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

[Hahol]

Hi,
Thanks for looking into this.
Turning off autopause has improved gps recording much.
Hovever, it still measures the distanse aproximately 3-4 % short.
I compare with measure of my track and other gps measures.
Regards

Moderator edit: Removed personal info

[Colinm39]

Another interesting slant on the Ionic GPS.  In the image below I forgot to turn the Exercise off and after a short walk around the local oval. After a visit to the vet with a very small older dog, (dog sitting for our neighbor). I drove home..Crazy numbers like 110mins/km as expected

So Auto Pause worked !!or did it..... but GPS tracking continued.. Distance is ok..  One for experience and humour.. I found the Surge was excellent in tracking accurate distance and plotting while driving.

[MattFitbit]

@Hahol @Colinm39 Thanks for getting back to me with your experiences! Glad to hear that turning off Auto Pause has helped to increase accuracy. 

Our engineers have taken a look at the reports in this thread and have gotten back to me with a few tips to help improve GPS distance accuracy. For anyone having a similar experience I recommend the following: 

• Wait a moment before starting your run once the 'Run Exercise' has been enabled for GPS to gain connectivity. 
• During your run, try to keep your arm movement consistent to avoid losing steps.
• Watch out for accidentally hitting Pause during your exercise.
• When comparing your GPS activity against Strava, some variance is to be expected. Strava interprets the raw data uploaded to their system differently than Fitbit. 

Thanks again for your reports everyone! If you have any questions let me know. 

[SunsetRunner]

Those tips don't really help in my opinion as we shouldn't 'have to keep our arm carriage steady. What is being done to fix a number bugs most likely with the fitbit ionic watch? 

[MonteC]

Glad you are monitoring this issue @MattFitbit because it is to a point with my Ionic that is really not a reliable or accurate tool to use as a tracker.  I sincerely hope there is a firmware update very soon to address this issue.

From today's run, compared to friends Garmin and Strava apps on Android and iOS

This has been consistently the same results since I started using the Ionic.  How does it lose an entire Kilometer in less than 7 and add 30% to my pace?   This seems like a software glitch.

Ionic:  5.6k, 11:16 minutes per K pace with 323 meters of elevation gain.

Garmin: 6.6k, 8:35 minutes per K pace and 352 meters of elevation gain.

Strava Android: 6.6k, 8:41 minutes per K pace and 351 meters of elevation gain.

Strava iOS: 6.5k, 8:44 minutes per K pace and 348 meters of elevation gain.

[vilvic]

I used to wear my ionic on my right wrist (I'm right handed so I set the watch to be on my dominant wrist). 

Since swapping the watch over to my left wrist (and turning dominant wrist off) the watch has been a lot more accurate. The last 4 runs have been accurate.

I wonder if the watch is on your dominant wrist if the watch ignores some movements (since it has to ignore things like using the mouse, typing, or writing etc).

[tulahoob]

I've had mine a few weeks now and it's unreliable. 

I live in Manhattan so have to give it some leeway, but compared to my previous Garmin device it's way off.

As the Ionic is supposed to be Glonass I would expect reasonable accuracy, especially as my running route doesn't have lots of tall buildings.

It can take a couple of minutes to lock onto the signal, whereas the Garmin took 10-20 secs max.

I've also noticed it's started locking on, then losing the signal within a few feet, something that I've never had with any device. Once a GPS is locked, barring going into a building, surely it should stay locked?

I hope there is a fix coming because the other functions are very good - best Fitbit yet!

[RonanB]

Hi MattFitbit

I too would like to echo the consistent message on this thread - the Fitbit Iconic GPS either has a software or hardware issue.

I too conducted a test vs. my Garmin. I also checked total distance vs Google Earth - both Garmin and Google Earth agreed on distance but Fitbit was 150m off on 10km with really odd splits.

Can you please confirm if there will be a fix for this or is it unfixible? Or perhaps Fitbit believes there is no issue? 

Thanks

Ronan

[SunsetRunner]

Welp.  My Ionic stopped synching with my phone on Saturday, so I removed/re-added it.  Lost all of my customizations, that's a huge pain. 

Now, it takes at least a minute to get the GPS signal (for my walks on Sunday and Monday), whereas it used to take about 15-20 seconds.  Also, it is consistently showing my walk to be .10 miles shorter than it showed the previous routes before I had to remove and re-add it.  Not pleased 😞

[Ekkk]

I want to thank you all for your feedback. I was going to get an Ionic, but I thimk I'll wait until all the kinks are worked out.

[tulahoob]

Thanks Matt, but I hope that doesn't mean they see that as a resolution. Can you assure all of us that have posted specific, shared issues that the tech team are taking this seriously?

Not swinging my arms around like a mad thing is not a solution, especially when the GPS has me swimming in the Hudson half the time.

