Best GPS - Phone or Garmin Watch?

[Peter Effeney]

I'm interested in practical experience of MapRunF (using the GPS in a phone) vs a Garmin Watch running MapRunG.

I've typically run with MapRunF on my iPhone X and one, and sometimes two, Garmin Watches for testing.

Typically, every device I'm carrying beeps at controls pretty much at the same time.

But today, the Garmin missed 4 or 5 controls. Looking at the comparison of tracks, it seems the Garmin (a Forerunner 945) had an offset to the South-East of 10-20m. See the tracks... the Garmin is the blue track.

The Garmin was reporting 4/4 for GPS signal.

On the other hand, I've had multiple anecdotal comments that MapRunG has been better in bush events than a phone.... and my own experience is that the difference between phone and watch is indistinguishable. I also note that there is nothing particular about how MapRunG uses the GPS in a Garmin Watch. It just uses the locations fed to it by the watch during its normal tracking function.

I think the truth is that different phones and different watches will have different performance, but ALSO, performance can vary from occasion to occasion.  Maybe to do with the satellites they lock on to ...?

What's the opposite of "One swallow does not a summer make"?

It's difficult to draw too much from one good or bad experience with either a phone or a watch.

(HITMO (review results), fixed my missing controls).

Comments? Your own experience?

Peter

[David C]

My phone is pretty much a basic model (Alcatel) and though it worked with MapRunF it did not pick up some controls at all even after waiting a couple of minutes. I invested in my first GPS watch, a Garmin 245 (one day before the hack  but that's sorted now of course) and used MapRunG. The difference was fantastic and pick up of controls was very quick though very occasionally it took perhaps 10 seconds with heavy canopy or a dull day. MapRunG on the Garmin is definitely the best in my experience.

[Mark]

Hi Peter,

I would agree that there is not much in it at all between my Samsung S10 and VivoActiveHR most of the time, however on the odd control the watch is quicker and I'd say that slightly more accurate.

Interesting you post this though as yesterday I had a perfect run on th the watch, until it started to rain. Then when I did a stint in the woods that previously before the rain was fine, now become an issue and didn't record that control.

When I realised that the watch was covered in rain drops, wiped these off and all worked fine from then on.

So I don't know for certain if it was the water on the screen, doing something, the cloud cover, the wooded area but did make me take notice as that was the first one it missed.

Oh one other factor that could be a factor - next to an electric railway line so maybe something field wise being an issue?

Doesn't matter though as its excellent & shows how good it is when I notice the one issue from all the runs I do!

[Skemowl]

I used MapRunF a few times, and found the constant distractions on my phone very, well, distracting.  Emails, Whatsapps, Alerts kept pinging in and I kept checking the phone (to see if it was still running, not to answer the texts!) and probably disrupting it, to the extent that I completely lost the track for half of an event.  My watch kept the route and rescued me in the end.  This could be just my failure to disable all the notifications (all apps were off).  Twice I had to re-install the MapRun app to find the start kite (re-installing turned out to be very easy).

With MapRunG, the watch just gets on with it and has only missed one control (which I think it later filled in).  I wonder whether the watch (fairly new FR245) has a better GPS than the phone (year-old Sony).  Certainly feels that way as the controls register quicker.