Ionic cutting Parkruns short.

[Zissou10]

Hi,

I've had the Ionic for a few weeks now, generally am happy with it however I have noticed that it cuts my Parkruns short by almost half a mile.

I have run 8 mile and 10 mile routes, having mapped them out beforehand, and it has tracked the distance perfectly. However with my local Parkrun (Whiteley), it appears to cut it short, whilst however I will have a pretty accurate time by the volunteers and the stopwatch, my Strava best efforts etc are wrong.

More so, the purpose of purchasing a watch with built in GPS was so I could easily look at my wrist and see what my average pace was and speed up/slow down accordingly. Yesterday it had told me one pace when I was actually going much faster.

I have clicked on the 'Distance(?)' link under my distance on Strava which has updated them both to 2.9 miles, however this is still short and does not provide me with what I need, real-time.

I worry that when it comes to upcoming races I want to do well in (Pieces of Eight and the Great South Run) I will not be able to trust the accuracy of the watch or may rely on the data it gives me at the time and fall short of my targets.

Images below; the latter two are the two most recent runs using the Ionic. Beforehand I had my phone in my pocket and used the Strava app to track which would always come out as 3.1 or 3.2 miles.

Any help will be much appreciated.

[RicardoFitbit]

Hello @Zissou10, it's nice to see you again participating here in the Community Forums! 

I appreciate all the information, details and screenshots that were shared in your post, sorry for the difficulties experienced with your device and GPS tracking. Let me share with you that when you select a GPS exercise, Ionic vibrates when it finds a GPS signal. Environmental factors including tall buildings, dense forest, steep hills, and even thick cloud cover can interfere with your watch's ability to connect to GPS satellites. For best results, wait for Ionic to find the signal before you start your workout. However, if you don't want to wait you can start your workout and GPS tracking begins when Ionic finds a signal. 

Note that Ionic uses your step count to calculate distance until it finds a GPS signal. The total distance calculated for a workout may be slightly less accurate when GPS data isn't available for the entire time. For more information, see How accurate is GPS?

Also, Fitbit devices calculate distance by multiplying your walking steps by your walking stride length and multiplying your running steps by your running stride length. We estimate your stride lengths using your height and sex. If your Fitbit device uses GPS and you track 1 or more runs using on-board or connected GPS, we evaluate that data to automatically update your running stride length. For best results, run at a comfortable pace for at least 10 minutes.

If you prefer to measure your walking and running stride lengths yourself and enter them manually, see How do I measure and adjust my stride length?

Note that when you're tracking an activity with GPS, Fitbit calculates your distance using GPS data rather than steps. If you begin moving before you get a GPS signal, the tracker will calculate distance using steps and stride length as described above until a GPS signal is found.

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

[Zissou10]

Hi Ricardo,

Thank you for you detailed reply!

On both occasions I waited until the Ionic found a GPS signal before starting my run. The weather was fine on both days (very sunny on the first) and the woodland area we do run through is very light in regards to trees overhanging etc, although I think the weather/forest part of your comment was more to do with finding the GPS signal before I start, rather than it dropping out whilst running?

In terms of human interaction, I believe I am doing everything right? I wait for the GPS signal to be found before starting my run/exercise...

Regards,

Bryan