Open water GPS drifting

[gerasimos]

After the latest update, I’ve noticed increased GPS sensitivity in Open Water mode, resulting in significant drift.
It feels like the watch locks onto a satellite and then gets “dragged” along even when I’m completely stationary.

In previous firmware versions, even when my hand was underwater for a few seconds or when I pressed pause, I never had any issues — everything worked perfectly, and the recorded distance was always very close to reality with minimal deviation.

Of course, I always follow the proper pre-activity GPS lock protocol to ensure optimal signal before starting.
(https://www.suunto.com/en-gb/Support/faq-articles/lifecycle/how-to-get-more-accurate-open-water-swim-tracking/)

Has anyone else experienced similar behavior?

I’ve done a soft reset and even deleted and recreated the sport profile, but I still see the same result.
All other activity modes on the watch work flawlessly — it’s only Open Water that seems affected.
(Hard reset it’s a solution? I want to avoid it)
Thanks

GPS BEFORE THE 2.43.12 clean & smooth

[SuperFlo75]

I noticed this behavior as well, and I wrote about it in another thread about one week ago… but as usual, they told me that everything is fine and I have to wait longer to find more satellites @Egika how long will we have to wait to find satellites?Some minutes or some hours?
I noticed that the behavior is worse than last year…

[gerasimos]

@SuperFlo75 i don’t want to duplicate topic’s i find the same issue only in Suunto Race category

[Pavlas]

@gerasimos I observe the same thing and have had the exact same experience on my Vertical. I also mentioned it here in another thread.

[gerasimos]

@Pavlas I’ve reached 125km/h i am a ferryboat
By the way it’s the first time which i have GPS drifting in the water.
Even when I’m trail running through very challenging and narrow gorges, the GPS performance is flawless.
So I believe the issue is specific to the Open Water activity mode

[rooldaa]

I have this too.

[Artus Diver]

@gerasimos

Recently I also noticed that something was happening with the GPS track.
My track doesn’t look as bad as yours, but you can see “interference” in the track.
It wasn’t there before (…)

[Ze Stuart]

I have seen the same: I assume it’s due to the new GNSS firmware that was included with the update. Not enough testing!

[gerasimos]

@Artus-Diver before 2.42.12 GPS it was clean and smooth of the 90% of openwater activities

!

[CroShark]

Unfortunately I have the same problem with my Vertical Steel Solar.
The GNSS is great in land activities, but in Open Water Swimming is criminally bad.

In my last swim I achieved a top speed of over 90 km/h.
Before the swim I have followed all the necessary steps for a good GNSS signal (update with Android App, and waited 5 minutes on land before starting the swim).

The old Ambit 3 Peak was perfect for swimming.
I’m really disappointed with the Vertical in this segment, currently it is practically unusable for any swimming metrics.

[gerasimos]

@CroShark
Before the latest update, I had excellent results with the Vertical in open water.
I can honestly say that, compared to people using Garmin (fenix, forerunner ) and COROS (apex pro)devices (swim side by side always freestyle technique), my trackings were equally good — if not better and more reliable — even under cloudy skies and sea wave conditions.

I assume this is some kind of glitch or bug introduced in the recent update, as a soft reset hasn’t resolved the issue. I’m confident it’s not a hardware problem, since the watch performs flawlessly in every other use case.

I hope this will be improved in a future update, before I consider doing a hard reset.

[gerasimos]

@CroShark
I also did a test using a “ghost” open water swimming activity. When the watch detects that you’re moving too fast for typical swimming speeds, it displays a pop-up message saying that you’re moving at a speed that’s too fast for swimming and pauses the activity, asking if you want to continue.

This could be helpful in cases where the GPS reflects incorrectly and shows you’re moving at 90 km/h, so it notifies you with a message.
But didn’t work in my case into the sea

• ideally, such issues shouldn’t occur in the first place…

However, I want to try placing the watch inside a swim buoy, though it’s not as convenient as being able to quickly glance at your wrist.

[CroShark]

@gerasimos
Thanks for the suggestions.
During the swim I did get the message to pause my activity, because the watch detected a to high speed for swimming, but I ignored it.
This was the first time I received it during any activity.

I sparingly use the swim buoy, but placing the watch on it defeats the purpose of GNSS watch, like you stated.

I hope Suunto will solve this in the near future, I usually swim the most during August.

[gerasimos]

Fifth test in open water activity

1. I changed the watch to the other wrist (from left to right) in case symmetry during freestyle swimming was the issue.

2. I followed buoys in the sea that were in a straight line (500meter in one way).

3. GPS signal strength was between 75–85%.

4. Weather conditions were excellent – clear sky.

5. Brief stops with the hand completely out of the water for about 1 minute, to allow the signal to stabilize.

6. Never pressed paused

7. Before starting the activity, I waited 5 minutes after the GPS indicator turned green, for better locking, and of course synchronized with the app.

— Unfortunately, still very poor results (after last upgrade), even after a soft reset / profile deletion and creation of a new one same results and with default openwater profile.

Next step: Hard reset and test again…

[gerasimos]

@CroShark

Looking at the logbook history, I see much better recordings with the Suunto 9 in the same places several years ago, when supposedly GPS technology wasn’t as advanced as it is today…
Let’s see after my hard reset


[Ze Stuart]

Same experience for me, the track is basically a drunken squiggle. Nothing to be done but wait for a fix.

@isazi do you know if this has been reported?

[gerasimos]

@Artus-Diver this such a small deviation in the GPS is (in my opinion) absololutely nomral in a sea or lake enviroment

[Artus Diver]

@gerasimos
Of course, as I mentioned, I don’t have a major problem, but comparing my previous tracks from before the update, they look much better.

I think Suunto should investigate this.