SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?

Andrew_

Hi all

I’ve done this same 7.9mi trail run over 100 times. With the higher end GARMIN 955, Fenix 6-7, 7Pro. Generally, I fall at 7.8-8.3mi. However, Suunto, in “performance mode” with GPS lock confirmed, is over calculating.

Is there a way to fix this, or is this just a characteristic of Suunto? Not taking a shot at Suunto, you should see the characteristics of my Tacoma, per Toyota lol.

Anyway, on pavement, it’s within .04mi on courses I run. Which is totally cool, IMO. The GPS tracks, for this tree covered trail run, look almost identical GARMIN, it’s just recording a longer distance. It may be worth noting there is about 700ft of elevation. Little hillly

I can accept the incredibly sensitive accelerometer, the horrible calorie counting estimates (which are wildly inaccurate on ANY wrist based fitness tracker, but Suunto’s are comically lol… That said, I need reliable GPS tracking within .05mi when I do my ultra 1-200’s

Any thoughts?

Yes, it’s up to date
iPhone 14 Pro, latest OS, no beta

My buddies that run use Coros, GARMIN, and an Apple Watch Ultra. They are clocked in about the same 7.9-8.3mi. The Suunto is the only one that off by more than I believe is acceptable.

It’s also worth noting that this is a constant run, no stops, and the overall tracking is complete… with no breaks in the GPS track.

I am overall pleased with the Suunto, so I’m hoping there may be an underlying problem

sartoric

@Andrewx01
Am I missing it or, you didn’t mentioned the distance measured by SV ?

Mff73

@sartoric
Same question from me

sartoric

@Mff73
I mean, in the title the distance is the same as Garmin and company

Andrew_

@sartoric

To clarify, and I worded it poorly, a loop that is 7.9 miles is not being calculated as such from the SV

SV measured 8.15mi
GARMIN was 7.9
Other GARMIN was 8.1

Brad_Olwin

@Andrewx01

How do you know the exact distance of the loop?
If hilly are all watches tracking 3D distance?

Andrew_

@Brad_Olwin

Hey Brad!

I’m not 100% how it’s been officially measured. I know it a public race trail, that has mile markers.

I’m unsure if Garmin or Coros take the hills into perspective. I’d imagine the higher end Garmin’s may?

My buddy has a Fenix 7 pro, and the other has an Apex 2 Pro

Thanks for your help btw, I appreciate it.

Brad_Olwin

@Andrewx01 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

@Brad_Olwin

Hey Brad!

I’m not 100% how it’s been officially measured. I know it a public race trail, that has mile markers.

I’m unsure if Garmin or Coros take the hills into perspective. I’d imagine the higher end Garmin’s may?

My buddy has a Fenix 7 pro, and the other has an Apex 2 Pro

Thanks for your help btw, I appreciate it.

mile markers on my trails are not correct. This is a hard thing to actually figure out. I would try some roads where you know the distance. I have found my Vertical to be very accurate. Comparing to an Epix2 about one year ago they were more or less identical for distance. I can show you some examples if you like. I would not trust the Coros to be as accurate as the Garmin based on tests I have seen from the professional reviewers.
The Apex 2 Pro, however, is likely better. The best way to do this is get a measuring wheel and measure 3k or so (at least 3 times) then use the watches, wearing all that you are going to test, switch arms with the watches and test again.

zhang965

Brad_Olwin said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Comparing to an Epix2Pro about one year ago they were more or less identical for distance.

Wow, comparing epix 2 pro about one year ago.

It looks like we found why this person’s s9p has wrist power. Loool

martin

@Andrewx01 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

My buddies that run use Coros, GARMIN, and an Apple Watch Ultra. They are clocked in about the same 7.9-8.3mi. The Suunto is the only one that off by more than I believe is acceptable.

8.15 < 8.3 isn’t it ? so the suunto is not the worse ?

Egika

@zhang965 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Brad_Olwin said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Comparing to an Epix2Pro about one year ago they were more or less identical for distance.

Wow, comparing epix 2 pro about one year ago.

