Gps connect issues

[silvermetis]

My issues are not connection but accuracy and battery life.

In the settings it states that stride length is automatically calculated when GPS is enabled. Helpline support have now admitted that is not the case and distance is calculated by multiplying stride by step rate so the distance shown is no more accurate with GPS or off. As many trained athletes take longer strides when going down hill than going up this leads to significant errors, in my case depending on terrain this error can be up to 20%. 

My other issue is the GPS update of 1 second, this serves no purpose other than battery depletion.

In summary if you want a line on map, a flat battery in your watch and phone use GPS connect otherwise forget it.

[Rich_Laue]

Fitbit says that it is only during a gps recorded run when the stride will be auto calculated. It will not calculate stride during a walk. 

During a run with GPS we are told by Fitbit that GPS is used for distance, and why it is possible to auto set the stride. 

As for a person's stride, yes your correct in that when the walker's or runner's speed changes, so does their stride. 

[silvermetis]

Hi,

I don't know what " only slurring a gps recorded run " means But I repeat what Fitbit have told me and that is the stride length is calculated for both walking and running using a fitbit algorithm that includes height, age, gender and other factors known only to fitbit. 

This computed stride is then multiplied by the number of steps to calculate the distance. 

I asked specifically if the stride length was based on gps and they said no. I also asked why in the advanced setting did it says "your running stride is automatically adjusted ……..supported tracker" which implies the distance is more accurate when using gps, they would not answer.

If you don't believe me turn the gps connect on do a run or walk over hilly terrain with another person using a similar fitbit versa when you stop compare the distance shown on each. I did both distances were different but when I downloaded each track and viewed them in a third party app they both showed the same distance and different from that shown on either watch.

[Rich_Laue]

During a gps recorded walk, Fitbit uses the users stride setting to determine distsnce. 

During a gps recorded run, Fitbit uses the gps for distance. 

The supported travelers are the tracker a that are running the Fitbit operating system

[silvermetis]

This not what fitbit tech support told me.

It is easy to check download some of your runs and load the tracks into garmin basecamp and see if you get agreement.