Sense not accurate

[kaetliR]

I purchased the Sense on Sep 5th.  So far I have found that is it completely inaccurate.

1) when outside logging an exercise using GPS walking a known mile the sence is short by at least 0.1 miles but it varies everytime I walk even though the GPS should tell it when I get to a mile.

2) when walking a known mile on a treadmill walking 4 miles an hour, logged as an exercise, the Sense recorded 1450 steps (i actually counted the steps and it was 2060) and it logged 0.63 miles.

I wear it on my non-dominant wrist.  My height is correct. It is set to automatic stride length.  

I do not see any other posts on the Sense being totally inaccurate any suggestions on how to fix it or should I just return it and buy something that works?

[SunsetRunner]

Hi @kaetliR ,

My first thoughts are:

• You are not the only one unhappy about that. Far from it. If you browse this Community forum, you will find plenty more unhappy customers.
• Apparently, no fix is expected soon. I wouldn't wait for that.
• Maybe wait for someone more knowledgeable than I am to give you a better reply.
• If you don't get it and you keep unhappy about it (Sense is not exactly a cheap tracker), I recommend you return it before the 45 (?) days deadline.

Good luck!

[Rich_Laue]

Walking outside, you say that it is off by 0.1 but fail to say the total distance. What percentage off is this? 

Fitbit used a combination of gps and stride setting to calculate distance. 

On a treadmill, are you holding on to any rails, doing so can cause many types of injuries. And your tracker looks at atm movements to guess at what the feet are doing. 

[SunsetRunner]

Concerning the GPS accuracy, I have long found out that my Samsung phone's GPS is more accurate than Sense's. So I have used only the phone GPS since then, when outdoors. Anyway, the differences between both GPS are not that big when compared to other Sense inaccuracies, maybe around 5-15% most of the times. Which have the advantage of being a bit predictable, as Sense measured distances with GPS have always been about 5% to 15% longer than the actual distance, mainly when we are going close to high buildings, that block at least part of the satellites signals.

[kaetliR]

In both cases the test is 1 mile.  With the GPS test I tested it alongside other GPS apps.  I have many.  On the treadmill I did not hold on to anything.  4mph is pretty fast and I was pumping my arms vigorously.

[kaetliR]

I am not near any high buildings.  I have used my phone GPS and a Garmin Edge.  Both are accurate, the Sense is not.  Although the Sense doens't have a problem with the map tracking and draws that accurately so it shouldn't have a problems with the distance.  

[SunsetRunner]

@kaetliR ,

My experience was that, when comparing the paths on the map from both Sense and phone GPS, Sense's path was almost always a bit more winding (now going left, then going right), even going through places I had not been. That was most clear on straight paths. More windy path, therefore a longer one. It matched.

[SunsetRunner]

I am talking about up to 5 meters approx. difference between Sense GPS path and the real path in each point. That's not too much for a common non-expensive GPS, but can make a difference on the total distance (my opinion) between a good GPS device and Sense GPS. You can see it on the map, or satellite image, if you zoom it. In general, without these details and far from high buildings, Sense GPS path can look good enough. 

Hope this helps.

[mike71864]

I have found that support is not as good now that they are a Google company. One person told me that it is what is and nothing could be done. The other person told be the issue would be resolved in the firmware even though we had not discussed that issue yet. I would return it and buy something else.  I have been happy with their other devices.

[natefrog255]

I upgraded from the Versa 2 about 3 months ago and yeah I haven't been blown away by the GPS accuracy.  One of the reason I got it was b/c I didn't necessarily need my phone with for GPS, although I still needed it for music.   But my mileage is also coming up short I feel and hurting my minutes per mile.  Admittedly I haven't run outside as much the past couple months, but my last run I used Strava app at the same time and there was like a 10 second per mile difference and the Strava seemed much more in line with what I normally run.  

Now I have heard that the Sense possibly needs a few runs to calibrate your stride correctly so maybe over time it will be more accurate.  As said, i haven't used the GPS feature as much for running lately.  I did use it for snowshoeing and the map overall seemed pretty accurate but it is hard to gauge.

I just ran on the treadmill and it was definitely inaccurate.  I was running 7.5-9mph and in the end it said I was averaging 7.3 mph.  I felt I was conscioius about pumping my arms too.

I may manually add my stride length and see if that is better, but I believe running outside stride will be different than treadmill; which is why I just left it as automatic.  I don't know. 

Otherwise I have liked my Sense for the health data features and overall like the watch.  The GPS is the only feature that I'm a little underwhelmed on, at least so far.

[Hbrew]

It seems a lot of people don’t like sense. I bought a Versa 3 and am having same issues. Heart rate is way way off. My Versa 1 is 10x more accurate and it’s old. I’m returning my watch. Was thinking of a sense but after reading some things I might switch to apple. Their battery life isn’t as great but atleast they are faster at fixing their problems.