Step count is pretty low on Suunto

[Arnie82]

Hi all,

My wife and myself are both on Suunto watches… Vertical 2 and Race S.
Both watches are generally way off when it comes to daily step count. I feel that this is the case with all current Suunto watches. Step count is never perfect but compared to other devices, I feel Suunto is really low on daily steps.

I would think this is something that would be able to have a software “fix” in order to bring Suunto more in line with a realistic number… Is this something that is recognised and perhaps worked on already? Thanks!

[Elipsus]

@Arnie82 Its a case of “what is your reference ?” when you say “way off”

Some watches grossly overestimate, some underestimate a lot, its really not comparable and having the “true value” isn’t a matter of “doing like the others”

For example, I had a Withings watch before my Suunto, and Suunto overcount by 30% relative to withings, and I adjusted my step objective to 13000 instead of 10000 to get the same “actual move target”.

Don’t bother with it, use it as a relative value on the day-to-day, and adjust your target so it feels ok to you.
And honestly, i really hope Suunto isn’t spending developpment time adjusting this, it has much, much more important (IMO) stuff to improve

[Arnie82]

@Elipsus

Agree… We shouldn’t make this more important then it is. Reference points are Polar and Coros in my case. I would say Suunto is roughly 30% off compared to these two watches.

[Christos Chryssochoidis]

@Arnie82 Polar is known to count “step equivalent”, in the sense that it translates your effort intensity thoughout the day to steps, so that could easily be more than your actual steps. See e.g. this, sec. 3.5.

[Jugger]

There was firmware update few years ago for step calculation. Before that my V1 was measuring 20-30% more than Iphone. After update it’s quite close. Old FW measured head scratching as step and and I got easily 5-10 step in few seconds. It has improved much from that and I would say it’s working more reliable now.