Garmin’s new high-frequency precision recording – what 5Hz recording means for sports

Garmin’s imminent announcement of 5Hz GNSS/GPS recording for downhill mountain biking, as recently reported by this site, signals a significant advancement in sports tracking technology. While this feature initially targets a niche sport, its implications extend to a wide range of activities, including windsurfing, sprinting, and motor racing. This article examines the significance of 5Hz recording, its benefits in sports technology, and its potential impact across various sports.

The Current Landscape

High-frequency GNSS recording isn’t new. Other products, such as the Qstarz BT-Q1300ST, already support 5Hz recording for sports like skiing. Team sports analytics platforms, such as Catapult and STATSports, also leverage similar capabilities for football, rugby and even motor racing. Within Garmin’s ecosystem, heart rate variability (HRV) data is already recorded at 5Hz, demonstrating the company’s experience with high-frequency data. However, Garmin’s move to 5Hz GNSS recording marks a shift toward broader use across its other metrics and devices.

What exactly is Garmin adding in 2025?

In the June/July timeframe, Garmin is adding the ability for downhill MTBers to record downhill stretches at 5Hz.

Source: Me via @Johnw (thank you)

Are you sure?: Yes.

Why Now?

The adoption now of 5Hz GNSS recording may stem from both market and technological factors.

With finite resources, Garmin may have prioritised other innovations, such as updating its running power model to incorporate elevation gain from 3D-GNSS rather than barometric data. Recent advancements in GNSS chipsets, particularly Synaptics’ dual-frequency (L1/L5) chips, likely enable more accurate and reliable 5Hz recording. These chips offer improved 2D and 3D accuracy, crucial for sports that require precise positional data.

Benefits of 5Hz Recording

Higher-frequency data, such as 5Hz, captures rapid changes with greater precision, offering several advantages:

• Accurate Tracks: Unlike 1Hz GNSS, which can produce blocky tracks with straight-line segments, 5Hz recording provides visually-perfect path representations, especially around sharp turns. This eliminates the artificially smoothed, inaccurate arcs seen with Apple Watch data.
• Precise Speeds: Peak speed measurements are more accurate, critical for high-speed sports like windsurfing or skiing.
• Detailed Acceleration: 5Hz data provides a more accurate capture of acceleration changes, allowing for more precise analysis of sprints or rapid manoeuvring.
• Improved Segment/Lap Times: More frequent data points enhance the accuracy of time measurements, from times between race gates or laps to Strava segments.

Consider HRV as an analogy. While 1Hz heart rate data suffices for pacing a marathon, 5Hz recording enables interbeat (R-R) measurements, unlocking HRV metrics like SDNN or rMSSD. These metrics offer valuable insights into sleep stages, recovery, and overall health. 5Hz data has vastly expanded the metrics we use. Similarly, 5Hz GNSS data unlocks detailed movement analysis for sports, with many more uses than initially imagined here.

Which Sports Benefit?

Several sports stand to gain from 5Hz GNSS recording due to their high-speed or dynamic nature:

• Windsurfing/Speed Surfing: Pro speed surfers emphasise the need for peak speed capture and rapid signal recapture after submergence, both of which are enhanced to some degree by 5Hz data.
• Skiing/Snowboarding: Slalom events and jumps benefit from precise speed profiles and turn tracking, potentially combined with accelerometer data for jump distance.
• Motor Sports: Cars, karts, and bikes cover significant distances in one second at race speeds. 5Hz data can map racing lines, although higher frequencies than 5Hz may be required.
• Sprinting (Running/Cycling): More frequent data improves the analysis of acceleration and peak speeds; although higher-frequency cycling power data may offer better insights when available (indoors and outdoors).
• Team Sports: Precise tracking of player positioning and acceleration enhances tactical analysis in sports like soccer. It could perhaps add to a greater understanding of muscular strain arising from rapid movements that heart rate alone will miss.

Is This Technology New?

While 5Hz GNSS recording may seem novel, older chipsets used by Garmin, such as MediaTek’s MT3333, supported up to 10Hz; however, Garmin opted to use 1Hz, possibly due to limitations in the Fit file format (capped at 5Hz) and other factors. Modern chipsets, like Synaptics’ dual-frequency models, offer superior L5 band accuracy, making the gains from 5Hz recording more attainable. Other products, such as recent Sony chipsets, also support high-frequency recording but may face performance trade-offs.

Garmin’s implementation likely strikes a balance between accuracy, power efficiency, and ecosystem compatibility.

Sensor Data in Context

To understand the role of 5Hz GNSS recordings, consider the broader sensor capabilities in sports watches:

Source: Various, not validated

Takeaway

Garmin’s 5Hz GNSS recording, starting with downhill mountain biking, should mark the start of a new and interesting journey for the company with its sports data.

For some sports, this will be a game-changer, notably those that require high-resolution tracking of speed, position, and acceleration. By capturing data at a rate of five times per second, Garmin will deliver near-perfect movement profiles, benefiting high-speed and dynamic sports such as windsurfing, skiing, and motor racing. As Garmin integrates this capability across its ecosystem, driven by advanced chipsets like Synaptics’ dual-frequency models, athletes can expect enhanced performance insights, perhaps going some way to rivalling specialised systems like Catapult or Qstarz.

The usual runner and cyclist readers of this blog, perhaps, shouldn’t get too excited. Our Strava segments might just be a little bit more accurate 😉

Last Updated on 29 January 2026 by the5krunner

the5krunner

tfk is the founder and author of the5krunner, an independent endurance sports technology publication. With 20 years of hands-on testing of GPS watches and wearables, and competing in triathlons at an international age-group level, tfk provides in-depth expert analysis of fitness technology for serious athletes and endurance sport competitors. ID