Footpod for Spartan Ultra?
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Hello everyone, I know that this topic has been discussed here and elsewhere several times. Nevertheless I ask the question again, it is just too much if you want to read everything. I am looking for a footpod for my Spartan Ultra to record my training on the treadmill these days. I used to have an Ambit 2 and the Footpod Mini. It always worked very well, but unfortunately it cannot be connected to my Spartan.
With the Footpod I have only few requirements. It should be easy to connect to the Spartan, calibrate automatically, track speed and distance and not be so expensive. Okay, the cadence would be good too. But that’s all it has to do.
Anyone got any advice on which sensor to use for this?
Thanks a million in advance and please stay healthy.
Many greetings Frank -
@Luke_Skyrunner the very best you can get is the Stryd. It will provide a power metric that can be very useful for training. The downside is that it is expensive. It is the most accurate footpod available. It can be configured on your Spartan to provide power only or to provide speed, cadence, distance and power (better for indoors).
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@Brad_Olwin said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
@Luke_Skyrunner the very best you can get is the Stryd. It will provide a power metric that can be very useful for training. The downside is that it is expensive. It is the most accurate footpod available. It can be configured on your Spartan to provide power only or to provide speed, cadence, distance and power (better for indoors).
may I ask you, the Stryd pod passing the captured sensed data to the Suunto app via the watch?
I using zwift pod, but the special data for example ground contact stride length not passing to the suunto app unfortunately.
(I using zwift pod with Spartan Ultra and Ambit3 Peak.) -
@lkovari said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
@Brad_Olwin said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
@Luke_Skyrunner the very best you can get is the Stryd. It will provide a power metric that can be very useful for training. The downside is that it is expensive. It is the most accurate footpod available. It can be configured on your Spartan to provide power only or to provide speed, cadence, distance and power (better for indoors).
may I ask you, the Stryd pod passing the captured sensed data to the Suunto app via the watch?
I using zwift pod, but the special data for example ground contact stride length not passing to the suunto app unfortunately.
(I using zwift pod with Spartan Ultra and Ambit3 Peak.)Absolutely!
- you can pair as a footpod, the Stryd will record power, cadence, speed/pace and distance, overwriting the GPS of the watch (this requires you turn auto calibrate off in footpod settings).
- If you leave auto calibration on, the watch will use GPS to calibrate the Stryd and the metrics should be similar to those you get with GPS although the cadence, speed/pace and distance will still come from the Stryd.
- You can pair as powerpod only and the Stryd will only send power to the watch.
All metrics are present in SA and are exported to 3rd party apps, for example, TrainingPeaks has all of the data. I don’t know if Strava handles power…I don’t care enough about Strava to worry about it.
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Additionally and in parallel - even when the Stryd is paired with your Suunto - you can transfer all data from the Stryd to the StrydApp on your phone. This gives you quite more details than you receive from the data merged with Suunto.
If you look for a less expensive - and less capable but nevertheless quite good - pod-alternative, you might take the Zwift RunPod into consideration. The options to pair with the Suunto are identical.
And - by the way - both FoosPods can be used for Zwift Indoor Running. -
@Shrek3k
Hej Hej, I think the Zwift RunPod is a really good tip. I definitely do not need a scientific evaluation of my running data. A direct coupling with the Spartan, Auto Calibration, speed and distance is enough for me. I think I will try it that way. And if it is nothing, I have not burned that much money.
What generally amazes me is that Suunto no longer offers its own Run Pod.
Sporty greetings
Frank -
@Brad_Olwin I think he meant other metrics like leg stiffness index, form power, ground contact – that aren’t recorded from Stryd by the watch. For them you need to do offline sync via Stryd app to have the workout data from Suunto and sensor fully merged.
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@lkovari said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
may I ask you, the Stryd pod passing the captured sensed data to the Suunto app via the watch?
The watch would record running power and give you access to derived power related fields like 3, 10 sec averages, lap average, etc. It would also record pace and distance, like from a normal footpod. However, none of the other running metrics Stryd provides like form power, form power ratio, ground contact, leg stiffness, etc. will be captured.
