Steep counter

A Former User

@pilleus Maybe you should read it again. That is definitely not what anybody here have said. There is no point in repeating the same arguments again.

A little bit off topic, recently I have read reviews for new watches from Polar and Coros, both of them have a new shiny optical heart rate sensor. For some reason there are many situations where the OHR doesn’t work correctly or is completely off. Even Garmin watches doesn’t measure HR with the sensor on the wrist correctly for all the people in all the situations. Why is that I wonder. Maybe the wrist is not the best place where to measure heart rate (at least with the current technology it has some limitations). But it’s unreliable if you don’t know when it’s off or when it’s correct. According to your logic why did all the companies bother to implement OHR if the values are not correct and can be measured better with other devices? And OHR is quite important metric. Almost as important as steps I would say.
Anyway…

Are you seriously comparing wrist-based heart rate monitoring (extremely advanced and difficult, and highly individual based on anatomy and skin color) and counting steps (fairly easy to measure and not so individual)? Seriously?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@neonix I think he compared the importance of counting steps vs tracking HR.
Which I would agree that HR is more important than just steps.

Typically every person that starts with fitness looks at steps and later might become like other people that focus on athletics look at distance tss etc.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@pilleus how have you learned that ?

In all seriousness there are calories and other metrics that in 90% of the brands out there are not correct. Ie calories.

The absolute value is not important as it’s not correct. However the relative value is valuable.

Perhaps don’t jump into conclusions like I am trying to defend Suunto on step counting and because it’s not accurate it should not matter. I didn’t say that. I said that don’t jump into saying that if steps are not accurate on a diving watch then the decompression time ain’t as well example.

I remember the good old days with Google fit detecting a run in the middle of the night. Step target reached. Moto 360 sport.

Zdeněk Hruška

@neonix Yes seriously just using the logic “if it’s not perfect don’t put it there” because the point is the same. There are better ways how to measure heart rate and there are better ways how to count steps if it’s important for anyone.
Also the point is: For heart rate it actually matters if it’s accurate because there are training methods based on it for example. For steps it doesn’t because it has no use in real life and the body doesn’t care if you do more or less steps as long as you move enough.

I am probably blinded by my own view of training and fitness. For me the watch is something that should help me become a better version of myself. The step counter is not a tool to achieve that in any way. But ok, I get it. There are people watching that metric and probably thinking it has some value. Why not. There is no point to argue.

freeheeler

@Zdeněk-Hruška
that’s a good summary of what I wanted to say

A Former User

@Zdeněk-Hruška If the metric has no value, and especially when its proven to be very inaccurate, then it shouldn’t be there. And maybe the widget shouldnt be listed with steps and calories as prominently as it is. By comparison, my Garmin is actually more accurate counting steps. But even the Garmin widget is down-prioritized, and does not combined steps and calories like the Suunto widget does.

The way the widget is presented in Suunto make it seem like it is important. Especially when it combines steps AND calories (that is literally the name of the widget). My Garmin has a “steps” widget only, that is far down on the list, which indicates it is not as high priority as it is in the Suunto.

freeheeler

@neonix
did you count the steps?
I just wonder how you know, because my activity summary shows an avg of 12.3k steps and sometimes days with well beyond 30k steps. I would be simply to lazy to count…

Zdeněk Hruška

@neonix Ok, but more accurate doesn’t need to make everybody happy and still it’s an approx if it’s from the wrist.
For example here the guy is not so sure about Garmin step counter precision:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Garmin/comments/11nsqr4/garmin_forerunner_step_counter_what_a_joke/
And in no way I am using it to say that Garmin has it wrong. I know it’s one isolated case which doesn’t prove anything. But maybe the guy thinks the same as you do. Maybe Garmin should get better in counting steps… (again, this is just an example, I have nothing against the Garmin watch and don’t want to make any bad comments about them).

And regarding the widget - On my Vertical it’s disabled or can be placed down in a menu if you want. So the importance is up to you. That it’s showed on the watch faces that’s the different issue I guess. Some customization would be great in that regard I agree.

Zdeněk Hruška

@freeheeler I think they really do count. Every single step!

freeheeler

@Zdeněk-Hruška
that’s beyond my imagination!!

…steps and calories are disabled in my Vertical, too

Mff73

@Zdeněk-Hruška said in Steep counter:

A little bit off topic, (…) doesn’t measure HR with the sensor on the wrist correctly for all the people in all the situations. Why is that I wonder. Maybe the wrist is not the best place where to measure heart rate (at least with the current technology it has some limitations).

to stay little offtopic on that subject, i did a run few days ago, acting like a fieldtester ( )
2 watches + 2 phone softwares + 4 HR measurements tools placed at different places (hey, each one can have fun the way one wants )

I wanted to check if HR measured on my wrist by Suunto OHR was due to my wrist or by sensor technology itself (or both, but then my unique test is not enough).

