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

[mcgas2605]

Hey guys - Another update for you. 

I landed back from holiday yesterday after being away. Today I decided to go back to running.

I wish I was coming back with some good news, but it would appear the Ionic is back to its old tricks again. Run today was 2.98 Miles. Which is massively off what I usually see. In relation to my old pictures. I didn't even make it to the start of the lake, let alone run through it (according to the Fitbit). 

Is it worth trying to get a replacement under warranty? 

[Sasqch]

I would go for the warranty replacement.

 I have found my Ionic’s GPS accuracy to be very good. Now getting it to sync my music, well that’s an entirely different story. I have yet to make that work… So frustrating!

[Ericws]

Nope.  My Ionic is spot on and better than any prior GPS watch I have ever had.

[Ericws]

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@mcgas2605 wrote:

Hey guys - Another update for you. 

I landed back from holiday yesterday after being away. Today I decided to go back to running.

I wish I was coming back with some good news, but it would appear the Ionic is back to its old tricks again. Run today was 2.98 Miles. Which is massively off what I usually see. In relation to my old pictures. I didn't even make it to the start of the lake, let alone run through it (according to the Fitbit). 

Is it worth trying to get a replacement under warranty? 

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It doesn't sound like you'll be happy with the Ionic, and have made your mind up.  But maybe a new one will help you to give it another try.

I personally love my Ionic, and its GPS measurements are spot on with my prior GPS watch and phone experiences.  Exactly the same.  I am super impressed with my Ionic and its features, at half the cost of comparable Garmins, etc....

[jack.]

The comparable Garmin is the Vivoactive 3 Music, which costs the same and has a more accurate GPS (in my experience).

[Ericws]

That just came out, as in last week., right? I will need to look into the GPS accuracy- not sure how you can compare them just yet.

I was comparing Fitbit Ionic to the Forerunner 645 Music, which is much more expensive, and I see no reason to spend $200 more than Ionic for that one.  I guess Garmin was worried, as it just fired back with the Vivoactive 3 music!  Haha.  I admit I might have looked at that one 6 months ago, had it been out then.  I was not interested in paying more than $300.  My Ionic was $250 after an in-store discount.  But I am so satisfied with my Ionic, and what I have found to be spot on GPS and ease of use on all aspects, that I will be set for a while!  Cheers!

[cleoent]

Im an early adopter of the fitbit ionic and have been going crazy with the inaccuracy of the GPS as well.  I've been silently monitoring this thread over the past few months in hopes of some kind of fix, BUT IT HAS NOT COME. 

Fitbit, what's the deal?  If you can't fix the inaccurate GPS, can you please at least make it so that the Ionic can use the phone GPS instead?  I've run 2 10ks, 1 half and 2 5ks and the fitbit has been 10%+ off each run. It's maddening.

I'm even considering "downgrading" to the versa and ditching the horrible on watch GPS, but I dont want to drop another $200.00 just to fix a problem that shouldn't exist.

[Robby1870]

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@fumbling81 wrote:

Today on my morning run the GPS stopped working, and it took a whole 5 miles for it to pick back up again. I tried restarting it when it stopped but it still didn't help. I noticed that the GPS has been having issues every since the OS update. Anyone else having this problem?

fumbling81, I've had the exact same experience you describe since I got my Ionic recently.  I've been keeping this thread updated with my findings.  Basically, GPS run activities lose GPS connection about 40 minutes into the run and never regain connection.  However, GPS walk and GPS bike activities work great and never lose connection.  I walk in the same area I run in so I don't think my surroundings are to blame.  

[rewilkin]

Went on a known distance 8 mile hike Saturday.  My phone tracked me at 8.1 miles.  My ionic tracked me at 9.5.  That's a pretty big difference.  It is consistently 10-20% higher/longer than the actual distance.  I have done all updates.  Any ideas?

[groberge]

Yes...sell the Ionic to anyone who doesn't care as much about the GPS accuracy but still wants the other features.

Fitbit has known about this issue since not long after the release and have yet to provide a fix that has worked for mine.  I'll be selling it soon and getting a Garmin.

[cleoent]

How did you record the activity?  If you select run and you walk, the GPS will be off.  If you select walk and you run, the gps will be off.  It's because fitbit for whatever reason decided to do gps off of a guess of your stride.  It's stupid.

[groberge]

I have never had an accurate reading from the Ionic when choosing run and actually running.  Many people have suggested using the bike activity because it supposed to use the GPS tracker and not the stride but that still doesn't work for me.

Don't get me wrong, some people have had success with the GPS on the Ionic and Fitbit did make one update that fixed it for some other people.  For me, I've had no luck and I've tried it many times in many different places.

I've even tried using an app that is available on the Ionic to track and run and that one was perfect for the distance.  Unfortunately that app is very basic and doesn't give other information that I needed and wasn't very intuitive on how to use it at the time.  This tells me that the hardware itself is fine.  It's something to do with the calculation and I've tried for over 8 months to deal with it but I now want a fitness watch that will do what I bought this one to do.

[jack.]

I managed to solve all of my GPS issues by switching to a Vivoactive 3 Music.

[groberge]

Oooh...I was going to go with the Forerunner 935 and forego the music but I may have to rethink that.

[lckysquirrel]

What was the fix? 

[SilviaFitbit]

A warm welcome to the Community @lckysquirrel! I would like you to confirm you've tried the troubleshooting posted on the previous post. You might be interested on reading How accurate is GPS?. 

If you can provide me with more details about what you're experiencing, that would great. This way, I can provide  you with the best steps that can fix it. 

Keep me posted. 

[Giampi71]

This morning I went for a run (only 6 km because here in Japan is too hot) and used my Ionic on left wrist, a Polar m600 on my right wrist and a Google Pixel 2 XL (actually my intention was to test the accuracy of the Pixel 2 XL).

Really pleased in all aspects, although both the Polar and the Ionic had their differences on HR, sometimes in favor of Ionic, sometimes in favor of the Polar.

The overall distances have been 6.12 km (Pixel), 6.11 (Polar) and 6.10 (Ionic).

You can find a precise comparison of all data at the following link:

https://analyze.dcrainmaker.com/#/public/81ce2509-e9e7-414d-437c-8ce9c8898f13

Please note that the Polar lost GPS signals few times.

[Denodan]

Seems only in here people seem to have issues  read reviews, and you tune video reviews and none of them mentioned accuracy issues like is listed here

[NikPark]

I've fixed my inaccuracies with my fitbit ionic.

I tried for a long time to get support to look into the GPS failures, just to get run around in circles, pointless restarts that did nothing at all.

Finally I went out and bought a Garmin and it works so much better than fitbit Ionic, never loses the GPS signal even In dense woodland.

I  was a fitbit fan before and had a couple of devices before the Ionic, but since owning the Ionic I can honestly say I'll never buy another, as I'm sure it was not tested fully before release and we were used as the testers. Expensive lesson learned.

[bmw54]

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@NikPark wrote:

Finally I went out and bought a Garmin and it works so much better than fitbit Ionic, never loses the GPS signal even In dense woodland.

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Which model did you purchase?