Step counter on Vertical
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Hi,
On the Suunto Vertical the step counter is a total disaster
It counts steps with just a simple arm movement… Tested side by side with a fitbit and on the fitbit the steps remain the same… On the Suunto almost every arm movement increases the steps number…Any ideas on this?
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@RGomes this is the way a step counter works.
It counts arm movements and derives corrsponting foot steps from that.As you found, both do not correlate 100%. So regard the step counter as a general activity measurement. Who needs to know their foot steps anyway?
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@RGomes this is the old ‘sickness’ of suunto watches, especially the premium ones. I heard that S5/s5p is better.
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For certain activities, like tennis, a consistent step counter can add important insights to a training summary, so I almost exclusively use an S5 watch for recording my tennis matches. It’s a trade off, since I also want to have the temperature time series during summer months, I end up choosing which is more important and literally pick an S9B for when temperature is an important factor.
For running, whenever I’m doing cadence training or run with a different group, my gait length changes and the step count difference accumulates over longer distances. It’s interesting to note whether I had ten thousand steps in a 10k run or just under nine thousand, a repeatable and comparable step counter can be a noteworthy comparable measure.
Though the ultra athletes on this forum say they don’t use the step counter metric for their training or events, I think there is an important use case for other athletes and this shouldn’t just be dismissed as a ‘basic daily activity indicator’.
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@Bradleyd I too couldn’t care less about the steps, but I understand that some people may need this. So I’d rather suunto either compeletely exclude the feature or make it ‘properly’ to match the competition.
At current state this is barely useful indeed. -
@Bradleyd It was a test I did and I was intrigued by the big discrepancy in the values obtained. Of course I still prefer my Vertical!
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@RGomes if it is lile on old devices you can Check here https://forum.suunto.com/topic/7090/s9p-accelerometer-problems
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@Egika said in Step counter on Vertical:
Who needs to know their foot steps anyway?
I imagine there a millions of people whom getting into fitness use step counting as a platform to start their journey. Their are countless health based websites that reference a 10,000 daily steps goal as a standard some should strive to achieve, e.g.
diabetes websites
WebMd
Government health department websites
etcits not about Needing to Know, rather its nice to know for millions of folk that their walk today reached a goal, who knows; it may inspire some to hit the trails etc…
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@TonyG I assume that it’s for motivation and for tracking everyday movement, of which lack of is a problem nowadays. There are people who hit record on every activity (like ordinary walks), and those that don’t. Accurate steps tracking together with HR can be a good estimate of daily activity, which makes sense to track as it doesn’t require any user input at all (just have your watch on).
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@TonyG anyway - to get “real” steps counted you need to put a sensor on your foot or leg.
Wrist based guessing of steps depends on some assumptions and will never reflect real steps. -
@Bradleyd said in Step counter on Vertical:
For running, whenever I’m doing cadence training or run with a different group, my gait length changes and the step count difference accumulates over longer distances. It’s interesting to note whether I had ten thousand steps in a 10k run or just under nine thousand, a repeatable and comparable step counter can be a noteworthy comparable measure.
Though the ultra athletes on this forum say they don’t use the step counter metric for their training or events, I think there is an important use case for other athletes and this shouldn’t just be dismissed as a ‘basic daily activity indicator’.
For running the steps counted by any watch will be very precise, as arm movement is in sync with leg movement.
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@Egika said in Step counter on Vertical:
For running the steps counted by any watch will be very precise, as arm movement is in sync with leg movement.
Unless there’s a lot of uphill where your hands are on your thighs