Ionic GPS very inaccurate

[SunsetRunner]

Just got the Ionic as a fitness reimbursement for my company. Using it as mostly a smart watch. However, attempted a quick run the other day to test it out, and the GPS was widely inaccurate. There is a mark a mile away from house which I know for a fact is a mile there and back, and yet only got 1.8X miles. I've measured it countless times, and with my normal GPS watch (Garmin Forerunner 620) gets it right around that mark every time (within 1-2 seconds). So in theory it seems like the GPS tracking needs major work still or is there a bug or something? When I first started the run, it did take a bit for it to pick up that I was running...

[shipo]

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@ngmiler05 wrote:

Just got the Ionic as a fitness reimbursement for my company. Using it as mostly a smart watch. However, attempted a quick run the other day to test it out, and the GPS was widely inaccurate. There is a mark a mile away from house which I know for a fact is a mile there and back, and yet only got 1.8X miles. I've measured it countless times, and with my normal GPS watch (Garmin Forerunner 620) gets it right around that mark every time (within 1-2 seconds). So in theory it seems like the GPS tracking needs major work still or is there a bug or something? When I first started the run, it did take a bit for it to pick up that I was running...

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Your best bet for accuracy is to ignore the autodetect stuff and start the run manually.  That way you can make sure the GPS satellites are synched before you press the button to start your run.  If you use autodetect, your run will virtually always be off.

[SunsetRunner]

Thank you for your replay. I never auto detect and just manually start it. Just shocked comparatively how in accurrate it is comparatively to measuring online and with Garmin GPS. Still like the watch overall, just won't get much use out of the GPS if it is off that much.

[FlyBoyJIt]

I don't know about you, but I have tried my iPhone 7 Plus, and iPhone 6s Plus tethered to my blaze and then the ionic and my usual run spot is pretty accurate.

Hopefully you just have a faulty unit that needs replacing or maybe just do a manual start and wait for the GPS to fully connect before you start running.

[shipo]

@ngmiler05 wrote:

When I first started the run, it did take a bit for it to pick up that I was running..

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@ngmiler05 wrote:

Thank you for your replay. I never auto detect and just manually start it. Just shocked comparatively how in accurrate it is comparatively to measuring online and with Garmin GPS. Still like the watch overall, just won't get much use out of the GPS if it is off that much.

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Hmmm, your first quote sounds very much like Auto-Detect.  If you go into Exercise mode, select Run, and wait for the satellites to synch, the instant you press the start button, it will start tracking your run.

[SunsetRunner]

Yup 100% it wasn't on auto-detect run. I definitely wait until its connected fully to satellites as pretty straight forward to know when that is. I will have to try again to see, but so far not impressed at all with the GPS accurracy and capability. My garmin is 10x better in the regards. 

[SunsetRunner]

Well, I’m very happy with the gps and can’t fault its tracking. On a 39.8km ride it differed only by 80m from my bike’s GPS.

[SunsetRunner]

Yup i did test bike when i first got it, and that seemed to work fine. I
may have to do some more testing and tweaking on the run function maybe? My
theory is even it gets connected for satellites the signal still isn't very
good I bet. As we really don't get a signal strength like with my Garmin.

[FrankieCopley]

I can copletely sympathise with this. I ran Leeds Abbey dash today which is a 10k. I set my watch on gps b4 the start and ended it after and it showed me as only running 5.9 worst show this would have meant my worst run time ever! Thank God for chip timing stateing my official time which was actually my fastest 10k ever! It will be going back to the shops tomorrow for sure! Absolutely horrified 

[shipo]

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@FrankieCopley wrote:

I can copletely sympathise with this. I ran Leeds Abbey dash today which is a 10k. I set my watch on gps b4 the start and ended it after and it showed me as only running 5.9 worst show this would have meant my worst run time ever! Thank God for chip timing stateing my official time which was actually my fastest 10k ever! It will be going back to the shops tomorrow for sure! Absolutely horrified 

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Can you post the GPS track; I'd like to see what happened.

[FrankieCopley]

I have since deleted the track and entered it in manually as it was messing
up my stats on starva.. I went to get advise from fitbit through Twitter
and the person answering me was not helpful at all i was horrified with the
service that I received from this and have since returned my fitbit
tracker. I have been a loyal fitbit customer for 3 years and have owned the
aria the blaze and the surge.. all of which i sold to buy the ionic. I have
since returned the product based on the terrible service I encountered for
a full refund. If it was the case that it had made me aware that gps had
been lost i may have been more sympathetic but it didnt.


Unless something kind or any sort of customer loyalty is shown to me i will
make sure that no one i know buys an ionic or entertains a fitbit. My email
for fitbit is francesca_copley@hotmail.com. if you would like to review the
conversation it was on my Twitter account @copleyfrancesca.


Kind regards

Francesca