Two Garmin Devices, Different Data, Which do i believe?

Enduro 3 (new) Edge 530 ( 4-5 yrs old)

Enduro 3 reads 1.4 -2.0Kms more distance than the Edge (checked on several rides now because it’s bugging me)

Coincidental finding as my chest strap battery was flat one day and I wanted the HR data from a ride so wore the watch as well. Now it’s opened a can of worms because they can’t both be correct.

Your arm will move more than the head unit; are both set to record at 1 second or is Edge set at Smart or every 5 seconds?

Two Garmin Devices, Different Data, Which do i believe?

Neither?

The difference could be due to different settings on each device. The following  are prime candidates for causing different distance measurements if they are set differently.

Auto pause

3d distance

Recording interval

Which do i believe?

The one that reports the biggest number for either distance or climbing depending on what you want to show in your Strava

How long were the rides? So we get an idea of the % difference?

I expect the watch is less accurate than the head unit. It’s smaller and less well placed.

Its pretty much a miracle that gps works at the signal is weak

If you want to use your watch as just a heart monitor then set it to “Broadcast HR” and then get the head unit to pick that up. Then you’ll never know about the discrepancy

Ultimate reliability would be a magnet sensor on the wheel

And we have eliminated sitting in a cafe with your watch on with the location jumping around?

Plot the route on a mapping app or site. Onthegomap is quite quick and easy

Various different Garmin devices in our ride group.

They all give different results when it comes to distance/climbing.

What I find more amusing is that on a circular ride my watch always shows more descent that climbing.

Not sure how that works.

More modern device is likely to have better GPS chipset, maybe multi-band. Also the antenna makes a huge difference, possibly makes a larger difference.

For height i always anchor to Strava base map. Gps is really bad at altitude

My Garmin vivoactive used to think that every run I did went about 400 feet below sea level on the South Downs. It seems to have stopped doing that now thankfully.

It still takes a ridiculously long time to get a GPS signal even when standing still outside whereas the phone gets one in about 2 seconds.

I genuinely fail to understand how Garmin remain so popular

Whichever is faster/further of course.

Your phone won’t just be using GPS for location..it’ll use any phone masts/cell tower thing to help triangulate your position…

They all give different results when it comes to distance/climbing.

But how different in percentage terms?

Rode with a friend yesterday at the Golfie & Inners, both of us have Garmin watches – height on both were within 20ft (did nearly 5,500ft).