seriously let down by built in GPS accuracy (or lack of)

[icicle22]

Let me preface this by saying that I owned the Gear S for the last 9 months before upgrading and I experienced none of the issues I am about to list. So If the Gear S could do this efficiently I feel as thought the Gear S2 should be at least as accurate. Here goes.

I walk or run the same route daily and I know exact distances based on markers on the route as well as 9 months experience tracking with both my Note 4 GPS and my Gear S GPS. During warmer weather I prefer walking or running without the Note4 as it is cumbersome and the Gear S worked perfectly so I expected the same from the Gear S2.

I immediately noticed that it was reporting .85 miles when I reached the 1 mile mark. By the time I returned to my starting point (usually 2 miles) I only had 1.65 miles logged using the Nike app which accesses the Gear S2 GPS. I chalked this up to a one time glitch but then I started seeing additional routes I would take coming up short also....a few times not reporting any GPS data at all! I guess the Nike App tries to access the pedometer to roughly calculate the distance in this case....I don't know.

I began to look at my maps that Nike logs on its server of my walks and the data for my recent walks is all over the place. Say I was walking in my neighborhood on a circular style route. The GPS data seems to be so erratic that it jumps all over. Sure it appears that I am following a general direction but the path looks all jagged like I am passing through houses and jumping over to the next street for a single data point and then back. I believe it is missing data points and tries to fill in the gaps with erroneous data or just makes a straight line. This is happening all throughout my walks and I believe this is where the app or GPS are shaving off distances. The bottom line is the route the GPD is calculating is grossly off from my actual path.

I have tested with Bluetooth paired to my phone and it appears more accurate. In fact, the maps it generates are darn near perfect. The path I walk mirrors or lays down over the street maps perfectly. I checked some historical data based on walks that I tracked with my old Gear S and the GPS tracked those perfectly also. I verified this behavior with the S-health app as well and it is the same.

I feel really frustrated as now I am tied into the new Gear S2 and it is no where near as accurate as the old watch at tracking via GPS....which for me is the primary reason I own the darn thing. I sure hope they release a firmware update that can help to get this watch back up to the level of the Gear S....which in hind sight was darn near perfect for this application.

Thanks. Anyone else seeing similar behavior??? (oh yeah....I forget to mention that this is my 2nd Gear S2 as I exchanged it when I saw this behavior early on and it happens on 2 different watches so it is not clearly a single defective watch).

 

[rsmin]

Happening with mine as well.

 

[icicle22]

Happening with mine as well.

Did you have any experience with the Gear S prior to this? I guess I am asking as Samsung could say "this is how accurate a watch is going to be" but I know better since the Gear S was right on par with my phone.

Thanks.

 

[xendula]

I wonder if the GPS antenna built into the band may cause this, because i am experincing similar flukes sometimes on my LG watch urbane 2nd edition LTE, and when I was using my Gear S, I never had this happen.

Does anyone know how accurately the Sony SW3 tracks runs?

Why did they put the antennae inside the band if that was not necessary with the Gear S (granted, it's bigger) or the Sony SW3.

 

[AlexMartin0]

I experience the same results. It is interesting for me because when I check my distance (running) at .25 of a mile, it is always right but after that point it goes down hill. After a 2.10 mile run, s-health is always .50 of a mile off. I really hope this can be fixed with a software update.

Thanks!

Alex

 

[Dgruendl84]

Having the same issue and it is pretty much the sole reason I bought it...so that I had something that played music and accurately tracked my runs without needing my phone. Mine is ADDING distance onto my runs however. For about every 5 miles, it adds a phantom mile which in turn throws off all of my splits. I sincerely hope this is addressed or I now own a $200 paperweight that I pay $15 a month for the next 2 years...especially the the notifications/texting are always on the fritz too.

I was so excited for this watch, and Samsung broke my heart.

 

[evlarberryman]

Same issue here. Has anyone let Sammy know?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[Dbat74]

I will be creating a separate post on this but I think I have found that this is a softare problem rather than hardware. After doing some testing over the weekend I went for my morning run today and put the watch in "cycling" mode. It immediate started tracking properly and the results almost perfectly matched my Garmin 405cx. Now the problem is the calculation for calories burned which was way too low.

I have found that the GPS problem is found in walking, running and hiking modes but it works great in cycling mode

 

[evlarberryman]

Thought I'd revisit this thread since it is now 2 months old and there has been updates from mothership Sammy.

My GPS accuracy in standalone is absolutely horrid and I'm lucky if it shows me within a mile of where I actually am. It's also a battery killer when you actively use it. I'm talking almost 1 percent drain per minute.

Anyone else having a better experience in standalone mode (not connected to your phone) on the egg models?

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[xendula]

I don't know if this helps Gear S2 owners, but this is what fixed my (and others') GPS issues on the LG watch Urbane 2 LTE: the GPS works perfectly as long as the watchband is not too tight and, in my case, the watch not touching my skin. I started wearing my watch a bit looser and either on top of a sleeve, or on top of a Banjee wristwallet.

Before, I had the watchband pretty tight due to my wrist size, so I think the bend was affecting the signal. This may fix your issues simply because the antenna is built into the watchband as well.

Also, before I start to track a run, I also start up a GPS signal app. That was never necessary with my old Gear S, so I am not sure if there is an equivalent for this app for Tizen. It helps to lock in the GPS signal.

