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

[Denodan]

Garmin are crap also  got a viviomove hr and the steps are out, sleep tracking is poor. The one underestimated watch I found is the Steel Sport HR. Steps dead accurate, whereas fitbit and Garmin over estimate by 30%, seems people like big figures when it comes to steps.

Sleep tracking on the Steel is almost spot on.

Hr is pretty much in line with my heart chest strap.

[sfringer]

I disagree that "Garmin are crap also". I think as has been stated many times here, wrist-based activity trackers are, in general, less accurate than measurement-specific devices.

Prior to getting the Ionic I used a Garmin Vivoactive 3 for over a year; the heart rate tracking was no worse than what I experience with the Ionic. The sleep tracking was also accurate for my needs, though Garmin does not pickup naps and only considers sleep if it is between the period of sleep you define in the app (I did find this an issue when I had irregular schedules that affected when I went to sleep). For a period of time I wore the Ionic on one wrist and the Vivoactive on the other, and step count by the end of the day was within a few hundred steps (of ~15,000 average). The one place I did find issues with the Vivoactive compared to the Ionic is stair counting; the Ionic seems much better here than the Vivoactive ever was.

[Tunah85]

I have managed to return my Fitbit ionic based on faulty Bluetooth connection to my wireless headphones... I was well past the normal refund policy.

If you are upset with the functionality of your device, I would try and do the same.

I'm hoping the Garmin Forerunner 735XT goes on sale for black friday... No-one in my running group has had problems with their accuracy.

[Denodan]

Read on the Garmin, complaints with hr working for 10-15mins into the activity and even many complaints with the vivoactive 3.

No issues with my Steel sport compared to my chest strap its accurate, it has better hr tracking than my vivomove hr.

Garmin step count like crap, sometimes wake up and 200 steps before I start.

Sleep tracking if often miles off.

The Withings steel sport is near the perfect watch unless you want all the bells and whistles of the Phoenix 5.

That is the only decent Garmin watch.

Have had my ionic fitbit, Garmin vivomove hr, and now my Withings steel sport hr, the best out of the 3 of them. While no watch is perfect the steel ticks the most boxes and steps are accurate whereas fitbit, Garmin and apple all over calculate steps. The steel has the nearest accurate steps out of them all and mentally counted my steps and spot on.

The only fault, if your pushing a trolley then it wont count steps.

The withings beats most of the Garmin and fitbit watches.

Not as fansy and may lack some features, but the most accurate I have found.

[LarryQW]

I don't have a Garmin watch, but have compared my Ionic to my Garmin bike units such as the Edge 1000 and eTrex 30. I was extremely surprised to find the Ionic was many times more accurate than the Garmin hand held units! When riding switchbacks with poor reception on the side of a mountain under thick trees, the Garmin units were up to 100' off causing the adjacent trails to overlap, and the return path was quite different. But the Ionic return path was right on top of the outgoing path. I posted pictures earlier in the thread. 

[Denodan]

Garmin are no where as good as they used to be. All over their forums hr not accurate or taking taking 10mins+ before it gets anywhere near correct HB.

[bpostofwc]

I have never had an accurate HR readout from a watch. Only with the chest strap. If you need a good HR during your workout get a good device with the chest strap. I love the Fitbit app and a lot of the features. I just need something more running specific as well. It was always hard to do interval workouts with the ionic as well. The GPS was just unpredictable. The surge was much better in this category. The Ionic looks the best though. Good looking watch!!!


Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPhone

[LanuzaFitbit]

Hello @bpostofwc and @Denodan.

Thanks for sharing your feedback on the matter. Please do know that we take all comments seriously and we're always looking for ways to improve the overall Fitbit experience.

Feel free to reach out with any questions.

[Rampaging_Robbo]

My gps on a replacement ionic actually adds loads of distance due to “wandering”

this is in a spread out houses suburban area of Melbourne so no buildings to get in the way of gps signal

a 2.5 k walk measures as 3.1 k 

the screen shot below shows this 

that should be 3 straight lines along those streets 

 

[SP_Ionic]

am having a problem with ionic. ran a stretch of 3.25 km today as per ionic. however, google maps shows the distance  as  2.4 km. that's a huge difference ! So a 10km run I end up running 12-13 km since I am not sure whether its an over-enthu ionic. can Fitbit answer?

[Tex52]

Why do people keep buying this watch after all the issues posted here? Got
rid of mine over 2 years ago and never been happier.



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[LarryQW]

I just bought my second Ionic and couldn't be happier. I love the Ionic, not just for GPS, but for the sleep analysis and many other features. 

I find the Ionic GPS is very reliable and accurate. It captures the satellites in seconds. Works in the deep woods. The accuracy is surprisingly better than my Garmin Edge or Vista as noted in the graphs earlier. It originally shorted me about ~8% on total miles ridden, but that was fixed over the months. 

[rahulganatra]

Have been noticing a major problem wiht Ionic;s GPS accuracy. Last 3 times i have taken a run with Ionic and my mobile phone(samsung galaxy m51(so fairly new)) together. Today i started both at same time, ionic and phone wiht strava started on it,  ensured gps is connected before i started running. Over the course of run - 11kms or so, i noticed the diffrence

1. 1kms splits were off each other in terms of pace diff.

2. over the course my phone with strava recorded below

and my fitbit below:

overall major difference was strava recorded 11.11 kms at 5.49 pace, total time 1:04:38 and fitbit recorded 11.01kms at 5.53 pace, total time 1:04:51

this is not huge but can affect if training for some targets. 

3. the major problem was elevation gain. i start from home and end at home . if you see the elevation graph , it is funny. See below:

4. last point was the HR. at start of activity it suddenly jumped to 180+ and then stabilised to normal expected for me. this is a known problem as i have noticed and also read

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject