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

[bbarrera]

@bmw54 Worth reading the comment section of DCrainmaker reviews for any device you might be looking at. As a cyclist/hiker/skier/swimmer, now that Garmin has rolled out Physio TrueUp I'm warming up to the idea of seriously trying out the 935 (once the music/payment version of 945 is released) or maybe the Fenix 5 plus (REI with 20% off coupon).

Was hoping the Ionic would have seen more development on sports metrics, or at least a generic GPS tracking mode, and its hard to see where Fitbit is headed outside Versa, stabilizing fitbitOS, and adding payments across the lineup as per Fitbit CEO public comments.

[NikPark]

I bought the Fenix 5 plus, it wasn't cheap, but then when I bought the Ionic that wasn't cheap, the difference being that the Fenix works perfectly. If fitbit got there act together and brought out a tracker that did the job properly I would have stuck it out, just got fed up with losing half my rides due to the GPS dropping out.

[NikPark]

I bought the Fenix 5 plus, it wasn't cheap, but then when I bought the Ionic that wasn't cheap, the difference being that the Fenix works perfectly. If fitbit got thier act together and brought out a tracker that did the job properly I would have stuck it out, just got fed up with losing half my rides due to the GPS dropping out.

[mcgas2605]

Well guys, I'm shocked to be having to say this but this product is fit for the bin and Fitbit want absolutely nothing to do with it.

I tried to contact them for a warranty claim, I showed them all the information I had. I showed them all the proof I had. Including around 5-10 runs with a TomTom watch, and the same with my iPhone using the fit bit app. The most the distance is out is around 0.03 of a mile. I expect that.  The fitbit is always around 0.5-0.75 of a mile out of the distance.

I told them this to be met with the following:

10. Use The Fitbit Service At Your Own Risk

If you rely on any Fitbit Content or the Fitbit Service, you do so solely at your own risk.

Our goal is to provide helpful and accurate information on the Fitbit Service, but we make no endorsement, representation, or warranty of any kind about any Fitbit Content, information, or services. The accuracy of the data collected and presented through the Fitbit Service is not intended to match that of medical devices or scientific measurement devices.

We are not responsible for the accuracy, reliability, availability, effectiveness, or correct use of information you receive through the Fitbit Service. Maps, directions, and other GPS or navigation data, including data relating to your current location, may be unavailable, inaccurate, or incomplete.

This basically means they can sell you a faulty product and there is nearly nothing you can do about it. However, I will be taking legal action on this as this is in breach as far as I can see of the sale of goods act / consumer rights act.

I've had a good time with Fitbit but after my experience today, I will never EVER recommend them to anyone ever again.

[mcgas2605]

How funny, you speak to one person, they say one thing. You speak to another they say another.

Just spoke to customer services on the phone, got in touch with a lovely lady who was nothing but helpful. She looked back on all my runs in my account and said I can see your Ionic is logging you running across water. She said unless my name was Jesus this would be impossible haha.

Anyway, she has taken all my details and is getting a replacement sorted for me. There may be hope yet!

[LarryQW]

 In general I've been very impressed with the Ionic while mountain biking. I'm using the latest firmware update 32.10.20. 

Although I was in heavy woods riding on the side of steep hills, I found the Ionic was spectacularly accurate!  While returning back down on the same switchbacks, the two Ionic GPS tracks are < 10' off. By comparison, the two Garmin GPS units (Edge 1000 and eTrex Touch 30) on my handlebars had tracks that were off by up to 100'. The Garmin GPS units were so bad the switchback trails were overlapping from upper to lower trails

Fitbit Ionic track on the side of a wooded mountain, showing accuracy with return tracks. 

Garmin eTrex on the same trail as above. 

The one issue I have is the total mileage for the Ionic seems to be ~3% low, odd considering the higher accuracy exhibited above.

Finally, as for distance, I got the following:

14.85 miles : eTrex Touch 30

14.00 miles : Edge 1000

13.59 miles : Fitbit Ionic

14.10 miles : Bike wheel odometer

So I’m not sure what was right, but the actual looks to be around 14 miles, and the Ionic was likely low, but the eTrex had even worse error on the high side. I see a similar 3% low mileage on most of my bike rides. 

As for climb, all three of the GPS (2 Garmin + Ionic) have barometric altimeters. I got 2400' of climb +/- 40' from all three units. So all of them were within 2% accuracy. 

Furthermore, I found the Ionic HR monitor was always within a couple BPM of the Garmin units, even during high intensity climbs, and on bumpy trails. It really did work very well. Even DC rainmaker said he thought the Ionic HR might be better than the strap, except on bumpy trails (which looks to be fixed).

So overall, I'm very satisfied with the Ionic GPS and other metrics.

[Denodan]

There are reviews on the internet and You tube show the ionic is pretty accurate and even videos that show it.

The ionic has postive reviews. So dont know why many here are having issues, but the good reviews suggest it's the minority having issues, and yours shows not all ionics are bad, but generally good and backs up what reviews have said. You will never find a watch that does every event accurately as there are limitations with every fitness watch, some events are worse than others. Cycling tests show the Garmin fenix and other Garmin watches are the worse for accuracy. For running are great. Ionic did much better than Garmin biking.

Depends on what you do, you need the watch to match your activities. Ots asking to much of any of these watches to be accurate in everything you do.

