GPS acting up

[00769]

When I got my fitbit Surge in October it worked great and was very accurate. Now, in the last few days, it is off by .31 miles for every actual mile jogged/walked. I can't find a way to correct this problem. Any help would be appreciated.

[SunsetRunner]

Hey @00769, it could just be a temporary glitch that restarting your Surge will fix. To restart:

1) hold the left and bottom right buttons in together for about 20 seconds or more until the screen starts to fade

2) release the buttons. The screen will slowly go totally blank

3) wait half a minute

4) press the left button to boot it back up.

Hopefully this does the trick. There is also a help article here that has some info on factors that influence GPS accuracy such as heavy cloud cover, tall buildings etc.

[BBIEPRNCSS]

Hi guys, I'm having the same issue - same routes but different distance each run! I did try myself to restart it but it didn't help. Any other ideas to try out?

[00769]

It is very upsetting. The first two months it worked great. It was very accurate. I measured the 1/4 mile track inside lane. After four laps I expected to see one mile and that's what I saw. Now after four laps on the inside track, my Fitbit reads/reports .69 miles. I have tried several times resetting it to no avail whatsoever. When I called Fitbit to report this, all I was told was to reset it. No useful help at all. My Fitbit was brand new in October 2015. This is upsetting not only that the GPS is wacky, but also the uselessness of the Fitbit team thus far.

Sent from my iPad

[BBIEPRNCSS]

Yes, I agree with you, for the price we pay, I would expect little more quality.

[CristinaF]

Having the same problem. I got mine in Jan. Started using the gps to track my runs last month and it Was working fine, all of a sudden it's now having issues finding me, and will drop out randomly during my runs. I hate that not only will it drop out, it doesn't let you know it's dropped off. The only way to tell is that my pace starts to slow down even though I'm walking the same speed. Why won't it vibrate like it does to notify you it's found your location at the start. Also, even when it finds my location at the start, drops out in the middle of the run, and finds me back again after some time, it somehow doesn't remember the entire run from the begining of the run to when it dropped off. It just starts over the mileage count from where it picked back up. We've paid a lot of money for the Surge, and there are very few differences between the Surge and the Blaze and Alta. One of them being the GPS tracking and if it's this glitchy then how is the price difference worth it??

[BBIEPRNCSS]

So sorry to hear about your issues Christina! Your Surge is worth than mine! I know that trees sometimes set mine off and back on, but I at least have some reason. Maybe yours is defective, have you tried to contact support? Calling them, chatting with them or sending them and e-mail? 

[00769]

My Surge worked wonderfully for the first few months, it was very accurate. Now not so much. It's never over-distancing it is always under-distancing. Sometimes as much as .31 mile for each actual mile walked/jogged. When calling Fitbit, I was told that clouds, trees and tall buildings may interfere. Well, those clouds, trees and tall buildings were there the first few months and no problems. Since clouds come and go and no additional tall buildings were added nor did anymore tall trees appear; I found Fitbit's staff comments ridiculous.

Best of luck to all.

Sent from my iPad

[BBIEPRNCSS]

Yes, I did receive some of those comments as well from the support. And something about running underground - huh? Thank you for posting the note, at least I can see I'm not alone in this!

[SunsetRunner]

While this may not work for everyone, just like with phones and computers, I've found that if I "reset" the watch once a week, and make sure it's well charged when in use, I have all but eliminated huge variance issues with the GPS.

[BBIEPRNCSS]

Thank you, yes I do it as well - turn the watch off and back on at least once a week and charge it every day, especially on weekends because GPS during my bike rides is on for 3 hours and it depletes the battery.

[callalillie]

I'm having the same problem. My Surge isn't even a year old. The GPS used to connect immediately. For the past few weeks it doesn't lock until almost a mile into my run (so figure the 10 minutes I wait prior to saying screw it and running via Quick Start and then an additiona 7 or so minutes). It shouldn't take 20 minutes to find a satellite. And when it does finally connect, it's not tracking my distance or pace correctly - it puts me 2.5 minutes over in pace time. I've restarted and and re-charged the watch over and over again and it hasn't resolved the problem. Fitbit, what else can you or we do to fix this?

[BBIEPRNCSS]

Hello Moderators - what are your responsibilites? Are they to only monitor the chats and discussions or can you actually take up our issues to the Company and ask them to help us resolve them? As you can see the GPS seems to be a problem for many of us, but is the Company aware? Are they trying to resolve it? Is it our trackers or maybe software? Thank you.

[callalillie]

I wound up chatting online with customer service about this last week and they just sent me a new watch. I think it's a known issue. If you haven't already, I'd try the online support. It was helpful.