Wildly inaccurate distance reporting.

[Kiwigraeme]

For some time now I have been uneasy about the reported distance from my surge using both the pedometer and  the GPS options . Today I tested both. I went to my local running track, walked 100 hundred meters, counted the number of steps just to check that I had calculated my stride length accurately (It was right) then set off on a one kilometer walk using GPS, as I suspected the GPS was off by at least 30 meters. To be honest I don't often use the GPS option as I have suspected it to be inaccurate for some time.

What I did find far more concerning is that a further 1 kilometer trial using just the pedometer option of my Surge showed it to be a massive 600 meters out. I had to walk 1.6 kilometers to register 1 kilometer on my Surge.

The question I have is this, what the hell am I doing wrong or have I purchased a dud?

[RobertoME]

Hello @Kiwigraeme, welcome aboard to our community. One of the reason might be the environment you are in can affect the signal strength of GPS. For example, if you are running in an urban environment with many tall buildings.

Another practice suggested for best results, wait for the GPS fix before you start your workout. If you start moving before the signal is found, Surge uses your step count to estimate the distance you traveled before GPS tracking began. Therefore, the total distance calculated for the activity may be slightly less accurate than if you'd waited for the GPS fix before you started moving.

i hope this suggestion helps to clarify your doubts. Catch ya later.

[MaraAcoma]

Hi,  Earlier this week I bought a Surge for my partner as I love my Charge HR but he wanted the GPS option.  We've just been testing it and So far out of two tracked runs we have one which says he went 0.04 mile instead of 0.96 and one that 0.27 instead of 0.31 miles.  We've effectively walked the same routes, him using his surge on his wrist and with my phone tracking in his pocket.

We're close to sea level (some threads indicate this could be an issue) and no tall buildings etc.  Other threads seem to indicate that the GPS on the Surge may not be the best with under reporting.  We did the automatic updates when he got the surge a couple of days ago etc.  The second trip is also not appearing on his dashboard despite the surge being sync'd multiple times (the phone track on my account has come through).

Can someone please advise me on this as right now I'm feeling like I've bought him a dud wedding gift.

(also sorry for hijacking this thread, but for some reason I couldn't start a new one and figured this one was at least close to our issue)

[YojanaFitbit]

Thanks for joining this family, hope you like what find here @MaraAcoma! 

Congratulations on your recent wedding! Thanks for posting here your question, next time you want to start a new topic just go the Surge Board and click the option "Start a Topic" that is under the search bar. Sorry if that option is not that visible, we appreciate you're asking this to give the proper feedback to our team. 

About the issue you're having with your GPS feature, indeed, some times high buildings, trees and weather may cause an interference on your GPS signal, but it sounds odd that only one tracker is having this hard time.  I'd like to recommend you to restart the Surge tracker. This will help to fix any issue the tracker may have.  For best results, wait for your Fitbit to find the signal before you start your workout. 

After trying that please keep me posted on the outcome of your situation. I'm very interest in keep helping you! So, you can keep enjoying your honey days! 

I'll be around! 

[docweathers]

In non-GPS mode, both steps and distance are consistently about 20% too large. How can I adjust this?

[Emujo]

I really don't consider this (my issue, not yours) a problem, but during my daytime walk abouts (at work) my surge is spot on, almost exactly the correct amount of steps and distance (2000 steps = 1 mile +/-) but when I go out for a extended walk/run in the evenings (say 5 miles or more) the steps are accurate, but the distance reported is usually about 5-7% higher that what it should be. I have multiple measured routes, 4, 5, ect. The 5 mile will show as 5.5, 10 mile close to 11 and so on. I think it has to do with my stride length as (I believe) when I am on my late walks/runs I put a little more effort into the walk (don't want to sweat my rear off during working hours) so my stride is longer that early walks. Not sure how this could be, but thought I'd throw it out there. Emujo

[YojanaFitbit]

Hi @docweathers! I'm glad to see you here in the Forums, your comments are very important for us! 

Our good friend @Emujo has a really good point! You can adjust your Stride Length to see if this helps. Also I recommend restarting your Surge in case it is having hardware issues.

Have a good one!