Suunto vertical with significant added distance for walks

@leafs93 said in Suunto vertical with significant added distance for walks:

I have been wearing my Vertical for a couple of weeks now. I realise that it adds quite a bit of distance for walks, and sometimes for runs as well. I do wear a couple of watches while I run or walk, and this morning after my walk, the distances that show up for all my watches are:

suunto Vertical - 11.72km

suunto 9 peak pro - 11.55km

COROS apex 2 pro- 11.41km

Apple Watch series 8 - 11.42km

By the way, there were no tall built ups and sky was clear. Walking on pavement throughout.

I have had Baro, 9 peak, 5 peak before and all Suunto watches always added distance for my walks or run. With Vertical that has dual band, I thought the distance will be more similar to that of other dual band watches such as apex 2 pro and Garmin FR 955, but invariably the vertical always show more distance, sometimes as much as 600m for a 16km run.

I know many of you will say what makes me think that distance on Suunto is not correct? I have run on same route for many years, and both FR 955 and Alex 2 pro always show up within less than 10 meters from each other. But for my Vertical, it is more than 300 meters from other dual band watch.

Is there a way for me to reset the GPS on my vertical without resetting the Watch ?

Thanks

Let’s say the “measured” distance of that walk is 11.5km
2% error is 0.23km , on my side all those devices seem to be under that margin, which I don’t think is a big margin, specially given how complex gps measurements can be and depending on algorithms.
But I understand zero of it. Maybe someone with full knowledge can tell something about it. But 2% error doesn’t seem something extraordinary .
At the time of the launch of the vertical , on the Spanish telegram group it was stated that Suunto compared with other brands and the vertical was the most exact.
I guess the complexity of this measure can be so much and depending on so much things that it is easy to have different measures between devices.
Edit: and we also have the battery life to add. Sometimes we compare with older devices and say “the older device was more precise”…ok but with what battery life?

leafs93

@André-Faria thanks. 2% error is probably acceptable.,but if I look closely at the GPS track, on a straight pathway, my tracks are rather ziczac compared to apex 2 pro and Apple Watch. If I don’t zoom in, the tracks all look fine but zooming in the tracks probably explain where the extra distance came from . I am not entirely sure if this could be the reason though. Anyways I can definitely live with it just that I am now puzzled as to which dual band watch is the most accurate now.

@leafs93 said in Suunto vertical with significant added distance for walks:

@André-Faria thanks. 2% error is probably acceptable.,but if I look closely at the GPS track, on a straight pathway, my tracks are rather ziczac compared to apex 2 pro and Apple Watch. If I don’t zoom in, the tracks all look fine but zooming in the tracks probably explain where the extra distance came from . I am not entirely sure if this could be the reason though. Anyways I can definitely live with it just that I am now puzzled as to which dual band watch is the most accurate now.

I have no technical knowledge to answer you, which one would be the most accurate watch, what I imagine is that it would depend also on the situation used and how it is used (which arm for example).
When I want to compare different watches data I upload the fit files to https://quantified-self.io/, merge and then you can see a lot of data compared.Example of Ambit 3 vs 965 Hike.
After that you can try to understand why it varies (is it due to settings, to error, to algorythm difference, lack of calibration (in case of altitude difference).
Without data from the different watches on the same day and similar position I think we could be here talking all day

leafs93

@André-Faria hey thanks for introducing the quantified-self app!

My goodness, I compared the walk I had and I totally understand why my vertical added distance. The track compared to all the rest were very off, with me walking on water or on built up areas ! I must say it is the worst in terms of GPS tracking. Both apple and apex 2 pro were mostly spot on while vertical and SPP were off tracks. The added distance came mainly from the ziczac tracks for both vertical and spp while apple and apex 2 pro were a lot more in line. In fact SPP seems to be giving better tracks compared to Vertical.

I also compared my run today on apple , SPP and vertical. Again , the vertical seems to be most off, hitting many buildings and on water while apple tracks seem to be more correct. And SPP had much better and correct tracks compared to Vertical.

Anyone else with same experience ? I am on best GPS tracking for both SPP and vertical btw.

