine was on a few Interval Timer GPS tracking and during the warm up section,  but it was "connecting" for just on 2 minutes and only 140m before it Connected.. I was trying to get the connection to work and ambling. If I correlate your running to my ambling/walking it would appear a time issue because my timing would be close to your running distance

To confuse this.. After I ended that last Interval Timer I synced and examined the Intervals and saw the loss of tracking. So I decided to do a GPS Walk Exercise on the way back. The connection was immediate and the tracking perfect..

Comparing the distance and steps on both were well within 5% of each and made me realise that Fitbit's calculation included my steps x distance for the missing Interval Timer tracking...That was evident in the PC Activity Log...

In another topic I showed that the East/West tracking was accurate, just like the Surge and not like the Blaze issues we have in the Southern Hemisphere.. So I'm happy that Fitbit will provide a solution..

I had similar issues with the Surge. No issues with immediate connection with MapMyRun or even MobileRun on the Android. My App, "GPS Status" even links while I'm in my house near a window and while trying my tracker it has immediate "locking in".

---

@DTFC1907 wrote:
I've had confirmation from Fitbit that there is an issue after I provided 3 lots of evidence. Looks to me like the Ionic doesn't start logging distance properly until you've run at least 500m. They said they are working on it.

Get Outlook for Android

---

[SunsetRunner]

Interesting that there is potentially bug. I can confirm as well got 1.83 for known 1 mile mark and back. Every time i measure online or with Garmin forerunner 620 it gets 1 mile within 1-2 seconds.So definitely seems like a bug.

[Surfyjosh]

I am having the same problem,

I have been for two runs and a few walks and the distance is coming up short ,

In the past I have used the Blaze connected to my phone with no problems however the ionic is out by at least 10 percent, I am very disappointed with this as the pace and distance of my runs does not compair to my previous data if they don’t work out a fix I’m taking this back as it is useless to me

[Hahol]

I received my Ionic a few days ago and took it for a rollerski ride on my ususual track which is 1,85 km long for 5 rounds. The ionic recorded the ride as 3,8 km / should have been almost 10, and the time spent to 30 minutes / should have been 42 minutes.

I have tracked the same route with my old Microsoft Band, my Iphone and friends Garmin Fenix, and no problem with GPS signal on any of those.

Conclusion > The Ionic has a severe problem with the GPS function. I will test it further as it is not understandable that an experienced supplier like Fitbit releases a product with such severe problems thinking of all the returns and lost business it will create.

[Surfyjosh]

Fitbit Blaze

Fitbit ionic

 As the above screen shot show I ran further with the ionic and it actually shows less!

[vilvic]

Since turning off auto pause and run detection functions my tracking has improved greatly. I haven't worked out which one has made the difference but I'm guessing it's the auto pause function.

I normally run the park run on a Saturday (5k) and I paced the run at 24 minutes.  Because I didn't trust the ionic to give me an accurate pace I swapped to my son's fitbit surge.  Just prior to the run I switched off auto pause and run detect on the ionic.  The surge normally tracks the run at 4.8k (there is a section with thick trees).  The surge tracked the run as expected, however the ionic tracked the run at exactly 5k.

I ran last night and again it appears to have tracked correctly.  I ran with someone with a garmin watch and it matched their run.

The thing I noticed prior to changing the settings above is that in the fitbit app, the route on the map seems accurate.  However the distance is too short.  This is leading me to believe that the auto pause function is either too aggressive or isn't able to accurately detect pauses.

[Hahol]

I think you are onto the right thing!

Yesterday I took the Ionic for a bike ride and checked it against my bike computer. The reading on the two were very close.

Then I checked the recordings from the cross contry skiing and it seems like every time I was skiing downhill it stopped recording. I had started the "run" option with autopause. It looks like the Ionic think I have stopped mooving when I am skiing downhill and relies on the stepindicator rather than the GPS!??

Will check this further using the bike option for cross country skiing.

[mlindgren]

In my experience, the Ionic's GPS readings tend to be a little short of the actual distance I ran. At least in my case, this doesn't appear to be a problem with it not tracking part of the run, though. It's just that when I turn a corner or run in a loop, the GPS isn't accurate enough to detect where I actually ran, so on the map it will look like I cut the corner, which makes the overall distance shorter.

[vilvic]

Comparing the fitbit surge to the fitbit ionic there seems to be little difference since turning off "auto-pause".  I do the same park run each week (so have plenty of samples) and the surge cuts the same corners as the ionic.  It's all to do with how frequently the watch takes a GPS reading and whether it has a good GPS lock.

The problem people are having here is much more severe than that.  There is another 5k I run regularly and I have lost over 0.5k on the overall distance.  What is strange however, is that the route looks complete in the fitbit app and on strava.  There is nothing obvious why the distance is so much shorter.

I do believe there is an issue with the "auto-pause" function so I'm going to leave that turned off for now.

[Surfyjosh]

Thanks for the reply, I will give this a go.

Sent from my iPhone

[vilvic]

So, I did another 5k run at lunch time and it logged the route as 4.5k.  With both settings off (auto-pause and run detect).  I ran with someone else who is using the fitbit surge.  His came out at 5k.  This is a route I have done many times before.

I exported the run from strava and an older one (from when I used the fitbit surge).  In strava it is the same distance as fitbit.

I imported both runs into this website http://maplorer.com.  Interestingly they both come out at 5k.  So the ionic is getting the correct data, it's just seems to be using it incorrectly.

It seems to me that the ionic is doing something odd with the data.