My trusty Timex Ironman GPS watches (model M087) recently started reporting dates in the year 2003. Even though the folder that contains the FIT file shows the current date (such as 20220909), the data points inside the FIT file show January 2003 dates.

I think it is the 1024 week rollover in the GPS system. My FIT point dates are exactly 1024 weeks older than the date of the session. It seems the watch firmware reads the GPS date week number from the satellites and simply converts that to dates based on the previous rollover occurrence, which was April 6 2019. I have asked Timex to update their firmware. No answer yet. When I upload sessions to Strava for archiving, I have to go all the way back to 2003 to find them. Nope, can't tolerate that. (By the way, when I review the session results on the watch itself, it shows the correct date of the session. It's the FIT file created by the firmware that has the wrong dates.)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_week_number_rollover

My other GPS devices are not showing this since I believe they are using the latest rollover. GW-60, Fenix 5X, other Garmins, Contour+ and GoPro 5 Black cameras, for example, are showing correct dates in their GPS data files.

Comments?

Possibly built in redundancy

After four days still no answer from Timex. They might consider this watch to be EOL, but then they would be abandoning a large installed base. If they use this same firmware code on other Timex watches, I have to believe they will address this rollover issue. Hope so anyway.

Onscreen everything is fine on the watch, even the date. It's when you upload your FIT file that you see the problem.