Galaxy Watch 4/5/6 series poor GPS Fix performance

[usertlOcykGzxn]

Watch seems to be plagued with problems resolving GPS fix when not tethered to a phone.   I went out for a run, without my phone and it took the watch close to 10 minutes to get a GPS Fix.  This severely limits the functionality of the "Outdoor/Fitness" aspect of the watch.

Is there a planned fix?

[YankInDaSouth]

Yeah, I tried that too ... No go. For now I'm using my Galaxy Watch Active 2 when I go walking, hiking, etc.

[Mercusio]

Where do you get "Wear GPS Fix"? I checked both Google Play and Galaxy Store.

[thepenguin134]

its on the playstore. Make sure you either have your watch selected as the device or just download it from the watch's playstore

[PaulS86]

GPS data works perfect for walking, hiking, biking but for kayaking the watch  does not track GPS data. Even when using phone to track, it still does not. Clear cache of samsung health and clearing cache on watch and phone does not seem to health. Why is this still a problem in 2023?  

[Cde3Cvr]

Well my watch 5 pro went back to Samsung for service on this issue and came back reporting there is nothing wrong with my watch. These screenshots from Samsung Health are for the same walk around the block with my dog. It's actually .45 miles as measured by the phone and after the watch came back from service it's measuring it at .91 and .94 miles. The same exact problem it went in to service for. So frustrating especially since I paid a lot more for the pro version of this watch.

[user6KuCyUnqSA]

I have the exact same problem with my non-pro Watch5 LTE. The strange thing is, it used to be good when I first got it (August 2022, bought on preorder), and started to be exactly as ridiculous as the screenshots here show some time later. This "some time later" aligns with firmware updates, but also aligns with repair I had done (at Samsung) for sensor failures. The repair was to put a new backside on.

I did send it back in for "extremely bad GPS accuracy post-repair", got the backside replaced once again, and if anything, it's even worse now.

When it was brandnew (and on its first firmware release) accuracy was as good as the Watch4 was, only a little off on known or even officially measured running courses. Right now I've done a 25-kilometer half marathon (20% off), my 8-kilometer sunday track is anything between 10 and 12, sitting on a bench for a minute is about half a mile extra, etc. etc.

It's useless, and I don't see a cure. The only time it was accurate recently was on my longest run (74 km), when it was on "Airplane" (offline) mode all the time.

[Cde3Cvr]

My Watch5 Pro was working great too and tracking accurately when new. After 4/18/23 something happened to change that but according to Samsung service it's working fine. 👌

[Cde3Cvr]

So now it gets even better. My Watch5 Pro told me I walked 1 mile in just 4 minutes using 409 steps. I have long legs but that's a ridiculous measurement seeing as a mile is at least 2,000 steps. But there's nothing wrong with my watch according to Samsung service.

[user6KuCyUnqSA]

Just for science, can we all please try whether GPS accuracy improves when the watch is in Offline (Airplane) mode? I think I'm seeing that connection, I'll try again this evening, and if some of you could join in, we may be on to something.

[user6KuCyUnqSA]

I tried again yesterday evening. Observations:

In Airplane mode, the "Position" teardrop takes considerably longer to stop blinking (which indicates position locked), more than half a minute. Outside of Airplane mode, this is mere seconds.

I left the watch in Airplane mode for the exercise - lo and behold, the track recording is notably less erratic than what I've been getting when the watch had its other radios (WLAN, BT, LTE) on.

If others confirm, we may be on to something here - does the watch even try to get a proper GPS lock, or does  it and instead keeps triangulating cell towers throughout (which would also explain the battery burn rate)?