This morning, I repeated my Eaton Canyon loop with the Pyle PSWGP405BK and RunKeeper on the iPhone 4S. This time, both of them were quite a bit more accurate than on the last hike.
Pyle PSWGP405BK
This time round, the Pyle tracks the shapes of the switchbacks fairly accurately, albeit with an offset. There is a fair amount of overshoot, however, in the last switchback.
RunKeeper on iPhone 4S
RunKeeper on the iPhone 4S again does much worse than the Pyle, but still much better than in my previous recording. Out of the various iPhone tracking apps I’ve tried, I still find RunKeeper to be the most accurate. I would like to try this route with an Android phone sometime, to see if it does a better job with outputting accurate location data. Here’s the tabular data:
| Distance (mi) | Calories | |
| RunKeeper | 3.47 | 491 |
| Pyle PSWGP405BK | 3.31 | 593 |
| Pyle PSWGP405BK track on RunKeeper.com | 3.43 | 475 |
Interestingly, the disparity between RunKeeper’s distance calculation of its own track vs its calculation of the Pyle’s track was much smaller today, but this can be explained by the fact that RunKeeper didn’t meander as badly today, so the tracks lined up more closely.
On the other hand, disparity between the results I got today and my previous post show how GPS accuracy can vary, even in similar weather conditions, at a similar timeof day on the same route. I would conjecture that the increased accuracy today has to do with a more optimal geometry of the satellites in the sky. Unfortunately, since the devices I used don’t output detailed satellite signal and skyview data, there is no way to verify for sure.
This evening, I again pitted RunKeeper against the Pyle, walking on a very flat route, composed mostly of straight lines. Here are the surprising results:
| Distance (mi) | Calories | |
| RunKeeper | 3.38 | 381 |
| Pyle PSWGP405BK | 3.22 | 355 |
| Pyle PSWGP405BK track on RunKeeper.com | 3.27 | 354 |
Like this morning, the RunKeeper and Pyle tracks were a lot more similar than on previous days. RunKeeper’s distance was .11mi longer than its calculation of Pyle’s track, which makes sense, because its track was more wiggly, as usual, which adds distance. But what’s inexplicable is that on this track, the difference between the Pyle’s own distance calculation versus RunKeeper’s calculation of its track is only .05mi, only 1.5%. Contrast that to this morning’s hike, where the difference was .12mi or 3.6%.
Previous Related Post: Accuracy of Strava vs RunKeeper vs Pyle PSWGP405BK vs Garmin Forerunner 10
As an electrical engineer I appreciate your site. Any more thoughts on the Pyle watch after having it for a bit longer? Also, have you found a way to have it download into Garmin Connect directly?
You can use GPS Master to export a GPX file, and do “Manual Upload” on connect.garmin.com to get it into Garmin Connect.
I’m happy with the Pyle. Though it has some problems (position fixes not as accurate as Garmin but good enough for my purpose, and distance calc is not accurate in the watch), the feature set is to my liking, and it’s very customizeable. The included HRM is also a huge plus, and so is the fact that it’s waterproof. It gives good bang for the buck.
Thanks.
Hi I have a Tech4O watch which is the same as the Pyle. The 2 main problems I have with it are 1 GPS master will not display the correct altitude but when I export it into runkeeper it displays fine. The 2nd problem is that it does not export the HRM data unless you export as a cvs file which neither runkeeper nor Garmin connect can import.
What version of GPS Master are you using? Mine shows altitude correctly. One thing to keep in mind is that GPS altitude isn’t particularly accurate, which is why Runkeeper and other sites, like MapMyRun actually discard your altitude data. They instead use their own, calculated from other sources.