Most Accurate GPS watch

Suunto Ambit Peak 3

Best elevation gps watch

GPS watch needed wrote:

I'm training competitively in Colorado for a marathon and I want to get a GPS watch that's very accurate. I'm going to be running on mostly open and fairly straight dirt roads or trails. I'll probably be running on dirt roads in the Rockies at 7,000-8,500 feet as well. I think that those roads aren't covered by trees that much, but I'm not sure.

I'd also like to have my watch be able to accurately measure my heart rate, but it isn't essential, and I'm not really willing to wear a chest band. There aren't any other features that I really care about.

I'm willing to spend up to $500 or so, but I'd prefer to spend in the $200-$300 range.

Garmin 645 seems to check all of your boxes.

Price: $399

Accuracy: Garmin is the best in the market. The 645 includes GPS, Galileo, and GLONASS. It also accurately measures elevation and total ascent/descent.

HR: Wrist-based, very accurate HR monitor.

Support: (not on your list, but pretty important) Garmin offers support for their products for years down the road, so it is safe to think that they will continue to offer support and software updates for at least 5 years, if not longer. I have an old 925XT that I bought back in 2012. I still get software updates and it still works incredibly well. Can't go wrong with Garmin.

Fenix 5s. Small and comfact, but has all the features plus maps you want. You're welcome.

I'd recommend having a long look at the Garmin 245, just released a couple months ago. It has Garmin's newest wrist-based optical heart rate sensor as well as the pulse oximiter sensor, which you might find useful when you're training a lot at altitude. The 245 also has Galileo GPS tracking. There are a couple of different versions of the 245 - one with music (and wi-fi) and one without. The music version is $349, basic version $299.

If accuracy is your thing, I actually think Polar are more accurate than Garmin. However Garmin have more features typically and look better.

At the cheaper end, I would recommend Polar M430, Garmin Forerunner 235, Garmin Forerunner 735xt in roughly price order. I prefer the 735xt, the Polar I found more accurate, but the 735xt I wear daily as a few other daily features I like + looks.

I'm not sure if the higher end give you _that_ much more for your cash. I've never been persuaded anyway. It may depend if you specifically need accurate altitude as well, as each varies a bit more on this and you may need to go higher in price.

P.s all the watches are a bit scammy on price, you will often find them on deals in various places, a lot cheaper than official manufacture sites. So have a rummage about.

I have bad accuracy issues with the 645 - it does not like winding roads at all. even with glonass.

OP: you can probably find online GPS comparison tests - I've seen a few.

Garmin is not the most accurate GPS by a long shot. Historically, both Polar and Suunto have been much better.

Unfortunately, both Polar and Suunto are using new Sony GPS chips that save a ton of battery but have had very spotty GPS performance so far. You can still find older watches using better chipsets, though. The Ambit series from Suunto is extremely accurate, and the V800 from Polar was probably the most accurate GPS watch ever made, though it will seem outdated in many ways (no wrist heart rate).

Open, straight roads are pretty easy for most GPS watches to handle. Even bad ones will be more than good enough.

Are you concerned with accurate total distance, or pace feedback while training? If the latter, then get a footpod, and use that for pace.

If you want accurate heart rate without a chest strap, you could try armbands. They are very accurate and very comfortable.

Everything I see one of these threads, I wonder "Are there any inaccurate GPS watches"?

I've had a few different watches and as far as the GPS quality goes, they've all been pretty consistent. The four mile loop I run at lunch every day shows up between 3.98 and 4.03 I can't remember that course being outside that range. If I run from home to work, I pass by some tall buildings and the results are all over the place, completely unreliable, I don't think there are any models that do well running between tall buildings.

To the OP, I'd recommend a Garmin model, their software is the best. I switched from TomTom. It's night and day how much easier it is to get everything synced and working correctly.

Garmin watches are junk. Except maybe the Fenix models. A while back I complained that a watch of theirs marketed for hiking wouldn't acquire satellites under tree cover. They had the gall to tell me their GPS is designed to function with a clear view of the sky.

Every garmin I have had sucked with regard to accuracy under tree cover and on cloudy days. They make their antennas too small to have sleek form factors, but it kills their accuracy.

DC Rainmaker is where you should go.

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/

Also, just how accurate do you really need to be for training? Seriously, if it is off by 0.05 miles so what?

