Step counter on Vertical

@Tami999 I wore a Fenix 7 Pro on my right wrist and a Suunto Vertical Ti on my left wrist for a couple of weeks. In general the Suunto Vertical was about 30% higher in steps than the Garmin. The Garmin could also easily be fooled by certain hand movements, but to a far lesser degree. Waking up in the morning and walking from the bed to the coffee machine and making coffee would often result in 400-500 steps in the Suunto Vertical, while it was maybe around 30-40 steps in the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro (which is pretty accurate I would say based on the distance between my bed and my coffee machine). This huge error was probably due to a lot of hand movements while making coffee, filling water, taking out cups, milk, and all of that stuff, which the Suunto counted as steps and the Garmin was good at not detecting as steps.

It seems like any and all hand movement will fool the Suunto Vertical. Some hand movement can also fool the Garmin, but it is significantly less. The same happens when driving a car or motorcycle, the Suunto counted A LOT more steps than the Garmin during these activities.

I have disabled the steps widget and have removed the “7 day steps” card in the Suunto app as the data is completely inaccurate. It doesn’t feel good to do so on such an expensive watch. And unless this feature (and other features) are fixed in firmware in the next 6 months I’m pretty sure I’ll jump ship back to Garmin once they release the Fenix 8 series, and forget about Suunto, and also get my girlfriend to drop her S9PP and jump over to Garmin as she also complains about inaccurate heart rate sensor and all the inaccuracies of the Suunto watches. She was very partial to Suunto since she is Finnish, but after seeing how bad the data from the Suunto is she also now seems to want a Garmin as her next watch.

dreamer_

@neonix @Tami999 this is exactly the issue the watch has. I have been a long time Garmin user and have also used other watches from other brands.

Suunto counts a lot more steps, a lot. A very simple movement of the arm seems to count as an step. Today, after waking Up, I had like 20 steps and I’m getting thousands at the end of the day.
It does not distinguish the kind of movement or how fast is that movement… everything seems an step for the watch.

The algorythm of the accelerometer is not as pulished as in other watches and there are other sensors that could help for not counting so many false steps. Coros works better and even the Amazfit watches are a lot more accurate in this.

For me this issue, the imposibility to pair multiple sensors of the same type, the imposibility to set wake Up alarms for week days and the bad OHR are the bugs and serious issues of this watch.

Everything but the OHR thing can (and should) be fixed. This is an expensive and the best Suunto watch. Those issues shouldn’t be there. We are on 2024, are basic things in other brands and should work as expected.

The OHR seems hardware related. But at least que can use an arm / chest band as a workaround.

I like this watch a lot. It has a lot of potential and with those little software issues fixes, It can be the best watch of the market without any doubt.

Tami999

@dreamer_ Yep but question is, technology changes so fast, especially in watches. Before they do something with that, we will have Vertical v2 or something.

dreamer_

@Tami999 this watch is very new yet to think in a newer one. Suunto has really done a good job with this watch, investing probably a lot of money. Software things are extremely cheap compared to investing in a new watch and those fixes can increase a lot the value of the new watch if bugs and issues get solved.

At the end, every software fix makes the product increase its value to the user. Happy users also means more sales. In the other hand, noise is not usually any good and nobody wants that in a new product.

dreamer_

And the fixes do also mean that you’ll have a better base software, with less issues and bugs for investing in new products. At the end, it’s the moment to solve the issues if you want to do the things right.

dreamer_

I have found a very interesting thread here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Suunto/comments/rvjgcn/a_really_expensive_step_counter/

It seems that the step counter of the S3 and S5 is much better than the step counter of the S9P and someone is guessing that the reason can be to save battery.

I think the step counter is only useful when not tracking an activity with GPS enabled so you have an estimated walked distance to add (that can be a lot or something just anecdotal depending of the user or the day you are walking).

Perhaps a good idea is to have the counter disabled while running, and estimate the final steps of the workout with the GPS distance (so we can save battery on workouts) and have it enabled with an accurate tracking (if possible) while not GPS distance is tracked and you don’t care about battery at all.

pilleus

@dreamer_

https://forum.suunto.com/post/144035

I compared my Suunto watches and in the linked topic you can see the results.

dreamer_

@pilleus very good thread. Thanks a lot for your tests and your feeedback with this. Those numbers are similar at what is said in the thread I was talking about with people speaking about the (S3 and S5) vs S9PP

So Suunto has already developed the code that has the best step counter (or at least something that is pretty interesting), but in cheaper models. It would be very interesting if someone could send that feedback to Suunto, so they can have a look at the code and see what’s happening after the S9P. If there’s something that was already developed and now is missing or why this bug now.

