Charge 4 GPS issues

[Mountaingirle]

Hello, it’s me again, so I’m having issues with my GPS this time, it loses signal randomly and never picks it up again, I use this to track runs and hikes and until recently have had no issues with gps like this, I have ran and hiked it the same area many many times and never issues and now all of a sudden it doesn’t work, can you please tell me what the issue is? Is this related to my battery issue that I’m still waiting on a response to? Awaiting a reply … 

[kphmitten]

The GPS on mine always drops - even if I'm on wide open streets with no tall buildings or trees on a cloudless day and my watch is above 80%. It's happened since I bought the 4 which I was excited to not have to carry my phone to have GPS - it's literally why I bought this watch. Now I'm looking at getting a Garmin. 

[CoreyMac]

For the nickel allergy, by son has one as well and was never able to wear a metal anything.  For this last one however we painted the back of the watch stainless steel bits with clear two part epoxy acrylic resin.  Two to three thin coats and zero allergy issues after several months of wearing.  All the other "coatings" we tried either peeled off or did not prevent the reaction, or caused their own allergic reaction.

We have not tried this yet with the optical sensors or charging contacts.

[CoreyMac]

Ch5 loses the stairs/altimeter feature.  I do not know about the GPS personally though as I do not use the CH5, only a CH4 thus far.

[Gingerscouse]

Wow! I’ll try that, thank you so much!

Sent from my iPhone

[Splasher]

My charge 4 worked for the first few months and has recently stopped map tracking, not happy  now thinking of buying a garmin. 

[Splasher]

I have had fitbits for years, and been very happy with them. GPS on the charge 4 has been useless for the last few months. I'm planning to buy a garmin, my husband uses one, it logs tons of stuff, the support is good and no extra cost for all the health information. 

[Stop-trackin]

It's just insane that that level of IT/tech troubleshooting is required for something that is supposed to function without much interference. If it was known that these level of issues exist, perhaps we should be paid for the time spent fixing the issues, instead of using the devices

[SunsetRunner]

I am just adding my voice to the frustration. I bought my Charge 4 in July 2021. It worked great until late June or early July of 2022 when the GPS connection would drop or would not connect or was connecting and disconnecting throughout my runs. I was visiting the US (I live in Southeast Asia) so I thought maybe it was that. But it has continued since I returned. The thing that gets me is that I run and bike in similar locations (and often bike home immediately following a run) and the GPS when I bike seems far more reliable than for my runs. I generally run on University campuses which have generally open spaces but bike riding home where the buildings are taller. So I am confused why the run GPS is inconsistent and the bike GPS works better. I bought the watch specifically for the built-in GPS and will be purchasing a Coros or Garmin by the end of the year because the unreliability has become too much of a hassle for me

[BillJ99x]

GPS is finally working for me. I set GPS mode to Phone instead of dynamic and turned low power mode off and now it stays connected for hours. Those settings are on the tracker. 

[SunsetRunner]

My GPS has started working consistently again for the last week or 10 days. I wanted to get in a number of runs and bike rides before replying. The connection is relatively quick with GLONASS on and it has stayed connected more or less and reconnects after short intervals of losing GPS. So I think this is working more reliably again. Thanks to fitbit for finally fixing the issue.

[dz1234]

maybe I will try it again. I have been running using dynamic mode lately while running with my phone. That tends to work, but I figured that was the phone GPS working. In the past, I have had the GPS drop frequently during my longer runs. One odd thing that I noticed was that I could get the GPS to work without carrying the phone, if the phone was nearby. For example, playing soccer of basketball, I would leave my phone in the car, while wearing the tracker and the GPS info looks accurate and never dropped.