So I’ve had my Fitbit Surge for almost 7 days and so far I’ve done 4 GPS activities, 2 runs and 2 ‘hikes’. Today, the run GPS completely failed even though I’d made sure GPS was found before I set off. It clocked me doing 2.92 miles and there is no map of my run on my log. I know for a fact that the actual distance of my route is 4.3 miles and indeed, the same run tracked by the Surge on Monday was 4.12 miles. Today, I was 36 seconds faster, which roughly equates to 7:44 miles and yet it said I was running close to 11 minute miles. I can nearly walk miles that fast! It’s an absolute joke and I’m livid. The webchat with Fitbit was useless. They proceeded to blame trees, buildings, and atmospheric conditions. So why has my friend’s Garmin watch never failed? I wouldn’t say that Leeds is particularly special so what’s the problem? It’s so frustrating it’s unreal. I’ve also restarted the watch twice and it actually seems even worse now. For those GPS activities that have registered the maps drawn are wildly inaccurate. It’s an abomination and a scandalous con by Fitbit if they think serious exercise hobbyists are going to put up with it. The webchat support suggested that I alter my running stride length! Why on Earth should I have to do that when I’ve paid for GPS functionality?? See map examples below. Accuracy is garbage. Has me running through buildings and shows erratic movements that I know I didn’t do. Also cuts corners for no good reason. It’s infuriating and now I’m left with what is either a defective unit or just a poor poor quality product. No serious runner could use the Surge and rely on it.
Best AnswerActual route for walk shown below. Blue line outgoing and return along the same path but in reverse!
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I can relate to this issue, other people I know with fitbit Surge trackers seem to get at least reasonable gps data out of them, and honestly my tracker used to work ok, but over the last month I would say at least 2 runs a week (that's about half) show complete garbage for GPS output. I cut the tracker some slack in the city, but when I run in wide open spaces and it drops me half way through the run, and never finds me again? when I run on the Embarcadero next to the water (no trees, no tall buildings nearby) and the tracker has me out to sea for two miles? I will most likely be replacing my surge with a product from a company with a proven GPS track record. Below is my run from today...after three restarts during which I reset the gps. This is the level of accuracy I have come to expect from my surge, much to my dissapointment. I do know that Fitbit's replacement policy is very generous, so you can try getting a new tracker and seeing if that works any better!
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I've had generally good luck with the GPS on the Surge, but it really failed me when I needed in most last week when I ran the Rome marathon. I could tell it was messing up my per mile pace about halfway through the course. Then when I synched it to the app I saw at mile 17 the GPS tracking simply stopped. I was very disappointed. The tracker didn't even get the total distance I ran correct. My other runs in Italy were tracked correctly. But I really wanted my Surge to get the marathon run right.
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