S9P Accelerometer problems

guy.s

Hi everyone.

I’ve had my new S9P for a week and it’s not been working properly from the start. It appears to have faulty/uncalibrated/misconfigured accelerometers:

Raise to wake

Raise to wake doesn’t. I’ve tried everything from rotating my wrist, large swooping movements, creeping up on it. Nothing. However I discovered when putting on socks to go for a run that it was waking up continually. But the setting isn’t called “change socks to wake”, it’s too tricky to do whilst running. Anyway, the motion involved is completely different and at right angles to the direction you would use for looking at the watch face.

Steps

I’m not interested in steps, I don’t count them, personally I’d prefer to see distance wherever steps are shown in the watch and app. However, I would expect the counting of them to be reasonable since they are the simplest thing you can do with the accelerometers. Even pound shop pedometers can count steps. My S9P can’t.

On a recent short 3k walk the S9P counted about 1000 steps. That’s a 3 metre stride length. I’ve checked my legs and they aren’t that long. The 3k walk in the other direction logged 1600 steps, that’s still a crutch destroying 2 metre stride length Other devices I have register steps properly.

But it does count steps when I’m sitting still drinking coffee. Rasing my arm holding a coffee cup will count off some steps. I can walk 1000 steps whilst sitting down drinking coffee in the morning. It’s not a sharp raise of the mug, that would just leave me with a face full of coffee. Just a gentle raise of the arm does it. This is a completely different motion to one you’d get from a step.

I assume the accelerometers are also used in the filtering for the optical heart rate reading. The numbers that I get from that seem to be garbage. The heart rate and variation feed into other metrics on the watch, so large amounts of the data collection are just nonsense. The resources data shows me as “stressed” all of the time. Resources climb overnight then plummet.

I’ve tried resetting the watch, both soft and hard resets, but that makes no difference.

Does anyone else have this problem?

Can the accelerometers be recalibrated or reset?

I spoke to support using the online chat but I don’t think they understood what the problem was. Eventually they said I should send the watch in for service. This is a brand new £500 watch that appears to have a major fault. I would expect a new replacement, not a patched up broken one. I got support to escalate the problem, but it appears to have been escalated into a black hole. They will contact me by email “over the next few days”. I only have a few days before the deadline to return the device.

Is there a way to get in touch with someone who understands the problem?
Are there any diagnostics I can be gathering?

Many thanks in advance.

Giacomo Laffranchini

@guy-s Among the problems you listed, I mainly have issues with the 24/7 HR recorded outside activities. I often have entire afternoons at my desk with HR value recorded that are 1.5 or 2 times the actual (85-100 BPM instead of 50-60).

I too suspect that the watch uses data from accelerometer or other sensors to validate/correct HR reading. Hence, as soon as you start moving the HR reading will start skyrocket. I noticed this also while washing my hands: HR goes from 50 to 110.

This particular issue was brought up In another post and i believe someone reported it to Suunto. I don’t know if when it will be fixed.

I too tried soft reset, hard reset and various other solution but didn’t solve any issue.

I called few times tech support here in the US; i was told to send the watch in and Suunto will determine if it needs to be fixed or replaced. Of no defects are found I would be responsible for a diagnosis fee and shipment.

I can’t tell whether is SW of HW related. I hope is something SW that will soon be addressed because certainly this issue makes the wellness data from the watch less meaningful.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

The steps will be counted as you state. Even typing.

The accelerometer is fine. We just don’t use any special algo for steps.

Nor for hr it’s used. The only way it’s used it’s to detect if it’s laying on a table

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos said in S9P Accelerometer problems:

The steps will be counted as you state. Even typing.

The accelerometer is fine. We just don’t use any special algo for steps.

Nor for hr it’s used. The only way it’s used it’s to detect if it’s laying on a table

Hi Dimitrios,
Do you know why steps are counted like that? I believe maybe there is a reason .
Thank you

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@andré-faria it’s an accelerometer that counts steps as most of the step counters out there.

On s5 and s3 we have a context engine that plays a little more clever.

The s9P is not designed to count steps as of accuracy there. Unfortunately this is the decision.

suzzlo

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos said in S9P Accelerometer problems:

On s5 and s3 we have a context engine that plays a little more clever.
The s9P is not designed to count steps as of accuracy there. Unfortunately this is the decision.

Hi, I have read this from you, more than one time. Could you elaborate it a bit more? Is there any HW difference between watches or is only SW implementation?

BR

veroaguileta

Hi @guy-s, I know, it‘s quite long since you wrote your comment. However maybe you read my reply and you can help me?
I have a s9p since a couple of days and I’m experiencing the same problem like you: seems that my steps are 1,8 m long when Inwalk for 11km, s9p shows me only 6500 steps. For 5km, 3500 steps. Yes, I know, I actually didn‘t adquire my suunto to count steps, however I‘m really not happy with this wrong function. Did you get any solution since you wrote your post? Thank you so much in advance for any information that may help.

guy.s

@veroaguileta
When I first got the S9P my steps were 3M long. After the first firmware update they were reduced to 2M long. After the second firmware update they were 1M.

Maybe the new update will be even closer.

The raise to wake got better early on.

Guy

@guy-s said in S9P Accelerometer problems:

After the second firmware update they were 1M.

I’ve neve paid much attention to steps so glad to know it’s improved!

The raise to wake got better early on.

ahem, they’ve removed RTW during activity…

veroaguileta

@guy-s
Dear Guy, thank you so much for replying to my comment. Really appreciated. And the way you did made me laugh (and made me hope) ️Thanks!

Chris Stevenson

@guy-s
I have recently upgraded from Spartan Ultra to the Peak Pro Titanium. I wear the watch every day and I have noticed that my steps have reduced about 20% just by changing watches. For example, today I did a 10.2 km suburban walk and only recorded 8,971 steps during the walk. I am a rogainer and I know my actual is about 1,200 steps per km. I had nothing in my watch hand. I am very happy with the Peak Pro Titanium, but I am disappointed that my step counts have been hammered by a watch change.