Sense GPS Accuracy

[gromeo1]

I recently upgraded from my old Versa 2 to the Sense.  I went back and forth between the Apple Watch and the Sense and primarily chose the Sense as all the articles rated it slightly higher as a fitness watch. And the most important thing to me was an accurate GPS as I run and wanted to start leaving the phone at home.  Unfortunately I've noticed that my pace is slightly slower when using the watch vs. my iPhone and the distance is slightly less. My husband and I went for a walk and tested his google app against the Sense came up .10 mile shorter per mile.  Is the GPS slightly off on the watch vs. the FitBit app on the phone? If so, is there a way to correct it?

[imeson79]

Try adjusting stride length .. For some stupid reason, the gps tracks the course, but doesn't know the distance.. This is where stride length comes into it.. Silly..I know

[anansi22]

You are correct, this is a know pain point. I'm sorry you passed on the apple watch but it will be more accurate. All fitbit devices use some kind of funky calculation to determine distance that includes stride length, which to me doesn't make sense. GPS data will always be way more accurate because stride length assumes you will cover a certain distance with each step. Stride length will always vary with each step so invariably your distance will always be incorrect. I've gone back and forth with Fitbit support, calling them out for the silly decision that was made in doing this.

The Versa nearly drove me nuts because no matter what I did it was always off by close by almost a quarter mile. It didn't matter if I set a ridiculously large stride length, had it on auto calc, or set it smaller. There is something acutely wrong with how distance is calculated. If you plan on mapping your runs, use something else. I was otherwise happy with the fitbit but that was a major deal breaker for me.

I got a Garmin Venu, and it is not as good a smartwatch - pretty poor actually, but at least it does a great job of accurately tracking runs. The lack of smartwatch features are going to see me get a apple watch 8. I could have saved myself the wasted cash had I just gotten the apple watch. This is no way an advert for apple or anyone, just highlighting a major issue with the fitbit line, which the can fix, but won't. I have a theory that the GPS they included isn't accurate so they chose to use their cooked up formula for the calculation. I won't touch a fitbit until this is fixed. Doesn't matter which device, they all have the same issue as far as I can tell. 

[BNear]

I ended up switching the stride length from Automatically detecting to manual entry. To determine the Walk Stride, measure a distance (20 feet), find an average of that 20 feet by walking it a few times & noting the number of steps you take each pass, all the total number of steps then divide by the number of passes. Take that number and divide it by 2 - So if pass 1 = 9 steps, 2 = 9, 3 = 10 and 4 =9, add those together and divide by 4; 37 / 4 = 9.25 steps per 20 feet. Now divide the total distance - 20 feet, by the total average steps - 9.28 steps; 20 / 9.25 = stride length of 2.16 feet or 65 CM

I use Runzi and Fitbit and, with the sense, I find that GPS tracking, the total distance and pace for the activity is always less than on Runzi. When I used the versa 2, I used the manual stride and it was pretty comparable to Runzi's results give or take a second or two pace times. The sense shows up to 15 seconds longer per KM and close to a half a KM off on total activity distance per run