That being said, you can record your workout with a watch, sync it to Stryd PowerCenter via the Suunto app, then offline sync the workout directly from the sensor using Stryd phone app. In 99% they will automatically merge and – voila! – you have a workout with GPS tracks, altitude, heart rate, and all of the Stryd metrics present.
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@Luke_Skyrunner If you have the cash and willingness to drop it on Stryd, this would be the best choice you can make. Otherwise, a Zwift footpod (formerly Milestonepod) is a good and cheap alternative. You probably won’t find them, other than on eBay, but Adidas SpeedCell was also fairly accurate.
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@NickK said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
@Luke_Skyrunner If you have the cash and willingness to drop it on Stryd, this would be the best choice you can make. Otherwise, a Zwift footpod (formerly Milestonepod) is a good and cheap alternative. You probably won’t find them, other than on eBay, but Adidas SpeedCell was also fairly accurate.
I totally agree. Just to add something about the Adidas Speedcell - it is really cheap and quite good IMO. But there are 2 versions available - one with ANT+ only and one with BLE only. The more common and cheaper one is with ANT+, the BLE-version is quite hard too find and ‘less cheap’. So have a close look before you buy an incompatible version.
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@NickK said in Footpod for Spartan Ultra?:
@Brad_Olwin I think he meant other metrics like leg stiffness index, form power, ground contact – that aren’t recorded from Stryd by the watch. For them you need to do offline sync via Stryd app to have the workout data from Suunto and sensor fully merged.
If I recall, the fields are not present in the fit file for this and thus, those “other” metrics will not be passed to SA.
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Picked up the zwift RunPod for my spartan. I’m leaving autocalibration ON. looks like it’s impacting both speed and distance. Anyway to have it impact just speed and let distance come from the GPS. Thanks
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@fritzbt2013 it seems that you have it currently in use as footpod (= speed, distance, cadence delivered by pod, GPS is used only for the route and navigation). Please use it as a powerpod, so that GPS is ‘overruling’ the pod.
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Speed = distance / time.
Time is fixed. I see no way to get speed and distance matching with different data sources.
Afaik the Swift Pod is the old Milestone Pod, it has no power data.
You can also calibrate the pod in its own app, and switch off Auto calibration in the watch! -
@Egika What app would that be? I’m also struggeling with speed and distance. It seems that the Zwift pod isn’t calibrated automatically, despite that being togled on in the settings. It’s paired as a foot pod.
Have a look at this workouit: https://www.strava.com/activities/3534821809 . Distance and sub-sequently for the workout as measured by the pod: 4,58 km (4,36 km/min), while the segment is actualy 5,05 km. That means it’s 10% off. The same happens when I’m running in Zwift.
Though, when altering my technique, by lifting up my knees and heels more during the stride, the speed changes and seems more correct!
To me it seems that auto calibration is not working and that the pod isn’t calibrated by my SSU.
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@Theo-Lakerveld Since it is Zwift I don’t know about the app. I am using the Milestone version with the Milestone app. Here it is easy to adjust the calibration factor.
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@Egika OK, I can’t find a milestone app in Google Play. They probably took it out when they were aquired by Zwift.
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@Shrek3k If I pair it as a power pod do I still get pace information based on Zwift Runpod?.
For me this is really the one thing I want. How is it calibrated when in this mode.I still have it as a footpod. Todays run was short by about 1%, hoping after a few runs it calibrates a little better but that might be acceptable if it does not get worse (10% would be too much).
Thanks
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@fritzbt2013 calibration by your Suunto watch only takes place if the watch regards the GPS signal as sufficient enough in regards of accuracy. Plus you need a certain time with good enough GPS reception…
You also need to set the watch to best GPS mode.
Looks like his has worked for you since the rror got so small.
Subsequent runs should make it even better
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I think I will be leaving the Zwift Runpod as a footpod. Accuracy today was even better. Watch reported 3.74 miles on my run today. Typically I measure 3.70 to 3.73.
One both good and bad detail about my run today was (the bad first) the GPS reception cut out on my spartan halfway through. Not sure of the cause, but it never came back during the run. However (the good part) the zwift footpod carried on, pace/distances constantly refreshed and were typically what I expect to see. The only thing I’m missing in strava is the full GPS track.
One other note, I updated the firmware for the Runpod using the zwift app on my iPad. Not sure if that made a difference yet for better or worse.