If I took their advice I'd drown 🙂

[RealSting]

hello,

you say you are in London.. I don't know much about Fitbit as I'm new to all this, but I know a thing or two about GPS systems. If you're running where there are high buildings GPS signals will bounce causing a delay (a triangulation error (position error)) and your figures will of course be off. You could even travel the same route twice using the same GPS, and still your data will be different. Thats because GPS requires (ideally) uninterrupted signal path from the Satellites. The is NOT a fault of the GPS device you are using, its just fact about GPS in built-up areas.

[RonanB]

Hi MattFitbit

Any news from the engineering department or they still only providing 'tips' at this stage?

Surely one the engineers tested the GPS before the watch was mass-produced? I'd like to meet these engineers and have a chat. Perhaps I could take a few for a run and we could play spot the difference when comparing distances and splits? Or perhaps I could give them a tutorial on equations like speed equals distance over time? 🙂

Thanks 

[tulahoob]

RealSting, agree about GPS systems in a broad sense, but you need to read all the comments in this thread. This is a device issue.

I'm in NY, but my Garmin was fine along the same route. It was a bit wonky right at the start but wasn't bad enough to get irritated at, but through parks with no tall buildings it was spot on. The Ionic can be as much as 50-100ft out.

If the Garmin had been identical I'd put it down to tall buildings. 

Plus, this is supposed to be Glonass, and whilst not infallible should be better than a standard GPS. 

[edit001]

I've noticed that Fitbit pushed a new firmware ver 27.25.16.7, silently. I could not find any log on what's changed so can't really tell if they did something to improve the GPS but might be an idea to check if you have it and try to test again the GPS....

Also I encourage everyone to ask Fitbit to be more open about the changes to tell us a bit more about it's firmware updates... a log would be great so we can find out what's new, what was changed...

[shipo]

---

@edit001 wrote:

I've noticed that Fitbit pushed a new firmware ver 27.25.16.7, silently. I could not find any log on what's changed so can't really tell if they did something to improve the GPS but might be an idea to check if you have it and try to test again the GPS....

Also I encourage everyone to ask Fitbit to be more open about the changes to tell us a bit more about it's firmware updates... a log would be great so we can find out what's new, what was changed...

---

I'm not sure why you say they pushed it silently; 27.25.16.7 was released in late September, before the Ionic was officially released.

[ColletteFlo]

I ran with my partner who has a garmin. We kept exactly the same pace and the Fitbit came up half a minute per mile slower pace. It’s also quite jumpy calculating pace when running and pacing doesn’t appear accurate. Not acceptable given the cost of the device. Really disappointed. 

[samgillespie]

I too have the same issue with my ionic consistently under measuring my local parkrun course. I must say I was very disappointed with the reply I received, Fitbit need to remember that the ionic was not cheap and there are plenty of other fitness watches on the market. The point they are missing is that I currently cannot use my ionic to pace my weekly parkrun and although I accept that the gps work differently. the parkrun course is 5 km as measured correctly by the blaze/iPhone not 4.8 km as consistently measured by the ionic

Hi Sam,

We hope that this email finds you well.

Thank you so much for providing the information and the screenshots, they're very helpful to us.

That being said, we're also working on it and we are planning to do an update on the Ionic to enhance its features and capabilities, so for now, keep the Ionic and the Fibit app on your phone up to date and you won't miss it.

However, bear in mind that that the GPS from the Blaze and the Ionic are very different in the way they work, that's because the Ionic has the it built in and the Blaze uses the one form your phone, so the latter is more susceptible to drops and discrepancies.

If you have any further questions, don't hesitate to reach back to us.

Sincerely,
Fred P. and the Fitbit Team

i wait hopefully for not much longer for a fix to this bug 

[Tunah85]

Hey all, thanks for responding and letting me know I am not alone in this struggle!

I went on a half marathon run today with both my Fitbit Ionic, and my Strava App on my Iphone 6.

I noticed very quickly that my ionic was about 40m behind (within about 1.5km), but then it kept pace reasonably well...

I looked down every time I hit the km mark on Strava, and noticed something peculiar... 

While on straightaways, the Fitbit Ionic and my Phone's GPS were basically identical (maybe a 10m difference over the course of 4km).  It was when I turned corners, or hit a windy (road or trail) section that the Ionic's distance started to lag behind... Almost like it was cutting or 'averaging' out the corners too much?

Can anyone else confirm or test this?

I performed a full factory reset (and update) on my Ionic just before this run, but I don't think it really changed anything.

By the end of my Half Marathon the Ionic was only under by about 100m, which is pretty good, though I made sure there were very few corners... only had about 6-7 turns in my run... Lots of 4+k straightaways.

-Ian

[pedris]

I've had the opposite problem. Ionic has been long for some recent runs. Did a 2-lap group run (measured at 8.4k per lap) which my fellow runners' devices (almost all Garmins) put between 8.4k and 8.7k. My Ionic put the first lap at 9.3k and second at 9.0k.

Also, the instantaneous pace and kilometre notification info is still hugely inaccurate.