One last thing you can try is hold the watch by the clasp for a minute before starting a run. This helps me with mine when I am in a very bad signal area.

As I said earlier, I think building the GPS antennna into the watchband is what is causing these issues, in which case the work-arounds would work regardless of manufacturer or OS.

 

[evlarberryman]

That's interesting. I didn't know that the GPS antenna had anything to do with the watch band. I will have to experiment more, but for the time being the GPS is useless on my Gear S2. It's a shame, because this watch could provide so much more utility if this worked.

 

[xendula]

That's interesting. I didn't know that the GPS antenna had anything to do with the watch band. I will have to experiment more, but for the time being the GPS is useless on my Gear S2. It's a shame, because this watch could provide so much more utility if this worked.

Try the above and let me know if it made a difference. The original Gear S had the antenna built into the watch itself, and while the GPS was slow to lock, it worked. It can't be a coincidence that the Urbane 2 LTE, S2 and I think also the Moto 360 sport have GPS issues and they all have the antenna built into the (flexible) watchbands.
Or.. not really issues if you know the workarounds.

 

[dvr6]

Try the above and let me know if it made a difference. The original Gear S had the antenna built into the watch itself, and while the GPS was slow to lock, it worked. It can't be a coincidence that the Urbane 2 LTE, S2 and I think also the Moto 360 sport have GPS issues and they all have the antenna built into the (flexible) watchbands.
Or.. not really issues if you know the workarounds.

This does not sound correct to me... not saying it definitely isn't but can you expand and tell us how you know the antenna is in the band?. My gear S2 3g seems to have simple rubber wrist bands. Don't see how a gps antenna is embedded in this band. Do they have separate bands for the non S2 3g models that have no GPS capability? They all appear the same to me..

I too am experiencing the same issue in walking mode and running. Maps have me going generally in the correct direction but jumping all over and walking through buildings, out in the water, middle of traffic etc. Inaccurate distance as well. Haven't tried the cycling mode for running yet but will sometime today.

Has anyone talked with Samsung yet about this? If so what did they have to say?

 

[evlarberryman]

Same issues and questions here. I have not heard anything from Samsung on this but surprised this watch made it to market with this poor of performance.

Posted via the Android Central App

 

[dvr6]

Tried it tonight and the results were still no good. Tried the cycle program with gps/3g and then gps only. Results map showed me weaving all over the map and sometimes just running in a line 45 degrees out and ending there, then reappearing (teleporting) close to the road again.

Mileage was way off..... .5 mile on a 2 mile run. and then .4 miles on a 1.5 mile run.

Guess its back to using my note. I am still within my 14 day window so may take this one back....

 

[xendula]

Hmm, I could be totally off here, and now that you are asking me, i guess I just assumed that the S2 sport and 360 sport have the antenna in the band, for the simple reason that, like the Urbane 2 LTE, they have non replaceable bands, while their non GPS/non 3G counterparts have interchangeable bands. What other possible reason could there be for this, especially considering that a) customers like to switch out bands and b) companies like to make money by selling additional bands?

I am fairly sure the antenna inside must be the reason, can anyone think of another one?

 

[cindylou1028]

I really don't think the antenna is in the band for the current Gear S2 3G watch. I didn't think the antenna could ever be in the band when the bands are interchangable and I change my band all the time.
Mine overestimates my distances. It displays the route I took and is spot-on with the route (maybe some minimal "wiggling", but it looks like I crossed from one side of the road to another-- nothing crazy). Then it gives me a mileage that is off. For distances like 3-4 miles it's pretty close but for the 6.5 I did today it put me at 7.3 which is a big difference!

 

[toddkageals]

Thought I would throw in my .02 here also. I'm having the same issue. I had a gear s and it tracked my runs pretty much perfectly. I bought a gear s2 (love the software and the form factor of the watch) and the GPS is all over the place when I go for a run. No idea why. The general path is right but it adds like a mile over a a 5 mile run because it frequently plots me off my actual path. I run along a greenway which is on the GPS map but my watch frequently shows me we off to one side of the path and then crossing back to the other side. This adds a lot of distance. Any fixes out there? Someone said to try it in cycling mode so I did that but it did not make a difference, way off! This is one of the reasons I bought the 3g version (built in GPS). Honestly, it's useless as a fitness tracker if it can't give accurate distances.

 

[Dbat74]

I too used to have the Gear S and upgraded to the Gear s2 sport when it came out. Gps accuracy was horrible! When the S2 Classic 3g came out I made the switch to that and the GPS is near perfect. I used to run with my Garmin 405cx on one wrist and my s2 on the other wrist to constantly compare the two. For the last 3 weeks I have only been wearing my s2 Classic 3g on my runs and have not had a single problem with the gps.

 

[toddkageals]

I did find that turning location to gps only (no wifi) caused the accuracy to be better. I believe it was locking onto wifi signals from various houses along the path and that's what caused to plot me back and forth across the path. It was still off from my Garmin Forerunner 230 by about .3 over a 3 mile run but it was closer than before. It also uses 30+% of the battery on a 3 mile, 30 minute run. My Forerunner's battery does not even notice a 3 mile run. I can use it all week and never have to charge it. Obviously there's lots of other things in the S2 but it sure does seem like Samsung's GPS just plain sucks!