GPS distance totally wrong on Charge 3

[BertilDator]

Was doing cross country skiing, and set activity to "run" (as there is very limited activity list). Had phone connected, and got perfect GPS route on Fitbit activity. However, all the splits are way off. Total distance in Fitbit shows 4.8km while real distance was 7.5 km (I know the route, and even double checked via ontegomap.com).

How can Fitbit calculate distance so wrongly even though the GPS route is perfect on the activity? I repeat, the tracked route is 100% correct on the Fitbit activity in question, so there is no disconnections, or trees, or anything between the phone and GPS satellite, nor between phone and Charge 3.

Is Fitbit using GPS route for distance calculation when assisted GPS is enabled during "Run" activity, or does it STILL use stride length?

Should I use "Biking" activity for XC skiing to get accurate distance based on the GPS route?

[BryanCork]

😥

[Saturnus]

The GPS used to work reasonably well (minor inaccuracies) for me until October. Now it is so bad that my Fitbit is completely useless for running. Today the distance was 20% off on a route it used to calculate fairly well last month.

My biggest worry is that Fitbit does not recognize these complaints. I was super happy with my fitbit until October, but now I'm already looking at alternatives. Unless this is fixed soon I will never buy a fitbit again. I cannot understand why it suddenly got so bad. I have even tested with different phones and my conclusion is that it has to be related to my charge 3 or the app.

[Lizisrunning]

I'm having the same problem. It was great and pretty accurate but on Saturday apparently my usual parkrun was only 4.2km and tonight I ran 6.8k when everyone else in the group I was running with ran 5.6k. My routes look perfect, I had GPS but the distances are totally wrong and therefore so is the pace. Have loved my fitbit up until now but this has made it completely useless. 

[Saturnus]

I updated to 3.8 yesterday and today the GPS performed better. A coincidence?

I have included some screenshot below.

Picture 1: 2019-10-21 tracked with Fitbit v3.7

Picture 2: Same run 2019-10-21 tracked with Strava v120.7

This (picture 1 & 2) is from the exactly same GPS used by two apps simultaneously on the same phone. The Fitbit-app was about 10% off the correct distance. The fitbit tracking has some really weird spikes/artifacts. The above picture is just one example, all my runs previously in October has looked as bad as this. Even when I was testing with different phones to check if it was caused by the GPS. The distance has varied from 20 % to short to 7 % to long.

Picture 3: 2019-10-23 tracked with Fitbit v3.8

Picture 4: Same run 2019-10-23 tracked with Strava v120.7

This (picture 3&4) is from the exactly same GPS used by two apps simultaneously on the same phone. Now the artifacts are gone and the Fitbit-app was only 1% off the correct distance. I really hope that the update to 3.8 has fixed my issue permanently. I will post again after a few more test runs.

[Weather411]

I am very thankful for the numerous responses on this thread (I awoken it from April). I have firmware 28.20001.63.5 installed on my Charge 3 and v3.8 (20243440) FitBit app for my SG S7. The walk I took today was pretty accurate (FitBit 3.47 miles when it actually was 3.52 miles per gmaps pedometer). Saturnus, I had the exact jagged GPS track on a 4 mile walk on 10/14. Not for the last few days though. I can't believe FitBit has not formally responded to this. If I see consistently good results going forward, I'll be sure to update everyone here.

[HansimGlueck]

sounds promising.

I have version 3.8 installed since yesterday. I will go running today and will also keep you updated with the results.

I still cant see why Fitbit is not responding to this problem, but as long as it is solved I`m ok with it.

[BryanCork]

3.8 is less inaccurate for me.... but still a fair bit off unfortunately

went for a run yesterday.... fitbit said 8.17km and actual distance was
8.56km... 😞

[HansimGlueck]

For me also V3.8 is still completely off.

Went for a short run today, Strava showed 7.3km, Fitbit 5.6km. On the map it still seems good, but that doesn't help.

So Fitbit is still completely useless for me in terms of tracking distances.

[Saturnus]

My two last runs have been inaccurate and I am seeing the crazy artifacts again when I zoom in a little bit on the GPS-track in Fitbit. Strava (using the same GPS) does not show any signs of this and is measuring the distance far more accurate.

Artifcacts in Fitbit

Figure 1: Run 2019-10-27 tracked by Fitbit 3.8 and Strava 121.7 simultaneously (Note:the figure shows tracking of two laps, but only the fitbit tracker has weird artifacts)

Here are my last two runs

Date	Correct dist.	Fitbit dist.	Fitbit error	Strava dist.	Strava error
2019-Oct-25	10.0 km	9.70 km	-3.0 %	9.89 km	-1.1 %
2019-Oct-27	4.90 km	4.34 km	-11.4 %	4.88 km	-0.4 %

It would be nice if a developer could answer why Fitbit has these artifacts and why it calculates the distances so wrong compared to Strava?