[bmw54]

@LarryQW: It's always been my experience the the Bike app uses GPS to plot course and calculate distance & pace.

Now try running the same course with the Run app and see if you get the same distance calculation.

.

[phg35]

Previously tracked runs I've done with my Surge, while my partner runs next to me with her Charge 2 have come up routinely 5% shorter. gmap-pedometer matches her tracker. 

[SunsetRunner]

How are people downloading he GPX or TCX files apps like Strava or Endomondo need for upload? When I went to manually download a file from Fitbit it was offered in CSV or XLS format only and the data did not include GPS track.

Please instruct me on how to download or acquire my GPS track from fitbit. I have checked my phone and web dashboard.

[sfringer]

@SunsetRunner If I go to the web Dashboard and then choose an activity of interest from the Recent Exercise tile. That will open the detailed view of that exercise. In the upper right corner of the map next to the calorie value is an ellipses in an oval. Tapping that offers an option to "Export as TCX File". That provides me a file that I can upload to other tools for analysis.

You can also get your list of activities by visiting: https://www.fitbit.com/activities

Selecting "View Details" next to an activity in the list should provide the same detailed view.

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you @sfringer for the very detailed explanation. I need that sometimes. I am excited that now I can at least upload the data to an alternate viewer and see if there are issues.

Are there any vanilla software packages out there that will let me import two tcx files and compare the results?

[bmw54]

Something appears to have changed; my Ionic was replaced a couple months ago - or maybe it was one of the firmware updates. Throughout last fall's racing season, the Ionic critically understated distance and overstated pace - to the extent that it was useless. 

But the 10K I raced yesterday was measured reasonably accurate by the Ionic and comes very close to my official chip-time:

Run with the Wolves 10K, July 18

Official distance: 10K; pace 7:11 are very close to Ionic results and probably due to my lag in stopping the exercise and the hairpin turn at the halfway point.

This comes after a 6K race last month where the Ionic also performed adequately.

I've contributed plenty of posts critical of the Ionic. I thought I should post a positive one.

[groberge]

Interesting.  Maybe I'll have to give it a shot in my two races this weekend.

[Dickys3]

I’ve also noticed it’s more accurate. I run with guys with Garmins and it’s always been short on their distance, however it appears to be closer alligned now. 

[SunsetRunner]

Have you run longer than 40 minutes? My units has cutout at around 40 minutes over last 5 runs for GPS track. However it reports final distance and time.

[bmw54]

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

Have you run longer than 40 minutes? My units has cutout at around 40 minutes over last 5 runs for GPS track. However it reports final distance and time.

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Yes, for the past couple months I've run 8-15 miles 3 to 4 days per week. (At my pace that comes to an average 1.5 hours / run)  And I haven't lost GPS connection more than once or twice. But the weather's hot here and I haven't been wearing long sleeves... well any sleeves,  for that matter.

It's been my experience that long sleeves (raincoat or cold weather outer-shell) over the Ionic is a GPS-killer. If that problem could be solved I might even remain in the fitbit orbit.

[Tunah85]

While I agree that the Ionic is absolutely more consistent than it was when I first got this back in October, mine still underestimates distance (marginally... but consistently).

On races it has actually been quite close, but I have been told not to trust this, as most people run longer than the distance of the race (due to wider corners/ not running straight)... Most large races will be measured using the best lines/tightest corners.

I continue to measure it against Garmin which has been in the GPS running game for far longer, and is widely used by the strong/elite runners... My brother has one.  When we run side-by-side it is an ABSOLUTE guarantee that after 5k, my gps will have measured a minimum between 50-100m less.  Every time... Without fail.

It is consistent, but for me it is still consistently measuring 1-2% less than the actual distance I have run... Further proven by uploading the raw TCX file to strava or runkeeper and having it add those 50-100m right back.

[BahGahWah]

The measured distance on the ionic has been consistent for me. 5km park runs are consistently measure at around 4.8Km. I have not really seen any difference with the various updates.

[topo_treker]

I reported this error to Fitbit over a year ago and got no help. For me, I was seeing the 10-20% difference between my Ionic and Topo maps, trail signs and my Backcountry Navigator app on my Nexus phone while hiking in the White Mountains. Three of the four agreed, but not Fitbit. I attributed it to Fitbit not allowing for vertical displacement. But now that I retired to South Carolina where there are no hills, I have the same error. My step count agrees with a walking partner who wears a Garmin, but my distance is 20% shorter. This is a software problem!

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@the_one wrote:

I have been using Fitbit Ionic tracking runs for past few months and my Ionic GPS results have never been accurate. I can understand 1% error but the results are routinely wrong by 10 to 20%. I am training for a marathon with a particular time target and this expensive watch completed frustrates the purpose of tracking the runs.

Contacting Fitbit support, I have been repeatedly giving reasons like potentially running closer to building, tunnels, poor weather etc. Just to avoid any such issues, I headed out to a running track last night. The skies were clear and the track is in the open so no reason for Ionic to be inaccurate. I ran in the same track just to avoid any errors.  Just to avoid speculation, the watch battery was full, the software for both the watch and fitbit app are upto date.

please see the attached screenshot of the tracking results, it is horribly wrong! can someone from Fitbit urgently look into this and tell me what's going on? Is this an issue specific to my watch or is the Ionic GPS faulty altogether (I have seen numerous complaints on the forum.)

Moderator edit: subject updated for clarity

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