Smartphone GPS problem (beginner here)

Cephei

Hi everybody, a nab MTB beginner is in need of some help:

I have been using my phone (Lumia 800) to track my rides, but it is giving ridiculous stats. Example, the phone (any app, mainly use endomondo) will say I am moving at 8kph when I have been standing still for 1 minute resting!

The elevation graph is not too bad, but not perfect (always slightly different when i check endomondo), but the speed recorder/graph is a joke. I will take 8 breaks or so on my ride, each for 1 min and it won't even recognise any breaks, neither on the phone whilst riding or when i uploaded the stats. It seems as if when I get to a low speed, the speed just crashes (other stuff fine though). Speed generally is extremely erratic whilst being recorded.

Also I tested another phone (samsung s3) with mapmyride and it was a little better, but not brilliant really. Where I go is mainly roads (lanes).

Both have fast GPS lock though, few secs or so. I am in Staffordshire Moorlands.

So I was thinking of buying Garmin edge 200. I don't want to buy it though if there will be no improvement. Is it just that smartphones are bad receivers? Will a dedicated gps receiver record more accurately?

Thank you for any answers.

WindyG

Endomondo is just total crap, a friend uses it at it's always giving out random high speeds.
I prefer to use Strava with a Garmin 500, if you do get a Garmin the default Garmin connect software is very good.

The Rookie

Strava is better, but any app is only as good as the GPS location supplied to it by the core phone parts and software, garbage in and garbage out, a dedicated GPS device inevitably has a better components for the GPS reception than the parts they can squeeze into a phone!

stubs

My phone running Endomondo always shows me riding through the Alps on the height graph even when I am just pedalling the lanes round my house. The other night when I started it showed me at 250 feet and after a 10 mile loop it said I had done 1,100 feet of climbing. Which is odd as my house is 14 feet above sea level and I have to ride 8 miles inland before I hit the 100 foot contour. When I tried Strava on the same phone it said my top speed was 90mph and when I tried it in the car I think I nearly broke the sound barrier.

I have a proper Garmin GPS I dont fancy Mountain rescue finding my remains at the bottom of a cliff holding a shitty mobile phone.

The Rookie

As stated that could be as much down to 'My phone' (which is?) as the app......

1100 feet of climbing can be 1100 climbs of 1 foot each.........

Cephei

I guess my phone gps is just bad. I tried to check youtube videos of the garmin edge 200, but there is only 1 or 2 short videos of it in action, so can't really see the speed accuracy. I think elevation will be fine since I hear garmin corrects any elevation as soon as you upload it.

Just don't fancy spending £90+ on a gps if the speedometer will be no better than my phone lol. I'd get edge 500 with the speed sensor but I can't really afford that, not that i'd probably be taking advantage of all the pro features anyway.

Greer_

Yeah the lumia 800 doesn't have a great gps (I have one). I'm now the proud owner of a Garmin 200 and it's brilliant! Paid £80 isn for it.

Cephei

Thanks for the replies.

Just borrowed and tracked with samsung s3 with mapmyrides app. (Forgot to download strava and was already out.) Little better but still pretty bad really, dissapointing since it is an expensive phone. It did show speed going to 0kph when i stopped, but sometimes randomly went up to 2-3kph and back down whilst standing still. Oddly enough when I checked the website after uploading, it didn't even show any breaks at all on the graph, lowest speed was like 1.6kph.

Seen garmin 200 for £87 in halfords of all places and a friend can get -15% so might just go for that. Cheapest I could find, just hope my location isn't bad or something.

YeehaaMcgee

WindyG wrote:

Endomondo is just total crap, a friend uses it at it's always giving out random high speeds.

Never had a problem with it, apart from the odd very rare instance of it loosing signal and going bonkers.

I've used Endomondo for a while on a few phones, and the GPS was always moderately accurate - apart from the altitude which was always WAAAAY way way off. It seems that GPS altitude information just isn't very good.
Anyway, I've recently switched to a Garmin Edge 500, which includes a barometric altimeter (most decent GPS units do, which suggests there's a very good reason for it) The altitude information on the garmin is, predictably, bang on the money.
Other than that, the GPS location information is fairly close, despite my misgivings about phone based GPS. The Garmin also has a wheel sensor though, so even if it loses GPS signal, it still tracks correct distance and speed, and it also increases accuracy a little.

Here's an endomondo altitude chart of a ride to work using the phone GPS...