(And please do not blame Strava for the artifacts in Fitbit - I only started using Strava simultaneously because of the artifacts and incorrect distance in FItbit) 

[djjkfno]

I gave up my Charge 3 about a week ago because of this issue. Bought a Garmin Forerunner 45 instead, GPS is now spot on. 

I will NEVER buy anything from Fitbit again. If they only responded something like "we're looking into it" maybe I would have some trust left in the brand.

The Garmin is great, buy one of them instead. 

[RiseAndShine]

Wow... so many posts and not a bip from Fitbit. Has been using C3 for almost a year. Running was the only activity I could use GPS for reliably. All of the sudden few weeks ago my GPS-measured distance became to differ either 25% up or 25% down without any consistency! This kills all running stats as well as fitness score. I have to delete all those runs to keep my score on track. Map is looking correct in most cases, and sometimes as if I was running in zig-zag manner. The distance was incorrect regardless. Tried all I could find - clearing cache from both map app and fitbit, restarting phone, playing with settings to no avail (I already had all the settings figured out months ago when I had original issues with GPS). Samsung health on my phone is tracking the distance very accurately - thus, this is clearly Fitbit distance "translation" issue. Appearantly a wide-spread issue related to some kind of update... most likely app since we haven't had C3 firmware updates for a while and my phone hadn't received any updates when this issue started. GPS feature is totally useless now on Charge 3... and no response from Customer Support? Any information, please? Very frustrating to start the run and see the pace either +1 min or -1 min... so much for the motivation to improve the performance!

[RiseAndShine]

Fitbit might have done something... I ran today with GPS and - to my huge surprise - it actually worked as before (last time GPS worked for me was Sep 12...). So, after 1 and 1/2 month of frustration, it seem to be functioning again. (At least I hope it's not a 1 ttime fluke).

[Lochbuie]

Have to add to the woes. Same issue for Charge 2 users. I'm getting large variation on some of my routes. Today's walk  4.17 by Charge 2 vs 5.76 miles on app's GPS. Pretty close to the measured 5.5 miles.

This issue is not filling me with confidence as I was looking change to Charge 3. I think I'll be looking at Garmin.

[Weather411]

To echo what RiseAndShine said: I too have had two walks (3.50 miles) both Thursday (10/31) and Friday (11/1) where the FitBit was right on the money with the mileage. I would have to do further research to see if there was an app update but wanted to let you all know. Wishful thinking (?) time will tell...

[BryanCork]

Went for a run this morning. All the most up todate firmwear and app etc.
Actual distance was 9.13km. Fitbit tracked 8.88km.... its close but not
good enough unfortunately.

[Nneicho]

After two weeks of no running i finally went out running again today.

They have clearly done something to the app but for some reason mines gone the other way. 'Fitbit' charge 3 states 11.88km and my app 'Track my run' states 10.99km. So ive gone from 1km behind to nearly 1km ahead!!!! Hows that happened.....lol....

[Ijones]

I noticed that when i use my phone gps the distance is smaller than real and when running with the gps off the distance is bigger than the real one ... 😕 

[Lochbuie]

Drawing Stumps

Fitbit app update on the 4/Nov for me. No improvement in accuracy, the apps GPS tracking is far better than the watch. Variation +1 mile when compared to GPS. Just for comparison measured routes using  UK's OS MasterMap, Fitbits GPS app spot on when GPS variance is accounted for.

Not impressed by inaccuracies so 9th Nov moving to different make.

[HansimGlueck]

I second Lochbuies comment. Also for me there is no improvement on GPS accuracy. It is still far off (at least 30%, sometimes even 50% and almost all the times the charge shows less miles than the real GPS).

I also dont believe in a solution of this problem anymore. I mean it is obvious that Fitbit doesnt care and I doubt that someone within Fitbits team is actually working on this problem.

So I also will look for other alternatives for tracking the GPS activities. The Fitbit is only useful for tracking steps and sleep. And for this, the device is way to expensive.

[BrandonW92]

I'm glad I'm not the only one with this issue. Few weeks in with my c3 and from day one I have had issues with the connected GPS. Fitbit Support sent me a replacement device which hasn't made it any better. It keeps taking miles off me as well. Looking on my Google map history I have a perfect route trace, the Fitbit GPS map is spiking and doing all sorts on wonderful things. 

Seriously regretting buying this watch now!