Suunto 9 with the recent GPS firmware was among least accurate GPS watches in today's 25K trail race

[A Former User]

I did another race with a bunch of other runners and had another opportunity to compare my Suunto 9 result (and a few other Suunto 9 results) to other watches. The method I used is the same. I open Strava FlyBys and look at matches activities, then open them and look at the distances and quality of the tracks. This was a looped race course so it is a bit easier to compare the GPS performance based on how clean repeated loops are. This method isn’t very scientific, I know, but it gives a good enough overall idea. I’ve done that multiple times and I can clearly see some patterns now.

My subjective conclusion is that Suunto 9 is among the worst now. The only watch that produces worse tracks is Garmin Vivoactive. All cheap entry level Garmin watches clearly outperformed Suunto 9 both in terms of the track and in terms of the distance. Garmin 6X has also showed a better, albeit a bit noisier track, and much more accurate distance. Even Coros Apex, arguably, performed better.

Here are some images for comparison:

Garmin 6X - 3 loops, 14.93 mi (4.97 per loop). I can tell that the track is a bit noisy, so the accurate distance is probably accidental. Suunto 9 used to be the same with the previous firmware.

Suunto 9 - 3 loops, 13.87 mi (4.62 mi per loop). It lost GPS 2 or 3 times on the 3rd loop, but as far as I can tell that didn’t affect the distance in the negative way because the 3rd loop was actually the longest.

Suunto 9 - 3 loops, 13.51 mi (4.50 mi per loop). This is from another runner so I don’t know what firmware was used.

Here is for comparison 6 loops made with A3P - 29.24 mi (4.87 mi per loop). This is the cleanest track among all that I looked at.

Close-up of Fenix 6X. Not very clean, but it got the turn at the top left corner right:

Close-up of my Suunto 9. Look at the same corner. Also look how badly it cut the corner at he sharp U-turn closer to the finish:

Close-up of another Suunto 9. This is just horrible - one of the worst tracks in the entire race:

Yes. We can continue to pat ourselves on the backs and tell ourselves that Suunto is the most accurate. But I’d say the reality is far from that.

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@silentvoyager perhaps time to change brand and pat your self in the back?

With this kinda feedback and attitude friend you are only enclosed to your own mind.

Its only been a constant complain here

I really dont know what else to say with the attitude you carry here.

We are constantly trying to improve the product, I personally try to figure out what goes wrong but its always a blocker from your side.

You don’t like Suunto app (Which this forum WAS about), you have to agree with all the complains here, why MC is better said 1nce per week in each debate.

So I have to ask. What are you trying to get out of here? What is the purpose of posting and keeping this atitude?

Its ok to suggest , and post an issue but for the love of god you could put some effort to be a bit less :

Yes. We can continue to pat ourselves on the backs and tell ourselves that Suunto is the most accurate. But I’d say the reality is far from that.

We are people here reading the comments and feedback not machines and at some point in time the only thing bad sentiment brings is well, giving up.

Honestly you could just have ommited the

Yes. We can continue to pat ourselves on the backs and tell ourselves that Suunto is the most accurate. But I’d say the reality is far from that.

and this would have been a great post, I could help (as I have contacted you many times) with providing test FW or getting in the test team but sorry to say this is not an attitude one can have communicating a subject.

Sorry to say so.

[cosme.costa]

I’m not going to say that the S9B is the most accurate in class (track wise) but in some occasions it is really accurate, usually I have better tracks than the ones that I had with my SSU. I have to say that only have it for two months and that I like it a lot.

Despite all of this sometimes I have the same feeling than @silentvoyager with the S9B,regarding distances. I do some short Cross races, usually 3 to 5 loops to a non permanent circuit with lots of turns and switchbacks. Usually all of the participants got shorter distances than the ones published by the organization, compared with the other participants the S9 is always in the shorter distance area. Yesterday I raced and the official distance was 5 km, the S9 counted 4.6 km and the other participants (with Garmins and Polars ) got among 4.7 and 4.8 km. Is this a lot? I do not know.