They have already something solid to have a look at for a possible fix for the issue.

My SV counts always more than 10k steps at the end of the day, even if I’m not doing anything special. At least that more than 3 times of what it should be.

EzioAuditore

@dreamer_ Not sure how is it connected but I own both the Vertical and the Race. The SV overcounts (bare movements of the hand) and the Race undercounts (but I much prefer this given the fact that moving around your room or just stretching your back is not really ‘moving’)

dreamer_

@EzioAuditore Perhaps the Race has the right algorythm? It would be very interesting is someone could check the step count of the Race vs S3/5 or SV/S9PP so we can see where’s the issue.

Just guessing that the SV has the algorythm of the S9PP (which seems very bad) and the Race a similar algorythm as the one of the S3/5.

EzioAuditore

@dreamer_ It has been mentioned in this forum that SV was using Firstbeat algorithms and that would change in future to Suunto’s own. My guess is that this was changed with the Race. Now the big question is: since Suunto is paying royalties for Firstbeat, will they change the algos of the SV? So I do not know if and when (or did it already) the SV changes the Fb for own algos.

dreamer_

@EzioAuditore I didn’t know that. Very interesting. So we know then there’s an issue with the algorythms of the SV and S9PP and they are using the bad algorythms just to avoid those royalties, right?

sartoric

@dreamer_ said in Step counter on Vertical:

SV and S9PP and they are using the bad algorythms just to avoid those royalties, right?

No
SV and S9 should afair still using FB

Edit
Very probably step counter was always Suunto’s own algo as FB doesn’t seem to provide that metric

https://www.firstbeatanalytics.com/en/features/

EzioAuditore

@dreamer_ I wouldn’t classify bad and good. It is something that is delivered to Suunto as a black box to use. Now this black box (Firstbeat) was purchased by Garmin and on its devices it seems to function better. But who knows if the ‘boxes’ delivered to Suunto have the latest features, bug fixes or even full compatibility with the watch sensors. So going to use own developed might be good might be bad. Good because Suunto can easily ‘fix’ and update staff, bad because the user base of Firstbeat and their algos is much bigger (irrelevant now since it is controlled by Garmin, same as ANT+. This is what conglomerates do, buy companies that are used by many and enjoy the benefits afterwards

dreamer_

@sartoric I see. Sometimes my “engrish” is not very good . In any case it’s just a matter of using the same algorythms as the ones used in the Race if possible. And that means, the solution and the fix should be already developed.

dreamer_

@EzioAuditore Thanks for the explanation. I didn’t know that either. The Suunto Race uses Suunto’s algorythms, right?
I understand the hadware is different but if Suunto has already developed the “good” logic for the Race, that’s pretty interesting.

EzioAuditore

@dreamer_ I believe that yes, the Race is using Suunto’s own implementation of fitness data (steps, sleep, etc.). For example I am not getting only different steps and calories but also sleep (the only similar thing is the HRV which I guess is directly influenced by the OHR). Plus the Race gives you REM stages of your sleep. I would love to see this ported to the SV as well but somewhere it was mentioned that it too needs enabling/paying (OHR or no I am not sure). Although, I do not really need the watch to tell me if I slept good or bad I was ‘observing’ myself and found that the more REM sleep I have the better at performing tasks at work I am and the more deep sleep the better at performing sports (this of course is my own observation not scientifically proven - maybe there is scientifically one but I do not have the time to invest and research it)

sartoric

@dreamer_
Some notes about Race’s algos

https://forum.suunto.com/post/131343

isazi

@dreamer_ a little background story you can also find in the forum if you look around. At some point the S3 algorithm, the one that is much less sensitive to movement, was used, and many users complained that it did not give them enough steps and they definitely walked more, and Suunto decided to use the more sensitive algorithm on the S9 series

dreamer_

@sartoric Dimitrios’ post is very claryfying
And this:
“Bottomline, things will get aligned , but needs time.” , totally consistent.

@isazi I don’t know about the algorythm used in the S3 but have a look at what @pilleus posted here: https://forum.suunto.com/post/144035

Those seem pretty interesting tests and what is for sure is that the algorythm that is now used in the SV and the S9P is horrible, the worst Suunto has used yet (as my understanding)