Also, for heart rate monitor go with the chest strap version. The wrist ones are still pretty sketchy during exercise between the sweat and movement. To me if you are not going to wear the strap then forego the HR feature.

This is just plain wrong. The watch has nothing to do with the horizontal accuracy for they all are based on signal and connected satellites and time. The more shots collected the more accurate....the more satellites the more accurate. Elevation varies between watches because some use triangulation and some use barometric pressure. Your accuracy depends on location, time of day, and weather.

Find a watch with the least time between shots.

For heart rate ur most accurate is something right on ur heart. aka the band. sorry to dissapoint

Whilst there is some truth to that, it's also not entirely accurate. There are some things the watches need to do, like GPS smoothing for example. Each GPS reading has a certain inaccuracy, if you take a literal reading and simply add the distances between points, they can be wildly incorrect (especially at slower speeds). So there are certain things that the chipsets or software will do, to try and get a handle on this.

Pretty much every watch uses 1-second recording in its highest accuracy mode. If you've used a lot of watches, you will see that there are significant differences in terms of accuracy. Some watches will consistently show tracks that place you exactly where you were on a sidewalk, while others show you zigging and zagging across the street. Some watches consistently read within .05 miles on the same routes, while others are frequently off by .3. I don't claim to be an engineer, but this is widely known and not disputed by people in the industry. Antenna design is frequently blamed as older (bigger) watches seem to be more accurate, as do watches with an "antenna bump" that curves around the top of the wrist like some Suuntos and the old TomToms (which despite their bad software were extremely accurate).

As for HR, the armbands are equal or superior in accuracy to the chest straps. The chest straps are too easily affected by static electricity and by poor connections (not enough sweat to conduct). The armbands are rock solid at reading accurate HR, though they don't collect HRV data as well. Wrist based HRMs use the same tech as the armbands, but their accuracy is compromised by the recording location. The wrist is not meaty, and the distal location is subject to a lot more Gs while running, which causes the watch to move around, and combining the watch with the monitor means the whole package is much heavier and more difficult to stabilize, whereas an upper arm HRM is the size of a quarter and weighs almost nothing.

FWIW I picked up the new Suunto 5 and have been using it to replace my 735xt and I’m finding it pretty accurate.

DCRainmaker and The 5k Runner are good for watch reviews, but sometimes DCRainmaker gets lost in the weeds with his reviews. After a while, it becomes tldr and I just want bullet points of what it’s good at and what it sucks at and should I buy it or not.

For the most part, it looks like the new batch of Garmins have also switched over to the Sony chipsets as well along with Suunto and Polar. If you want the best accuracy possible, set for 1 second recording and turn on gps+glonass.

An option that may be worth considering is getting a Garmin 245 or a similar Garmin and a Stryd pod. That should get you accurate distance and pace readings. Just don’t get a Polar Vantage (M or V). Their GPS is crap. I ran a straight segment this morning in a wide and open plain and neither the run out nor the run back are on the path or reasonably close. V800 may be better and also supports Stryd instant pace.

I don’t know if you already bought the watch or not, but I’ve to say that the Garmin GPS accuracy isn’t that good.

I had the Garmin fenix 2, Garmin fenix 3, Garmin 935 (it broke) and Garmin fenix 5. The GPS accuracy has dropped quite a bit over the years. Even with the fenix 5, over the past 2 years, the accuracy has gotten worse. On top of that, the altimeter is also not good. I live in the Netherlands and around my house, where I run most of my runs, it shows quite a lot of ups and down. On top of that, even though I start and finish in the same spot, it almost always shows completely different altitudes.

Other than Garmin, I had a Suunto Ambit 2 and I currently have an Apple Watch 5. The Suunto had much better accuracy, both for the GPS and for the altimeter.

Even the Apple Watch has better accuracy. True that it tends to smooth some corners, mainly when you have left and rights in succession, but overall, it’s much more accurate.

I’d look into Polar, Suunto and Coros. Just to see what the competitors have.

I'll suggest reading this buying guide and the comparison review>>>>>>>>>>>https://trekkingground.com/suunto-traverse-vs-garmin-fenix/

Garmin 235 + Stryd is hard to beat in general and unbeatable at the moment for trails where gps falters due to overhead obstruction and windy roads.