Is the Vertical as sub-standard as it seems?

mikekoski490

@6294946 Every OHR watch I have had (Polar/Garmin/Coros) for the past several years has the exact same complaint - OHR doesn’t work while exercising seriously. And serious athletes do not rely on OHR - they us an HR strap. Not sure why there continues to be an expectation of what OHR can do vs cant. If you want daily HR or overnight HR, use OHR. If you want feedback on a sporting activity, get an HR belt for now until companies and reviewers start saying ‘its finally reliable’ to ditch the external strap.

My Vertical has been spot on any time I want to get an SPO2 reading, ‘if’ I take the reading correctly (sitting still, and sometimes put some slight pressure on it against the skin), and EXACTLY like Garmin and Coros, sometimes it takes a few times to get a reading.

All these readings need to work in tandem and can give you an indication of overtraining and illness - its why POLAR started way back in the 80’s with heart rate monitors. If you are training too hard, or getting sick, and if you monitor some stats daily, you can notice a trend and back off training a bit. Thats it. Nothing magical. And all of the guides Suunto and other watches provide give you tips on what type of training is recommended.

I think these wrist devices are great if you take in the big picture and look at trends vs one offs? I find these kinds of posts brutal - the watch does what it says, but the screen isn’t as bright as an OLED display, so its sub-standard? Jeez…people should read some reviews and online stuff, or go look at one in a store, before you buy maybe…

Egika

@BrunoH

@BrunoH said in Is the Vertical as sub-standard as it seems?:

@Egika honest question: is OHR really something that can be improved by SW? I thought the irregularities are caused by the sensor hardware failing under certain conditions.

wrist HR sensors as well as any other sensor are always a combination of hardware and firmware. hardware is sending and receiving light. Firmware is filtering and interpreting the raw signals.
while hardware is fixed, the data processing can be changed with software.

I used S9B for a couple of years and I never saw OHR improving over time. That’s why I bought the belt.

I am not sure if S9B ever saw an improvement of WHR during its wrist heart rate. And it suffers even more from it’s weight…

Anyway. I just wanted to say that Suunto is working on this for their current models and while I don’t know how much it will change, it is not something that is accepted in it’s current state.

wakarimasen

@Egika Yes! I read this before and am looking forward to new metrics!

GiPFELKiND

@Egika said in Is the Vertical as sub-standard as it seems?:

@6294946 what makes you think the current wrist hear rate is accepted?
This is still under improvement (while the size and weight of the vertical of course is a heavy burden) and will be addressed with the next update as well.

The Question ist WHEN WHEN WHEN the promised update will COME!!! Since Juli here we read the next update will come…UNTIL TODAY NO UPDATE

Tieutieu

@GiPFELKiND we are on a user forum, not a brand internal social network. Writing in big letters won’t make things go faster, but hurts the eyes…
Come on, our lives don’t rely on that updates…

Jacobus

@GiPFELKiND What a fuss about ohr, I have done 1276 training sessions with Suunto watches, one went better than the other, but as soon as it gets a bit cold it always goes wrong.
I always wear an external strap during training.
I run 3 to 4 times a week at an athletics club, most of whose members have a Garmin, they have exactly the same problems with ohr, measuring on the wrist with trained runners just doesn’t work well. I’m glad I have a Suunto when I see all that hassle loading a route with a Garmin for example.

altcmd

@GiPFELKiND you seriously need a chill pill

MiniForklift

@altcmd Yeah, I’m finding it quite tiring now. He just needs to buy a Garmin and be done with it

6294946

@Egika ok, thanks, very good to hear that suunto is working on updates related to ohr! Not sure if I should’ve known that. By ”accepting” I mean exactly these comments where people say that ohr is always wrong etc, a good example just here above My reading of reviews by f.e. Dc rainmaker is that, in general, ohr matches very well on average with a chest trap. (One recent exception was his review of suunto vertical where it has similar problems that I experience on most zone 2 runs.) This has been my experience as well on other watches. I dont need ohr to be super accurate but just consistent.

Likarnik

@Tieutieu I find it funny that we are not on official brand forum and still can not post links to upcoming new watch… rules are schizophrenic. But this is best we got, so we have to cope with it

isazi

@Likarnik this is a forum hosted on the suunto.com domain and paid (as far as I know) by Suunto (not sure which department). So, it is an official Suunto forum, and to join you agree to Suunto’s terms and conditions and privacy policy.

What this forum is: a community forum by Suunto for Suunto users.
What this forum is not: (1) official helpdesk for Suunto, (2) the official way to get in touch with the company.

zhang965

isazi said in Is the Vertical as sub-standard as it seems?:

@Likarnik this is a forum hosted on the suunto.com domain and paid (as far as I know) by Suunto (not sure which department). So, it is an official Suunto forum, and to join you agree to Suunto’s terms and conditions and privacy policy.

What this forum is: a community forum by Suunto for Suunto users.
What this forum is not: (1) official helpdesk for Suunto, (2) the official way to get in touch with the company.

And controlled by volunteers.

isazi

@zhang965 no, it is controlled by Suunto’s community manager (Dimi) and other employees. The moderators are almost all volunteers, though.

altcmd

@isazi out of curiosity: is a volunteer one with similar privileges to a regular user with no privileged, proprietary information and free test products?

Amazed how so quickly everyone went to the conclusion that the op was comparing to an OLED display when it was not mentioned. And as if Suunto didn’t had a past of dim and washed displays…
Never seen a vertical…it was said to have the best Suunto display…is it better than other mips? Don’t know…
Even if it wasn’t…it’s “ok”. It’s the best that the company could do at the time…but there could be always better displays…

isazi

@altcmd what do you mean?

BrunoH

@André-Faria I’m the one who brought up OLED in this thread. I think it was a reasonal assumption, considering the fact that Vertical’s marketing pics don’t boast with unrealistic colors. I think the images of Vertical (most colorful of them showing maps and sun&moon widget) were truthful and I think I received exactly what was advertised.

You’re right, no-one knows if he was raving about Vertical having especially bad MIP.

Jamie BG

@6294946
OHR - the reality as virtually all well known reviewers now point out is that your body comp, your skin tone, the amount of hair you have, any tats you have on your wrists, the fit and weight of the watch - this all goes towards how well any given OHR will read and provide accurate HR. So a device that works great for 98% of people will still have 2% where it doesn’t. Just go onto apple forums where apple OHR is generally rated as the best and you will find people complaining about it. Same with Garmin’s latest elevate 5 sensor which for most reviewers seems to do an excellent job.

If a sensor isn’t working for you in most situations - your best option is probably to try another watch if you don’t want to go chest strap or OHR bicep route. Its entirely possible that it may work for you - take 5k runner - that guy is notoriously bad when it comes to OHR - even had issues with apple OHR - but found the Epix one generally worked for him OK - but that OHR is a variety of other watches where he just didn’t get the same level of detail… You just can never tell.

Tieutieu

My Thoughts/vision about OHR and performances :

Many user of “smartwatches” are not athletes. As long as they see that OHRs give values, they probably are satisfied. So am I for daily and night HR tracking. I’m just interested into tendency.
When precise mesures are needed, as it has been said before, no one can decently rely on OHR of any brand. HR straps still remain the best way to train precisely, for now.

It will improve for sure (or another technology will replace OHR).

Elipsus

@Tieutieu The improvments are already there considering how much more reliable it became over the last 20 years compared to the first forerunners that had it.
And “The quantified Scientist” on Youtube already tested multiple watches (Namely Huawei GT3 &4 and Apple watches) that operate near perfectly even on strength training.

So, its just a matter of less than 5 years until other companies do it right IMO