And here's the same ride with the Garmin


See those weird spikes on t'phone GPS? that's why phone apps generally show a phenomenal amount of climbing/descending!
The phone GPS even showed me travelling up to 500 feet below sea level on the way to work sometimes. Now it's often wet in Worth Nails, but not THAT wet!

gje1973

I use map my fitness

YeehaaMcgee

Cephei wrote:

Is it just that smartphones are bad receivers? Will a dedicated gps receiver record more accurately?

gje1973 wrote:

I use map my fitness

The Rookie

Cephei wrote:

I checked the website after uploading, it didn't even show any breaks at all on the graph, lowest speed was like 1.6kph.

Probably means it was set to pause recording at speeds sub 1mph (1.6kph)......user error?

Cephei

The Rookie wrote:

Cephei wrote:

I checked the website after uploading, it didn't even show any breaks at all on the graph, lowest speed was like 1.6kph.

Probably means it was set to pause recording at speeds sub 1mph (1.6kph)......user error?

Oh dear
As it so happens, I bought the garmin edge 200 and was happy with it on the ride, except it went up to 0.2kph now and again when resting. I took 5 breaks for 1 min on my ride and when i uploaded it I got this:
http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/4213/jjwa.jpg
Well I was a bit annoyed but maybe you are right and I haven't set it to stop pausing below that time, I could have sworn i did on my phone but ill check now lol...




Edit: Just checked and auto pause was already off this really sucks, 2 smartphones and even my new garmin 200 won't recognise when I drop below 3-4kph. Weird cause when riding it was working brilliant, my speed was changing and when I stopped for a break, the speed went down to 0kph, which my phones struggled to do. It jumped up to 0.2, 0.3 kph now and again stationary which i don't mind tooo much but when i upload, just like my phones, it won't show pauses below 3-4kph
Could this be my location? it has been sunny, no clouds and it's quite high up here in staffs, only light tree cover for around 1km only..

YeehaaMcgee

It's the interpolation on the graph, nothing to worry about, hell I can even SEE the straight lines where it's treated it as a pause!
There's a couple of settings on the Garmin 500, "Smart recording" is one of them, which could conceivably affect that.
It does look like that exact kind of logging though - Endomondo does it all the time.

Here's two traces from tonight's ride home, One from Garmin connect, the other from Endomondo...



On the Garmin one you can see two places where I stopped (at traffic lights, and for a pi55), but they don't really register on Endomondo - it's just that thw two use different "smoothing" algorithms for the data. Neither shows precisely the speed over each GPS interval, or the graph would be almost indecipherably erratic in most cases, so they average out over a few points to make it human-readable.
It's not a big deal.

Cephei

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0bHIzWJ ... e=youtu.be
here is a vid on the ride showing me at 0kph or so, same ride as the graph above which doesn't show below 4kph

yeeha: hmm, mine is a garmin 200, ill look for that but not sure if it has that feature. I did really want accurate speed on my graphs, the breaks were 1min long at least, I can understand it removing 1 sec breaks eg pulling in over a speeding car or so but I really wanted to record my normal breaks, is there no way I can make it do that if my gps doesnt have that smart recording?

thanks for the replies

YeehaaMcgee

The smart recording on the 500 means that it varies how often it logs GPS data, depending on speed and direction changes, essentially to minimise the amount of storage used. So, the device may stop recording once it detects you're below, say, 1kph, and restart once you're above again - which would show up as a flat line on the graph.

I'm curious, why is such an accurate graph so important for you?

By the way, the free (but somewhat dated) Garmin Training Center software will give you un-smoothed charts, like this, where you can clearly see a couple of stops at roadworks and the like...

click on it to see it in more detail

Cephei

I only bought the device really cause the 2 smartphones weren't recording speed properly, and what annoyed me was how they just didn't show breaks on my graphs, a bit ocd I know but I wanted to be able to just look at the graph and see where my breaks are and how i'm improving with less breaks etc and not have to look for an hour to see where it has straight lined. I got no smart record feature btw.

Just tried the training center and still same still not showing the breaks
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/377/vhc9.jpg

tried garmin 200's forum, but couldn't find anything there either

You must be right though, something to do with the graph, since it records fine when i'm out as per the video, just when it uploads it is not recording the breaks, I definetely have auto pause off too. Thank you for replying and helping.

Edit: also uploaded to strava, slightly better graph, it will drop down to 1.5kph or so, in a straightline which jumps from break start to break end. http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/2167/0tnl.jpg

Slightly better but I still would really prefer clear points at 0kph on my breaks since I spent £90 on this thing lol

Edit 2: exported from strava to google earth and the graph there shows 1 break! lol sorry for so many posts/edits but just trying to give as much info as possible
http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5451/ns8.jpg