GPS Doesn't Stay Connected

[AK10513]

I purchased a new Sense 2 after my Blaze stopped working with my iPhone GPS. I was excited about a watch that I didn't have to track through my phone. That lasted about 2 weeks. I'm over a year and a replacement watch later and essentially have no functioning GPS! My customer service experience through Fitbit was, at best, very frustrating. I was even told by one csr when I asked to return for repair, that there is no such thing, while not mentioning the option to replace the watch with a new one! I ended up calling a different number and got a new watch and, guess what? It won't reliably connect either! 

This is obviously a GPS change by Fitbit/Google and new watches don't solve the problem. What can I do?

[GDiana]

I upgraded from a Sense to a Sense2 and on my first walk I too noted that the walk did not produce a map as GPS appeared to be off.

I then did a bit of digging and found the following 2 pieces of info.

1 On my iPhone I found I could manually start and track a walk using the Fitbit app which uses the phone's maps and GPS to track and gets heart rate etc from the phone.

2 On the phone I went to exercises and tapped ALL and noted that the GPS was disabled (by default) and simply enabled GPS 

It appears that when exercising with one's phone that one may use one phone to track any exercise and presume it uses the phone's GPS and collects the heart rate stuff etc from the watch and thus saves the watch's battery life from not having to use GPS. 

If one does not have one's phone then one may activate the exercise from one's watch and it will do the same but using the watch's GPS function and use the watch's battery.

So with Sense2, one has the best of breed in terms of phone battery life.

It appears we now have this additional functionality with the Sense2 over the Sense but for the life of me cannot fathom why this cannot simply be explained and it is like getting blood out of  stone?

Hope this helps.

Oh and by the way if one activates Google Maps then when using Google Maps on one's phone it will automatically link to the watch so that when one is exercising or even traveling and say going from point A to point B on the phone it will send updates to the watch which is quite cool in case one gets lost for example.

[AK10513]

My problem is that when I start an exercise the GPS either says "no GPS signal", or it connects for a few minutes and then drops the connection. I'm not interested in having to use my phones maps. That's why I got a watch with built in GPS in the first place.

[GDiana]

On the sense for example where I used the phone GPS I found GPS reception was quite erratic at some points and that it showed I was walking on/in the sea for example. If I were you I would first do a test using the iPhone to see whether the phone also has a GPS problem and not just the watch as if both are erratic at the same time then it is a GPS signal issue and not a watch or phone issue. I also noted that when I started a walk the GPS would only register some minutes later and during a walk would go on and off. So I would wait for the GPS to connect before I hit start. This I found was due to erratic GPS signal strength and that my phone simply could not detect GPS.

In most instances, it is a GPS signal strength issue and not a phone or watch issue which is why some walks register perfectly and others it appears totally dysfunctional. Any watch has limited power and even on my iPhone the watch gets warm when using GPS.

GPS signal etc has very little to do with Fitbit/Google and will depend on the sattelite/s you fall under at any particular time.

see:  https://www.quora.com/How-can-you-tell-if-your-phones-GPS-signal-is-coming-from-a-nearby-satellite-o...

Note I am just sharing my experience

[AK10513]

I agree, it is most probably a GPS signal strength issue but using my Blaze
in the exact same geographic areas had a much more reliable connection,
hence my frustration with this new phone as the satellite has not changed.
Therefore, FitBit Sense 2 has a weaker (and inferior) GPS ability and
that's not what you want from a so-called GPS capable watch.

I meant my frustration with the new watch, not phone.

[GDiana]

Yes, I agree as any watch has limited power and storage and one should not have too high an expectation.🤷‍

It is a case of marketing where people have asked for a feature and they got it but the technical limitations now come to the fore as we are seeing🤔.

A case of beware of what one asks for🤦‍

All we can do is make sure that watch is fully charged before any GPS-tracked walk 🙈🙉🙊

[N8teGee]

Hi @AK10513.

Unfortunately your experience is typical of my own. I've found the GPS on the Sense 2 to be extremely poor. I've spent over 5 minutes trying to get a GPS fix, when my other watch (different brand) fixes in around 10 - 20 seconds.

I've concluded that this is down to antenna placement on the Sense 2 (the black plastic area on the back if the device). As you can imagine, this isn't an ideal location for something where direct line of sight is critical. It's a similar situation with the Charge 5, although at least with that we have the option to use connected GPS (using the phones GPS over Bluetooth). The upcoming Sense 2 update is said to have this option, so it may help to an extent. Although this defeats the purpose of having onboard GPS. 

[N8teGee]

@GDiana I don't agree with this. There are some very accurate GPS watches on the market. Even going back to past Fitbit devices, the original Sense performed much better in regards to GPS. This is fundamentally a poor hardware/design decision when it comes to the Sense 2.