Just one run with :

SV on wrist + OHR enabled
S9PP on upper arm with OHR enabled
Polar Veritysense (thus OHR sensor) on same upper arm
SuuntoApp recording with Suunto Movesense HR belt

Result is : SV on my wrist has the worst and untrustable result, all other HR measurements are aligned with little offset probably due to blood delay+OHR technology.
S9PP OHR results on upper arm are really comparable to VeritySense and to HRBelt --> S9PP technology is not in cause (for my wrist).

Zdeněk Hruška

@Mff73 Very interesting test! Maybe that is why basically all the devices suffer to give stable results on a wrist. I wouldn’t think of wearing the watch on an upper arm And it’s surprising for me that it’s comparable with the belt or the Verity Sense (which I am often using myself). Thanks for sharing!
Maybe wearing our watch on our ankles would give us better step counts as well…

sartoric

just as a reference … old but gold

https://www.suunto.com/Support/faq-articles/suunto-3/how-are-steps-counted/

thanasis

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Steep counter:

In general you are trying to achieve a decent step counter with something worn on the hand.

Back in the days even htc had phones with step counters.

While the basic need to know steps and calories is there , personally I prefer polars approach of activity instead of steps and calories that will always be so inaccurate.

So sure, if you are demanding a fish to climb a tree and judge it’s swimming performance by the climbing performance (how can other metrics be accurate ) go ahead and garbage Suunto.

I am just suggesting replacing the step counter widget on the new watchfaces with something more relevant to the vertical audience like : Altitude ,barometric trend or date.

pilleus

@Mff73 said in Steep counter:

Result is

for me … the heavier the watch, the wider the strap needs to be.

The SV with a 24 mm strap (I took the one from the S7) gives very accurate results on the wrist. A 26 mm strap would be the optimum.

So there are simple solutions that would improve the results.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@thanasis for sure.

lilaceo

@Zdeněk-Hruška said in Steep counter:

Zdeněk Hruška
BRONZE MEMBER
@pilleus
a day ago

@pilleus But all of that what you hear is correct. There are more precise ways how to measure certain… measures
But I can tell you a difference between how important is to have for example precise HR and precise GPS versus steps counting - at least for a sports oriented watch. There are use cases for it you know. There are situations for which it matters to have a precise HR. There are also situations where it matters to have a precise GPS. We can find many examples. There isn’t any use case known to me where it matters to have precise steps count. You just want a perfect number just for a sake of it or am I wrong? How will you use that perfect number if you have it? Maybe I just don’t know I can be wrong I admit that. That’s why I am asking.
Enjoy your time outside:)

I suppose you work for suunto ? Am I wrong ?.. The fact is that you are selling a watch , one of the best of the market , and the sleeping mode doesn’t work correctly, stepcounting doesn’t work correctly, many times when you do a software upgrade you have to do a hard reset , maybe 600 hundreds euros is not enough for you… ? i have others smartwaches that all they promises it simply works very well.

A Former User

I’m just going to pee, my vertical has 300 steps. This is totally unacceptable. In 6 hours, I make 10,000 without leaving the office.
I’ve never had this problem with Garmin

thanasis

@Fizzgig said in Steep counter:

I’m just going to pee, my vertical has 300 steps. This is totally unacceptable. In 6 hours, I make 10,000 without leaving the office.
I’ve never had this problem with Garmin

do you pee like 333 times in 6 hours?

A Former User

@Fizzgig said in Steep counter:

I’m just going to pee, my vertical has 300 steps. This is totally unacceptable. In 6 hours, I make 10,000 without leaving the office.
I’ve never had this problem with Garmin

More or less the same here. I have 500 steps just from turning on the coffee machine in the morning, and my coffee machine is maybe 20-30 steps away from my bedroom… So. My Garmin isn’t completely accurate either, but I have never seen a stepcounter as inaccurate as the S9PP and Vertical before. Ever. Not even close! We are talking deviations of several thousands of steps every day.

Yesterday I went on a motorcycle ride for 2 hours. My vertical recorded around 6000 steps from this activity, my Garmin maybe 200-300. So Garmin is far from perfect, but there is a huge difference in accuracy and quality here. Granted, my Vertical is more accurate in GPS tracking and altimeter, but those metrics are the only metrics it is more accurate in, everything else seems way off.