Kurt68

@leafs93 looks completely different on me the 9PP is not bad but by far not as good as the vertical. I’ve now done some runs and hikes with the Vertical and the Fenix 7X. Both watches are mostly within 10m at the distance and the tracks also look very good on both. It’s really interesting that your vertical performs so poorly.

leafs93

@Kurt68 interesting… I would expect vertical to be similar to that of COROS apex 2 pro and FR 955 as well. perhaps I will do a reset and see if that helps. Thanks!

suuntastic

@leafs93 My S9P is very precise. More accurate than Apex 2. Also on point to Strava tracking with app. No deviation. Apex 2 lags behind. Did you do a comparison with Strava iPhone app tracking parallel? I would trust Suunto most. And watches are getting better over time (SW Update for new chipsets). No need to worry.

Think SV distances are also most close to race distance if you look at athletes at Strava.

Probably no other watch gets so much love if it is about accuracy than Suunto.

babychai

@suuntastic It’s great that your S9P is accurate. but accuracy is depend on whether our place got trees, buildings and other factor blocking GPS signal or not.

my S9P and SV are normally within 500 meter difference in open area when i running in a city but my S9P can go up to 10 km difference when i hike inside tropical rainforest. i can say that S9P accuracy is not reliable when i hike inside thick forest.

so far my SV usually are higher than my friend who wear Coros Vertix 1 but usually within 300 meter distance difference when we hike together inside thick tropical rainforest.

zhang965

@babychai said in Suunto vertical with significant added distance for walks:

S9P can go up to 10 km difference when i hike inside tropical rainforest.

10km?

gone troppo

@babychai

Tropical rainforest is the most difficulty environment for gps I have posted about this a few times where I live. Dual band on the vertical has certainly been a revelation for me under tropical rainforest certainly a step ahead of anything up to this point. If using less than dual band you can certainly get some wild tracks and distance under rainforest canopy especially in heavy rain

babychai

@gone-troppo
yes i read what you posted previously. we’re almost the same case.
i do a lot hiking activity in tropical rainforest in my country Malaysia and do a lot breadcrumb navigation previously and now map navagation with my SV.
SV distance accuracy are very impressive now inside tropical rainforest compared to previous Suunto model.

babychai

@zhang965 Yes

https://quantified-self.io/user/1jjTdg1SCcccICOf36HVUGB3JTK2/event/06Z1eCAp3MNVsFls7po4

@babychai said in Suunto vertical with significant added distance for walks:

@zhang965 Yes

https://quantified-self.io/user/1jjTdg1SCcccICOf36HVUGB3JTK2/event/06Z1eCAp3MNVsFls7po4

If you use your phone and compare with both watches which one is correct? With that difference I would send one to warranty (if still possible)

babychai

@André-Faria what did you mean by phone? I did not record my activity with phone.
i would say S9P’s GPS accuracy is still great except hiking under tropical rainforest especially during long hour activity. distance is even worst if i got stop and rest at the waterfall area. i guess waterfall is one of the factor affected the accuracy as well.
i did running in a city/residential area and trail running the distance difference is not much compared to SV.

Mff73

one still always remember (me first) how GPS is working : signal send from the space, with relative position of the satelite (with its error), time of data sent (with its error), everything is crossing space and atmosphere, loosing time in between (with some theorical corrections), potentially reflecting the water of the waterfall, the wall of the waterfall, the trees around (loosing time again), and trying to reach your watch, potentially with its antenna not well properly aligned with the skies.
Need at least four different signals to finally calculate (with errors) where you are expected to be.

And potentially, every condition of all this (and i am surely not knowing a ten’s of all) is changing constantly.

leafs93

Update. I reset my watch and did a run. And amazingly all 3 of my watches gave the exact same distance ! I scrutinised the tracks and found all 3 pretty close to one another with vertical probably the most accurate amongst the 3! Will continue to monitor and see if this improvement continues . Really happy now !

@leafs93 maybe I should reset my SV as well.

leafs93

@Ilya-Sul I am not sure if this is one off. Will do more runs and walk and update again.

leafs93

I realise that the adding of distance comes mainly from my walks, and I think somehow the Vertical picks up too much noises, and that is causing a straight line walk to be ziczac. This was just a short walk of approx 3km, but there is a good 120meters difference between my vertical and my 2 other watches. Both Apex 2 pro and Watch 8 gave identical distance btw.

@leafs93 Yes, the SV is not good at tracking slower activities (in my experience ofc). The tracks always come out looking horribly messy. I hope this improves with future releases as I bought the watch mainly for hiking.