Steep counter

Brad_Olwin

I keep reading tests about GPS watches and fitness trackers. They also compare and evaluate the accuracy of the pedometer. What kind of dilettantes are they?

I have learned one thing in this topic: data that a Suunto watch does not record correctly is unimportant and is not needed for a real outdoor sports watch.

And no, dear @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos, throwing the watch in the garbage is neither an argument nor a solution for me.

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@Fizzgig @neonix @lilaceo

This is a ridiculous argument. Calories and steps are an estimate. If anyone thinks that a watch can estimate calories expended by a human you are seriously deluded. I can go into the molecular details of metabolism if you wish. Therefore, the number of steps related to calories expended has little meaning.
The only reason individuals are concerned about steps seems to be meeting exercise goals. The recommendations for X steps per day to meet health standards are derived from epidemiological studies that have inherent flaws. My research is directed at understanding why skeletal muscle performance and function is lost during aging as well as understanding how skeletal muscle stem cells maintain and repair skeletal muscle. We are interested in the molecular signals generated by exercise that improve health and cognition.
I can state that we do not understand the basis for health and cognition improvements from exercise.

If we do not understand the mechanisms how can we know how many steps are enough to stay healthy? How much exercise is necessary to stay healthy and stave off aging? What kind of exercise? We don’t know, we just know that exercise is good for us.

So many metabolic functions and food/drugs affect heart rate and thus, training by HR should be interpreted carefully. You can feel great and have a harder effort with lower heart rate; you can feel worse and with the same effort have a much higher HR. Why? Could be you are sick, trained hard the day before, have significant stress from life or work! Interpreting numbers that your watch spits out and thinking that it meets some kind of standard for health seems short sided. Why not exercise hard when you are very sick? Because you feel terrible, not because your watch chimes at you “You are sick today, do not exercise!”
If you sleep poorly do you wait for your watch to tell you or do you know when you wake up? The latter for me. If any of you think your watch knows your health status better than your brain you are wrong.

If my watch says my HRV is low and I did not sleep well and I feel great when I wake up I ignore the watch, do you? The numbers from a watch are interesting but they will not keep you healthy, especially if you are asking what is the minimum I can do to keep health as you age.

Zdeněk Hruška

@Brad_Olwin Thank you for this argument Brad

pilleus

@Brad_Olwin

Everything you write is understandable. No contradiction. But what does it have to do with the watch counting steps when I move my arm?

Rename it to movement, take out steps and calories, then everyone will know.

Or correct it.

isazi

@pilleus agree, I would like to call it movement, I just found out that this is what Polar does (actually they call it steps but measure movement and say that in the documentation)

lilaceo

@pilleus I agree with you enterely

pilleus

@Zdeněk-Hruška said in Steep counter:

jump straight back to the beginning

We have never moved away from the beginning.

Since my 9PP and Vertical record steps when I move my arm alone, I assume that this is the case and that the two watches are not faulty.

No one has answered whether this is intentional, a bug, or if they are changing something in the background that goes towards “motion detection”.

I will ask these questions directly to Suunto and wait and see what I get as an answer.

@pilleus said in Steep counter:

@Brad_Olwin

Everything you write is understandable. No contradiction. But what does it have to do with the watch counting steps when I move my arm?

Rename it to movement, take out steps and calories, then everyone will know.

Or correct it.

I totally agree. Remove steps, and call it movement. Just like Polar and Apple Watch does with its activity rings. “Steps” metrics is very old, and should have been replaced with movement/activity metrics a long time ago. But when the steps functionality is there, it should work reliably. I’m not expecting it to be perfect, no motion based algorithm can be perfect, but Suunto’s steps algorithm is the worst I have ever seen.

Outdoorsy

@neonix Good idea. Since it is attached to the hand and measures hand motion, maybe call that metric hand motion or hand shake or simply, jerks. lol

Brad_Olwin

@pilleus said in Steep counter:

@Brad_Olwin

Everything you write is understandable. No contradiction. But what does it have to do with the watch counting steps when I move my arm?

Rename it to movement, take out steps and calories, then everyone will know.

Or correct it.

Ok, so this is more complicated. Unfortunately, customers want step count. So Suunto I think delivers what customers demand despite the demands being maybe not the best idea. I know in watches that are more geared toward fitness, S5Peak, S3 the step counters appear to be more accurate.
What you are proposing makes total sense to me but if the change drives customers away it is unlikely to be adopted.

@Brad_Olwin

It’s the bugs and malfunctions that scare customers away.

freeheeler

@Fizzgig
I seem to be lucky, I have nothing to complain about my Vertical.
yes there were few bugs, e.g. shutting down while charging, but it happened rarely and it was fixed immediately.

since we heavily and emotionally discuss about step counting (which I didn’t expect) I just checked my daily steps from today: 462 so far. I can’t tell for sure if it’s realistic or totally wrong, because I did not count.
my feeling says it’s realistic. if it would have shown 100 it would be too few. if it had shown 1’000 it would have been too much.

Iggge

The step counter is for me about 80-90% correct. It’s OK, but not excellent.
When I am at sleep the watch will show about 100-300 steps in the morning.
It will also show my drive to work as steps, and that is quite odd. Suunto is the only brand that I have tested that do that.

So for me 10.000 steps is in reality about 8.000 -9000 steps.

Highlands

@freeheeler A couple of weeks ago I did a hiking activity with two friends, former classmates. When we parked the vehicle, I said to one of them (the other one doesn’t have a watch): let’s start a gps hiking activity. He looked at his Huawei and replied he records only his runs and for hikes and walks he only cares about steps. First time I meet in person someone who actually cares about steps. I wonder what he thought about me: is he crazy? An idiot with two watches
With that said, I think step counting must be plausible more or less for those kind of folks.
And by the way, not that I care but step counting of my SR seems to be pretty OK-ish. No complaints from me about it.

Panagiotis Kritikakos

@Iggge Are you sure you’re not sleepwalking?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

I like the passion for steps.

Here is a little history.

Back in the days the first Suunto 3 fitness (no gps watch) had a different ai based step algo. Stress tested. It could also detect if it was in a backpack and adjust accordingly.

People complained that it was not recording many steps.

I understand people want accurate step detection, just wanted to share.

pilleus

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Steep counter:

I like the passion for steps.

Here is a little history.

Me too.

My story with today’s steps (only the time before and after cycling).

Suunto 9 Peak Pro: 6712 steps
Comparison watch: 2643 steps

Iggge

@Panagiotis-Kritikakos haha I am sure that I don’t sleep walk

Iggge

Do we know anything about the step counter yet? Any update? It’s was so far off for me that I temporarily have changed my daily watch to another brand.