It looks like we found why this person’s s9p has wrist power. Loool

I don’t know if you are having any personal issues, but what added value does your comment bring to this thread?

altcmd

@Egika he doesn’t like his Garmin either

EzioAuditore

@Andrewx01 In my experience Garmin always ‘under-counts’. I’ve run with 3 watches simultanuosly (Suunto, Garmin and Apple) and the Suunto - Apple were basically showing the same distance (Even I was wondering how is that possible after HM). The problem with Garmin’s when you enter the trails (so under trees it uses some weird ‘smoothing’ and also their SatIQ kicks in). So to compare the best Suunto to Garmin is if you set the Garmin not to Auto in the Sattelite mode but to Best / 1s - even after this it undercounts but not by much roughly 200m in a HM).
So on a well measured track of 10.89km Suunto always gave me: 10.90 - 11km and Garmin 8.9km to 10.2 (of course this was with the terrible 6X, I’ve tried Forerruner 965 and the results are much better at: 10.75 to 10.90.

zhang965

@Egika said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

@zhang965 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Brad_Olwin said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Comparing to an Epix2Pro about one year ago they were more or less identical for distance.

Wow, comparing epix 2 pro about one year ago.

It looks like we found why this person’s s9p has wrist power. Loool

I don’t know if you are having any personal issues, but what added value does your comment bring to this thread?

To let you add your added value in this post, darling

EzioAuditore

@zhang965 I don’t care about added values. Its a forum after all not a scientific publishing platform

zhang965

@Hristijan-Petreski said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

@zhang965 I don’t care about added values. Its a forum after all not a scientific publishing platform

It’s why you are not Suunto’s target audience.

altcmd

@zhang965 is this your idea of entertainment? thought you found greener pastured on Garmin - how is the Garmin forum?

Brad_Olwin

@Hristijan-Petreski Interesting as my AWUltra is often less distance than the Vertical and I think (I cannot be fully certain, maybe I should test the loop I have used a wheel to measure distance) the Ultra is measuring short.

zhang965

@altcmd said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

@zhang965 is this your idea of entertainment? thought you found greener pastured on Garmin - how is the Garmin forum?

Garmin’s forum is boring, less entertainment then Suunto community forum.

taziden

@zhang965 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

Garmin’s forum is boring, less entertainment then Suunto community forum.

So you’ve already been banned over there, aren’t you luv.

leafs93

@Andrewx01 I faced the exact same issue. I have a Garmin 965, COROS apex 2 pro, Apple Watch 8 and I do wear my vertical together with the rest of my watches just to test out the distances. The distance on my Vertical will invariably be clocked at longer distance , ie for a 10km run , it will be 200m longer for my vertical compared to Garmin 965 and COROS apex 2 pro.

When I use software to zoom in to the tracks, I can then understand where the extra distance came from as vertical tracks are more often zig Zac compared to the rest and I figured that must have been the reason. However, it seems vertical has the most accurate distance count by the experts. So I guess it should be.

zhang965

@leafs93 said in SV clocking a 7.9mi loop at 8.15mi. Is this the general margin of error with Suunto?:

@Andrewx01 I faced the exact same issue. I have a Garmin 965, COROS apex 2 pro, Apple Watch 8 and I do wear my vertical together with the rest of my watches just to test out the distances. The distance on my Vertical will invariably be clocked at longer distance , ie for a 10km run , it will be 200m longer for my vertical compared to Garmin 965 and COROS apex 2 pro.

When I use software to zoom in to the tracks, I can then understand where the extra distance came from as vertical tracks are more often zig Zac compared to the rest and I figured that must have been the reason. However, it seems vertical has the most accurate distance count by the experts. So I guess it should be.

My vertical counts less distance when I run a little bit fast,; if I walk, it gives almost the same distance as epix2pro.

I saw Suunto’s tester was running at 16mins/km to proof the good gps tracker, sadly I cannot keep running in such a pace.

Have you tried run slower to see your vertical gps performance?

Miš Kan

@Andrewx01 IMHO the matter is quite simple. For example, if you take a perfectly flat road and measure a distance of 1 mile, a watch that measures the GPS location every second will make a tiny error in each measurement. If you run a mile in 5 minutes, that’s at least 300 locations and 300 small misses. The algorithm (and each watch manufacturer has different algoritm) compensates these small errors, of course, but in the end there is still a deviation from the measurement in a straight line and the calculation of the path after 300 locations. In your case the error is around 3 %, which could be smaller, but it could also be larger

EzioAuditore

@Brad_Olwin Yes usually my AW gives me less distance too from cold start (their not so clever implementation to start the activity within 3 sec might be the case. So what I usually do is start an activity stop it after 5-10 sec - delete it and start again so the GPS lock should be much better).

leafs93

@zhang965 walking will definitely get more distance as the gps track will not be smooth and is more zig Zac.