Garmin still reading the forum? (Read 151 times)

In the past someone from Garmin was on this forum and had been super helpful.  If you're on now, I have a question.

Recently my Garmin 220 (the red one) has been taking a VERY long time to get a satelite.  It used to grab on in 20-30 seconds or faster, which was an amazing improvement over the other 4 or 5 garmins I've owned over the years.  But lately, meaning the last 4 months or more, it's been taking 3 minutes min, but usually 4 or 5 min, so often I just start my run (and then as we know they don't do a great job picking up the signal at all).

Today on my run I went outside, turned it on, it started searing, I fussed around with my shoes, read a few work emails quickly from my phone, and then looked down and it was still only about 80% on the progress bar.  So I stared my run since I had less than an hour.

Got home, synced my 220 to garmin connect on my iphone, and then was looking at my run on strava and it was off by 1/2 mile but the weirdest part is that it had mile splits but only mapped the last mile of my run.

Anyway, my software on the watch claims to be up to date, my garmin and strava apps are up to date, so what should I do?

Maybe a hard reset of the watch?

I recommend going to Garmin.com and click on Contact support.  You can email them.  They usually respond within 24 hours.

+1

Speaking of customer support ... Strava support sucks, btw. Sucks as in leaving trouble tickets hang for weeks on end.

 

+1

 

Speaking of customer support ... Strava support sucks, btw. Sucks as in leaving trouble tickets hang for weeks on end.

Yes.

In the past someone from Garmin was on this forum and had been super helpful.  If you're on now, I have a question.

 

Recently my Garmin 220 (the red one) has been taking a VERY long time to get a satelite.  It used to grab on in 20-30 seconds or faster, which was an amazing improvement over the other 4 or 5 garmins I've owned over the years.  But lately, meaning the last 4 months or more, it's been taking 3 minutes min, but usually 4 or 5 min, so often I just start my run (and then as we know they don't do a great job picking up the signal at all).

 

Today on my run I went outside, turned it on, it started searing, I fussed around with my shoes, read a few work emails quickly from my phone, and then looked down and it was still only about 80% on the progress bar.  So I stared my run since I had less than an hour.

 

Got home, synced my 220 to garmin connect on my iphone, and then was looking at my run on strava and it was off by 1/2 mile but the weirdest part is that it had mile splits but only mapped the last mile of my run.

 

Anyway, my software on the watch claims to be up to date, my garmin and strava apps are up to date, so what should I do?

 

Maybe a hard reset of the watch?

So... It didn't have a satellite lock until the last mile of your run (which it mapped). And, it otherwise calculated mile splits (and pace) based on the watch's accelerometer.

Functioned exactly as it should have. Is that what's weird?

As for the increasing delays in getting satellite lock, yeah, that's annoying and worthy of a shoutout to Garmin support.

Starting my runs in the same spot as always.  Across the street from a park but not under any trees and a clear path to the sky, the tallest buildings near me are three stories but it's nothing like my office downtown manhattan where I expect my garmin sat time to lag, since the buildings surrounding me are 50-100 stories and block out some of the sun on the brightest of days!

Moving to leafy NJ, as suggested, won't fix my situation as I'll have shot myself in the head (too close to my mother in law).

Just finished a run using my garmin and my iphone with Strava app.  Uploaded both runs to Strava.  Some big discrepancies but I'm happy to say that my iPhone, which was tucked away, recorded me going faster than my Garmin 220 did, which I was paying attention to.  I'd be bummed if it had been the other way around and I was running slower than I thought.

I actually thought the garmin was off, and that I was running faster and easier than I felt I was.  Good sign I guess, this was the best feeling raining run I've had in the last couple of months since my hip (torn labrum issue) had been acting up and I've been running a lot less. No pain today and I felt strong and easy, pushing low 7s.

Garmin had me at 8.7 miles in 1:03:18 for a 7:13 average.  This is what I was paying attention to during the run since it was on my wrist.

iPhone 6s with Strava app had me at 9.1 miles in 1:03:31 (I had stopped at one point to twist my stiff ankle around, and had paused my watch but not my phone). 6:58 pace.  Fast than I felt I was going by a good bit.  Looking at the strava map my final mile on my iPhone was 6:13 which is definitely off by the jagged graphing it did, and also that was the final push, and it was up a long hill.  Garmin had me at low 7s which is much more accurate.  I was pushing it, but not all out and a true 6:13 would have had me heaving in this heat today.

Good news is the garmin locked before I started my run, and didn't take too long.  Maybe a minute or so.  Not as fast as it once was, but not slow enough to be annoying.

I am going to try a soft reset though.  How do I do that?

 

When I first got my 220 it picked up a signal within seconds, and eventually it took longer & longer. Which was my main issue with the 210 it replaced. But then I just stopped waiting; just press start and run. Did not initially realize it had the accelerometer feature, something the 210 did not have. No idea how long it takes to get a signal, but it seems to track mileage and pace just fine. Once in a great while, something glitchy happens in the first mile - a couple days ago, I peaked at a 3:00 min/mile pace! But I'm sure that one really happened.

You're slow . I hit 101 mph (:36 second mile) on a run 10 days ago. Also in my first mile. I have trouble maintaining a signal in my neighborhood, happened on both my 405 and current 220. It happens regardless of which way I head from my house. The signal drops in front of my next door neighbor's house or once I cross the street  heading the other way. I have auto pause on, so it stops the timer. If I notice it doesn't have a signal, I stop and glare at the watch til I get one.

I had the same issue with my 220.  When I first got it acquiring satellite lock was lightning fast (well, compared to my 205/305 watches).  But it got slower and slower.

What's supposed to make the 220 (and later series watches) acquire lock quickly is that satellite location data is downloaded to the watch whenever 1) you connect your watch to your USB port or 2) you connect the watch using the Garmin mobile app via bluetooth on your phone.  Supposedly the USB connection will download 7 days of satellite location data while the bluetooth supposedly downloads 3 days worth of data.

If you don't have this data file updated it will revert back to the old 205/305 method of searching for satellites from scratch (the new method gives it a head start in finding the satellites).

What I found fixed this issue (and still does) is to make sure that at least once a week that I plug it into the charging cradle, open up Garmin Express and force a Sync.  I don't rely on the automatic Sync that it says it does.  This updates the satellite cache and then, voila, lightning fast locks again.

You can check to see when your last set of satellite data was dowloaded by looking in a directory on your 220 (when it's connected via USB) called \Garmin\REMOTESW for a file called EPO.BIN.  Make sure the date on this file is very recent.  If it's not that may be the problem.

PS - wanted to mention that the file will 'disappear' after you unplug your watch, but the data is still there.  It's odd behavior that I don't understand.  Force the sync and you'll see that file appear.  Unplug, plug back in and it's not there!