Garmin Bros Explain This

ChickenBrother said:
Weather can impact it but even with heavy cloud cover, as long as you have direct line of sight to 4 GPS satellites (possible from every point on earth), modern GPS watches are stupid accurate. If the watch ever loses connection to at least 4 satellites (due to buildings or tree cover), it will say "GPS signal lost" or some shit until connection is restored. That's why it initially takes about 30 seconds for a GPS watch to pinpoint your exact location. Smartphones can get a GPS read faster (like on Google Maps for instance) because they use cellular connection to boost the GPS capability. If you're in an area with no phone service and you've downloaded local maps to your phone, it will take your phone about the same time as your watch to pinpoint your location.

The 24-satellite NavStar GPS system was developed and put into service by Jesse the Body Ventura and the rest of the military industrial complex starting in the 70's. It was initially only available to the military and they did (and still do) extra shit to make it even more accurate for them. But it became available for civilian use in 1983 with an intentional error +/- 100 meters. That's useful if you're flying an airplane or big ass container ship but not for precision surveying or a person trying to measure walking distance from point A to point B.

The military turned off the Selective Availability error in 2000, meaning Joe Schmo can now get GPS accuracy +/- around 10 feet on the GPS watch he bought at Walmart. With my 10 year old Polar, I often run a 2.25 mile route around my neighborhood with lots of hills. And over the years in various weather conditions, it's always registered 2.25 miles on the nose somewhere on my driveway which is around 20 feet across.

It sounds like your Garmin works just fine bro.
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I'm gonna do a test run. I was under heavy tree cover also as it was a forest I was walking in. No leaves yet but tons of trees. And I'll set it to hiking to see if that changes anything.
 
deadshot138 said:
I'm gonna do a test run. I was under heavy tree cover also as it was a forest I was walking in. No leaves yet but tons of trees. And I'll set it to hiking to see if that changes anything.
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Interested to see if the results come out different. But if the Garmins work like Polar, distance should be the same if you do the same route in the same way, as long as you have an uninterrupted GPS signal for the enitre course. Distance and HR are based on measured data and don't change regardless of the activity you select on the watch.

The only things the activity (hike, walk, run, etc.) should affect are calculated metrics like step count, calories burned, estimated recovery time, etc. Polar and Garmin use their own algorithms to calculate those based on distance, speed and HR over time, which are far and away the most important metrics for tracking fitness.
 
ChickenBrother said:
Interested to see if the results come out different. But if the Garmins work like Polar, distance should be the same if you do the same route in the same way, as long as you have an uninterrupted GPS signal for the enitre course. Distance and HR are based on measured data and don't change regardless of the activity you select on the watch.

The only things the activity (hike, walk, run, etc.) should affect are calculated metrics like step count, calories burned, estimated recovery time, etc. Polar and Garmin use their own algorithms to calculate those based on distance, speed and HR over time, which are far and away the most important metrics for tracking fitness.
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Ok but my question this entire time has been how did the Garmin lose 3 miles of distance?
 
deadshot138 said:
Ok but my question this entire time has been how did the Garmin lose 3 miles of distance?
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WTF lol the 7.4 miles was the Garmin screenshot? Like I said in my first post, I've been responding thinking the Garmin was the 10.49 miles.

Have you looked at the route map for that workout in the Garmin app? Does it show gap(s) where maybe it lost a GPS connection? You're not giving us much to work with here other than "why doesn't my shit look right?" lol.
 
ChickenBrother said:
WTF lol the 7.4 miles was the Garmin screenshot? Like I said in my first post, I've been responding thinking the Garmin was the 10.49 miles.

Have you looked at the route map for that workout in the Garmin app? Does it show gap(s) where maybe it lost a GPS connection? You're not giving us much to work with here other than "why doesn't my shit look right?" lol.
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Yeah dude the 7.4 is the Garmin. The only thing I can think is maybe I accidentally hit a button that made it stop recording and then fixed it later?
 
deadshot138 said:
Yeah dude the 7.4 is the Garmin. The only thing I can think is maybe I accidentally hit a button that made it stop recording and then fixed it later?
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What does the exercise log look like for that workout? You entered "walk" for the activity, hit start once you had a confirmed GPS signal and hit stop when you finished the hike? Would be helpful if you posted screenshots for the route map and exercise data for that workout. Was continuous data logged for all 4 hours or however long it took?
 
ChickenBrother said:
What does the exercise log look like for that workout? You entered "walk" for the activity, hit start once you had a confirmed GPS signal and hit stop when you finished the hike? Would be helpful if you posted screenshots for the route map and exercise data for that workout. Was continuous data logged for all 4 hours or however long it took?
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I didn't enter any activity. I just assumed it would track distance like the phone does. I know I know, I'm not optimally using this thing.
 
Ok I tested today and it tracked a hike fairly accurately. About a half mile or so off. However the elevation gain was way off, idk how that works but it was about double what it supposedly is on AllTrails
 
deadshot138 said:
Ok I tested today and it tracked a hike fairly accurately. About a half mile or so off. However the elevation gain was way off, idk how that works but it was about double what it supposedly is on AllTrails
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Haha I just don't get it man. Mine is great. Half a mile is pretty big still.
 
deadshot138 said:
It was rainy. Chalking it up to cloud cover. Got a bunch of cool data like my walking cadence and average heart rate.
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Mine is awesome man. I run the outside of my track to try and confuse it and it's spot on at 54m longer like it should be.

I don't run trails as much as I used to, but it may local creek track comes out correct including the elevation on the way out.
 
maximus__ said:
Mine is awesome man. I run the outside of my track to try and confuse it and it's spot on at 54m longer like it should be.

I don't run trails as much as I used to, but it may local creek track comes out correct including the elevation on the way out.
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Maybe it's actually AllTrails that's full of shit <30>
 
maximus__ said:
Isn't that like the wikipedia of trails?



MAybe it is haha...
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The trail overview says there would be 200 feet of elevation gain. So out and back would be 400. Garmin had it at like 750 feet. I don't see how it could misconstrue elevation though so AllTrails has to be wrong
 
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