Race 2: GPS, cadence and distance accuracy vs previous Suunto models
-
@SuperFlo75 not a good news
The most infuriating thing is that in all the reviews in YouTube, not a single person mentions this anomalyā¦
Itās all well and good to praise the battery, the great display, the myriad of features, but Iād say the GPS accuracy remains the most important thing to review and compare for a sports watch of this caliber.Today I went for a 2km walk, and when I compared it to the Amazfit, it shaved 10 meters off the 2km markā¦
Of course, over 2km, the difference is small, but if we consider the error per kilometer, over a half marathon, the final race pace changesā¦ these are the basics for even a poor runner like meā¦
Knowing youāre running at 5.00/km when youāre actually running at 4.52 radically changes the perception of running.
I really hope itās a software bug and that it gets fixed.
-
@Ger43 I wouldnāt worry about 10m in 2km. In my case, Iāve sometimes had differences of 20m per km from the very first kilometer, which would be 200m accumulated over 10km.
5m per kilometer is within a reasonable range for GPS receivers and depending on the surrounding environment.For example, my yesterdayās short easy run:
Official Distance (Device Summary) 5,322 meters
RAW Distance (GPS Points Summation) 5,398 meters
Algorithmic Reduction (Distance āClippedā) -76 meters (1.42%)-70m in a 5K runā¦ This would be ~280-300m in a Half Marathon, and thatās not even mentioning the differences in pace, which are around 4-5 seconds/km (slower) difference
You can analyze your FIT/JSON data to compare official and raw data and check the real difference between those data. In Vertical, Race S, Vertical 2 those data are very close. In Race 2 thereās differenceā¦
-
To add even stranger things, summary of a 17km activity recorded with both Race 2 and Vertical:
So far, this is the usual behavior; Race 2 underestimates the distance measured by GPS, correct?
And now, I go to https://www.sports-tracker.com/ and compare de info and Laps info for every recorded activity and, oh! surprise!, SportTracker shows the āRawā data and both watches are very very similar in Laps times and Paces (and not during the activity). SportTracker shows 17,3km total distance in laps (the recorded raw distance) and practically identical Laps compared one by one:
-
@jjpaz So itās increasingly clear that itās simply a āsoftware glitchā and that the hardware is working fine.
Is there a way to send these reports directly to the Suunto developers?
The error seems fairly obvious and verifiedā¦ -
@Ger43 said in Race 2: GPS, cadence and distance accuracy vs previous Suunto models:
@jjpaz So itās increasingly clear that itās simply a āsoftware glitchā and that the hardware is working fine.
Is there a way to send these reports directly to the Suunto developers?
The error seems fairly obvious and verifiedā¦If you check athleteās activities recorded with Race 2 the behavior is the same. So, Iām not aloneā¦
-
@jjpaz said in Race 2: GPS, cadence and distance accuracy vs previous Suunto models:
@Ger43 said in Race 2: GPS, cadence and distance accuracy vs previous Suunto models:
@jjpaz So itās increasingly clear that itās simply a āsoftware glitchā and that the hardware is working fine.
Is there a way to send these reports directly to the Suunto developers?
The error seems fairly obvious and verifiedā¦If you check athleteās activities recorded with Race 2 the behavior is the same. So, Iām not aloneā¦
Iām reluctantly thinking about returning itā¦I still have time.
But at this point, if I were to consider getting the Vertical 2, would I have the same problem? Or do you think the V2 is fine in this regard? -
Maybe @dimitrios-kanellopoulos can help. I too am getting less distance and lower pace compared to all other watches. somethimes as much as 170m per 10km (compared to AW3 that I already know is quite conservative).
-
@Ger43 I canāt tell you about the V2; I have the R2 and Iām currently testing it compared to my other watches. Try asking in the V2 subforum, although it seems to be more accurate in its GPS recordings.
-
This evening I tried an interval workoutā¦ 5x800ā¦
I admit Iām completely lostā¦ this evening, instead of cutting as usual, the Race2 showed me more distance than the Amazfitā¦ already in the first 3km of warm-up, I noticed a pretty clear difference, which obviously affects my pace:
the pace on the repetitions also appears quite distorted between the 2 watches :
but other factors may have also influenced this, for example the START of the 2 watches were not aligned and in any case in general testing repetitions on 2 watches at the same time is not easyā¦ but in the warm-up phase, on the other hand, the difference is quite evident.
The only difference compared to the previous two tests was that in this workout I had installed the map of my region (Lombardy, Italy). Do you think installing the map of the area where I run might have had some impact?
In any case, it now seems exaggerated in the opposite direction. Letās always assume the Amazfit is telling the truth at this pointā¦
Tomorrow Iāll do the same walking test as the other day. I want to see if the same behavior as the other day (about 10 meters less every 2 km) is confirmed or not.
-
@Ger43 for a bit more detail (and to rule out one possible factor), were the watches on the same wrist / arm? Was this session (including the warm up) on the track? Just wanting to check that the Suunto wasnāt on the outside (right, if running counterclockwise) wrist vs the Amazfit on the inside / left wrist, which could absolutely swing measurements this way.
