Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 -- 10hz GPS?

[19Spec3]

For those not familiar, the Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 is a GoPro style action camera with built-in GPS functionality. Garmin claims 10hz GPS refresh rates which, if true, would be very useful as a laptimer.

There is a review on Amazon (copied below), that claims the camera only refreshes at 1hz -- the same as my iPhone running Harry's Lap Timer. The review even has photos showing the good/crappy refresh rates on a map. Anybody have first hand experience? Is the GPS data laggy on track like Harry's?


UPDATE:
Even with the new firmware(4.3) from April 2017 the GPS is still only recording at 1hz (1 time per second) to the (.Fit) g-metrix file.
No point having a 10hz GPS receiver in it - if the Virb Ultra 30 can only record at 1hz

Image quality is very Good, the Garmin mounts are very strong (much better than GoPro) , voice control works good, the touch screen is great, even works with the waterproof case on. Battery gets 1hr10mins at 4K30fps and 1hr40mins at 1080p30fps, and takes 2 hours to charge from empty. These times are with only GPS ON, everything else turned off(Touch screen, Wi-Fi, ANT+sensors, image stabilisation all Off)


The big con for me is the GPS, I need it for motorsport and it's just not accurate which gives incorrect speed readings in+out of corners, even though Garmin claim 10hz(10 readings per second). I've posted 3 tracking maps all taken on the exact same drive with cameras mounted to roof of car, on a roundabout at 25-Kmh/15-MPH and there is no way the new (Virb Ultra30) is giving us 10hz, also look how bad the Virb XE is, and they claim 1hz for that one.

Virb 1.jpg Virb 2.jpg Virb 3.jpg

Hope this can be fixed on the Ultra30 with a firmware update, it would make it so good for racing they could sell so many.
Sample file straight out of camera at 4K , 30fps , 60MBps - YouTu.be/-u425FSqRXw
www.amazon.com/dp/B01HP4PMG0Garmin VIRB Ultra 30 Action Camera

[aeronaut]

I guess I'll have to hook up my Virb Ultra for a street test. Could it be the 'conversion' software the user is using to look at the data? I'd want to look at the raw data before I made a judgement.

[TXBDan]

I have a friend who's an engineer at Garmin. I'll see what he knows.

[19Spec3]

I guess I'll have to hook up my Virb Ultra for a street test. Could it be the 'conversion' software the user is using to look at the data? I'd want to look at the raw data before I made a judgement.

I wondered the same. That user could certainly be messing up the data somehow. And thanks for doing some digging!

[19Spec3]

I have a friend who's an engineer at Garmin. I'll see what he knows.

Sweeeeeeet. Thanks, Dan!

[aeronaut]

I'm traveling today and don't have access to any of my data files. I'll look into it a bit tomorrow.

- - - Updated - - -

Sweeeeeeet. Thanks, Dan!

Yes Dan, thanks!

[kornfeld]

I would love to see updates on this....I have a Virb Ultra 30, and the all-in-one package is great, but I specifically bought it with the understanding that it had the 10hz gps, and can vouch that data overlays are a lot more jumpy than I would like.

[19Spec3]

I would love to see updates on this....I have a Virb Ultra 30, and the all-in-one package is great, but I specifically bought it with the understanding that it had the 10hz gps, and can vouch that data overlays are a lot more jumpy than I would like.

Thats the valuable sort of first-hand experience this thread needs. Thanks!

[kornfeld]

I have this video from a LeMons race I did with the camera....it was mounted basically flush up against the inside of the windshield, and the windshield on this particular car (a Ford Focus ZX3) is angled pretty far back, so the camera had a pretty clear view of a large swath of the sky. In other words, the GPS should have been able to work well (I would think). Not as ideal as having the camera on the roof or something, but it had a big view of the sky.

Anyhow, watch the dot on the track map showing my location on track:



Pretty jumpy.

[19Spec3]

Thanks for sharing -- watched your fast lap video as well and it's equally jumpy for the whole lap.

[kornfeld]

Yep. I didn't link to that video because the audio got screwed up somehow during the upload, but I don't blame that on the camera, so I didn't want to derail this discussion with that.

[darbyfam]

I have this video from a LeMons race I did with the camera....it was mounted basically flush up against the inside of the windshield, and the windshield on this particular car (a Ford Focus ZX3) is angled pretty far back, so the camera had a pretty clear view of a large swath of the sky. In other words, the GPS should have been able to work well (I would think). Not as ideal as having the camera on the roof or something, but it had a big view of the sky.

Anyhow, watch the dot on the track map showing my location on track:



Pretty jumpy.

Mustang drivers.......

[aeronaut]

The fact that the GPS reported position changes isn't a sample rate problem, it's something else like reception or data interpretation. Not that those problems are any 'better'.

[aeronaut]

I just looked at a few of my vids where I used Virb Edit to add a track map. Agreed, the dot that is supposed to represent my car is quite jumpy and there's no way I'd use that to do any sort of analysis of my driving.

I need to look at the data files.

[Crustashio]

I did the same - bought an ultra 30 because of the GPS, and it has been jumpy. The video /audio quality itself is great and virb edit is easy to use, but I'm disappointed with GPS itself. It does seem to be OK as a laptimer, and the speed display has helped me improve my driving despite not being perfectly accurate. But if you want data analysis get something different.

[19Spec3]

Mannnn, this is all starting to sound rather disappointing. I did some Googling of the Garmin forums and it appears that the Virb Ultra 30 is capable of capturing 10hz GPS but can only write 1hz onto the .fit file. Sooo, that's pointless. One forum poster claims that Garmin confirmed this but ... of course, that's as credible as a forum post.

https://forums.garmin.com/forum/mac-...-virb-ultra-30

[aeronaut]

Yep, if true, pointless and unfortunate. I *thought* I had converted Garmin G-Metrix data (.FIT) into a readable text file at some point. (Using Virb Edit or DashWare.) But I can't recreate it, so can't view what's in the FIT file.