Comments on: Your Garmin Isn’t Accurate (but you already knew that)

By: Hannah

Hannah — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:10:50 +0000

This happened to me too the other day when I was running with my friend. We measured out a 5-mile route and stuck to it. But when we finished, my garmin read 4.78 miles instead of 5. I have a newer Garmin so maybe that’s why?

By: Allison

Allison — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 19:20:42 +0000

I have been reading your blog for a while andthis is the post that finally made me comment. I have been having problems with my Garmin lately, the worst of which is the length of time it takes to find a signal. Yesterday morning it took so long I was moving all around the corner like a fool, waving my arm in the air, desperately trying in vain to get a signal, while this group of adorable elderly women about to enter the church across the street stared at me as if I were high.

By: jan

jan — Sun, 14 Oct 2012 22:04:01 +0000

Wow, that’s crazy! I have problems a lot with mine but those are obvious as it shows me running off the road. I always figured if the map showed me on the road I was good…

I guess GPS is only accurate to a certain extent. Maybe I need to run “naked” more often!

By: J

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 18:18:29 +0000

I have a Forerunner 410 (or something like that, high-level model about three years old) that I’ve never actually tested for accuracy, but then I won a duathlon and got a FR60 as a prize this past spring. The FR60 doesn’t have satellite & I was shocked to find out how inaccurate it was. BUT with all these watches, you can calibrate them on a track. So I did that with my FR60 (which is how I found out that it was about had me running about 8% faster than what I was actually running), and it’s been good since then. All of this is, in my mind, a good reason to do speed workouts on tracks and properly measured distances.

By: Yum Yucky

Yum Yucky — Fri, 12 Oct 2012 20:05:59 +0000

my 16-year-old son is a Garmin 305 junkie. hehe. He’s had it for over a year now and loves it, but the “beeping” sound just recently stopped working. Did some quick online research and found that this sorta this is common with the 305 due to sweat/moisture. Oh well. No more beeps for him.

By: Kate

Kate — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:53:11 +0000

Hi,

I think garmins are generally pretty accurate, speed is just distance and time – time is easily measured, distance is measured as long as the satellite reception is ok all the time. I often find in certain places I lose reception and the speed jumps around a bit and then it assumes you take a straight line between your previous and the next time it picks up reception. Then the distance is less but the time is the same so it thinks ou were slower. I’m guessing that’s what happened to make the difference between the two. (sorry if that was all obvious!)
Becky :- the instant pace is pretty jumpy because it jumps etween satellite points, but overall it gives a pretty good indication. I don’t think running is really something for which you can aim to get better than a good indication of your speed because you’re affected by so many other things like wind, ground, incline, weather.
I love mine for just giving me an idea how far I’ve run and a good idea of speed. Ultimately in a race you do your best and if you just miss a cut off time it probably isn’t because the garmin got your speed slightly wrong?

By: Nichole

Nichole — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 12:10:19 +0000

So why the differences? That is crazy.

I definitely run Garmin free 75/25 of the time. I enjoy my runs more when I do.

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:40:24 +0000

I don’t have a garmin but I use mapmyrun app on my iPhone sometimes and I used it Sunday and it was acting weird too. Usually it shows my fastest pace and the number there is some really long about 10 digit number. I wonder if there’s somethig messing with the satellites

By: Lora

Lora — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:47:53 +0000

I always had my suspicions when the maps on Garmin Connect would show me running directly through a lake, or cutting across some grassy area I certainly didn’t run on. But the side-by-side comparison was just insane!

By: Celia

Celia — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 20:04:01 +0000

Whoa that is some major difference. My 205 is way more accurate than my newer “fancier” 910. It will sometimes think I am far off the path where I am and add mileage…such as the time when it said I was running a 5 min pace. I can feel my paces pretty decently and know when it is just totally off, but it is one tool (for races I do look up the times I want to hit certain splits though). My guess is something like that happened especially with that 6 minute mile and added a bunch of distance and after that your two watches never matched again. Running through buildings makes it much more likely to happen too…One interesting thing would be to look at the route that the gps plotted that you ran. That is one way to pick up inaccuracies.