On the other hand, today I went for a morning trail run and for the first time I got the message that I have lost the GPS signal. I have lost it for nearly 5 km in a nearly 13 km run. First of all, I have to say and as it has been said in another posts that the message is very annoying and shouldn’t be permanent, it also should have a different vibration pattern than the auto-lap, maybe two small vibrations (I do not use sound in the watch). The run that I did today I have done it 15 to 20 times so I know more or less where are all the 1 km split, but today the first km alert was later than it should, this was strange to me and makes me believe that the AGPS was not OK and made also lose the GPS. Anyway the next km was consistent + the offset of the first km so I stopped to pay attention to the watch, I was running with headlamp in trails so I prefer to focus in the running. But then I got a vibration identical to the 1 km auto-lap too early that was when I saw the GPS lost signal message. Later on, when I saw the track I’ve realized that I lost the GPS 3.5 km aprox before I was aware of it (maybe I have the message before but because it has the same vibration pattern than the auto-lap I wasn’t aware). 
In this route I have never lost the signal, not with the Ambit 3 Vertical, not with the SSU, not with the Sigma bike GPS and not with the S9B until today. The sky during the run was completely clear and open, only stars and the big moon, after 1.5 km from where I have lost the signal there is nearly 1 km in an open area where the watch should have regained the signal but it didn’t. Is for that that I believe that this GPS signal issue is an isolated case and maybe due a bad AGPS.
Then the total distance was pretty accurate (Fusedtrack, Good job here Suunto!! ) and the track where I have signal too.
I think the GPS firmware/algorithm is not the best yet but, seeing the last updates, Suunto is in the good direction and I believe that sooner than latter we will be very happy (I still am)

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@cosmecosta in regards to this we are bringing more FW updates and yes there are a lot of issues mentioned here recognized and fixed already.

[Maryn]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos

[cosme.costa]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Suunto 9 with the recent GPS firmware was among least accurate GPS watches in today's 25K trail race:

@cosmecosta in regards to this we are bringing more FW updates and yes there are a lot of issues mentioned here recognized and fixed already.

I’ve never doubted

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

Just for the info, I am running 2 FW’s ahead and expect this week a new one with Beidou as well.

[dulko79]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos happy running

[freeheeler]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
great info, I’ll store my cable in the backpack

[isazi]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos interesting, is Suunto the first vendor to add Beidou compatibility? I’ve always been curious about the system, they have 47 working satellites and seem to always be visible

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@isazi I think COROS is the first todo so with their latest (Dec) update (or Jan dont remember well)

I think Suunto was the first to power up that chip and add Galileo support.

From my tests with COROS it has improved track quality (using BEIDOU) and from other feedback I have seen.

I would love to provide comparisons once the FW is a bit steady, promised later this week (for testers). (Which could also be delayed due to Sony).

[freeheeler]

@isazi
…please don’t mind me asking… is it basically possible to use beidou standalone?

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@isazi For the reference , as a Galileo enthousiast, the continuous unreliability of the constellation for me, it has proved worse than Glonass. I still use it, but would really like to

A) EU FIX it , it is still problematic
b) See some real improvement of tracks with BEIDOU

[Maryn]

This post is deleted!

[isazi]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos same here, I love Galileo and would love to see it thrive, but man it fails horribly at times

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@TELE-HO I don’t think any of those can be atm used as standalones. BEIDOU does not have good coverage in my area at least. Yes it has a few sats though.

[Maryn]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos power consumption is similar to gps+glo or gps+gal?

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@isazi yeah exactly. Some times I am like woooohooo. Look at this smoothness, and some other times -> Offset of 100m like wtf. I run with 3 S9 different constellations 10cm apart from each arm and you can clearly see who fucked up (which system)

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@Maryn Good question. I dont know. For QZSS for example the battery damage is 0 , for Gali more, and for glonass less than Gali

[Maryn]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos based on your experience which is more reliable? Only GPS?