race s step count problem
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I am having the same issue with my Race. I know steps aren’t a great metric but we use as a proxy in our family to make sure we are pushing each other to be active.
When an Activity is in progress my Race stops counting steps. After going to the gym first thing Saturday morning the Race showed 547 steps, the gym app showed +4,000. The gym app isn’t 100% accurate BUT this isn’t a small discrepancy.
This is my 4th Suunto and never seen this behaviour before.
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Same issue here. The watch grossly underestimates the number of steps. It is difficult to understand why Suunto cannot make such a simple feature work properly. I hope they will make a fix because monitoring activity is one of the reasons I bought the watch, to have all data in one place.
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Also seeing this. I did a walk just over 4 miles and recorded just 4393 steps. I had nothing in my hands and was swing my arms normally.I don’t know what the right step count is, but it’s significantly more than that. At that step count it implies my average stride length is around 4.8 feet, which I’m not sure i could manage if i tried.
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@jumpysprinkles 1 mile is about 2000 steps for me. I guess depending on a person height it could be anywhere between 1600 and 2400 steps. But what you report seems like a gross underestimation.
I’ve just bought Race S and will be testing this soon.
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I bought my Race S couple of days ago and have this same totally bad issue. Step counting don’t work properly and about 50 % steps are gone.
Please Suunto fix this soon! -
I bought the new Race S Titanium last week and have the same issue. Suunto counted 2500 steps on a 5-6km walk around the city, my samsung mobile counted 8500, which definitely sounds more likely, as my GF also had close to 9000 steps on her Apple watch.
I understand step count cannot be accurate but 2500 steps is a joke.
I have the latest update installed. Support asked to me restart the watch and then to set it back to factory settings but with no success.
A friend of mine is using the full size Race for a year or so and doesn’t have these issues. -
Comparing my new Race S to my Garmin Epix 2 Pro (With a Garmin foot-pod!) the Race S is undercounting steps on a timed walk by about 13%. This assumes the Garmin with the foot-pod was accurate to begin with.
13% (to me anyway) is probably within the acceptable accuracy band for a metric like this. YMMV though.
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Also, looking at various metrics in the app, numbers simply don’t add up.
For example one of my last runs:
- average cadence is 75 rpm - that is possible because it was an easy trot with dog
- Moving time is 49’26
According to that the number of steps should be close to 7500 (75 x 2 x 50), but the app shows only 5855 steps. That is a huge discrepancy.
I ran that route twice today - one slow run with dog and one fast run by myself. You’d think that the number of steps should be lower when running fast because steps are longer, but for the faster run the app shows 6199 steps - that is closer to the reality but still too low.
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I’d totally accept a 10% discrepancy between whatever device.
However, number of steps simply cannot be lower than the distance walked in meters. -
I got my Suunto race S titanium a fre days ago. I have made the latest updates but the step counting does not work. There is about 3.000 steps missing on my new watch, comparing to my suunto 7 (counting on the same walk).
Did anybody get a refound or help with this problem? Im using my old watch instead, but with the amount of money I have paid I really hope I can send the new watch back and get my money back. Im so dissapointed. -
@annakarolina
You can ask for a refund if you bought it from Suunto afair … but then you should get a pedometer if step count really matters to you -
I’m a new Suunto user, I have had the Race S less than 3 weeks. I also walk a lot and create activities for my walks. While I had reasonable step counts mentioned above, I had a terrible result yesterday. it was a 2.53mi/4.1km walk. I registered only 2470 steps. this is 5.5’/1.65m per step. I should have registered nearly 2x as many steps.
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@olson917 “The accuracy of step counters varies widely between devices. Typically, step counters are reasonably accurate at a walking pace on a flat surface if the device is placed in its optimal position (usually vertically on the belt clip). Although traditional step counters are affected dramatically when placed at different angles and locations, recent advances have made them more robust to those non-ideal placements. Still, most step counters falsely count steps when a user is driving a car or makes other habitual motions that the device encounters throughout the day. This error accumulates for users with moderate commutes to work. Accuracy of distance measurement also depends on the user entered step-length.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedometer
Watches are not designed to accurately count steps.
Unless you walk on your hands. -
I opened up a ticket ( #7484550)
on this a while ago and after a few back and fros and sending some malicious activity records (like 2000 steps but 7km… ) just yesterday I received:"Thanks for your patience,
I have received feedback from our technical department. The development team is aware of the issue and is actively working on a solution. The latest updates to resolve the issue are expected to be released in mid-December."
Let’s see what happens
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@maszop Not that I really care about steps, but in my experience of owning Garmin Fenix 6X and 7X, they always counted steps reasonably accurate when I cross checked that with the distance. On walks these watches typically registered 2000+ steps per mile, when running on road - about 1600 steps per mile, and when trail running - roughly 2000 steps per mile. That corresponds to step length of 80-100 cm, which is reasonably accurate for for my height.
Also, I should mention that I’ve never noticed Garmin watches counting steps while driving.
So the statement that watches aren’t designed to count steps is simply incorrect.
Also, I should mentioned that even though I get plenty of activity from running, trying to get at least 10,000 steps every single day is a huge motivation to move more on rest days.
I think Suunto should definitely invest resources in making steps accurate. What I see now on my Race S is super inaccurate. There is no excuse for that!
Also, while we are here, Suunto developers, every other brand measures running cadence in steps per minute rather than RPM. All running science and literature refers to cadence in steps per minute too. Please fix that too!
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@sky-runner Garmin apparently has better algorithms that give more reliable results, but it’s still not a step count, just a hand movement count (plus various data from other sensors). Only then is the number of steps estimated.
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@maszop Garmin might be detecting the vertical component of the hand motion as well (to detect impacting the ground). Even if I hold a dog leash in my left hand, which I do quite often, Garmin still manages to count steps fairly accurately.
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Bonjour à tous,
Je rencontre le même problème que vous…
Ce matin un décalage de 5000 pas sur une marche nordique de 20 km…
J’espère vraiment qu’une mise à jour va être faites… -
Today, Suunto released an update for the Race S.
I am keen to learn whether it will fix this issue as promised. -
Tudi jaz imam enake težave, Suunto Rače S v primerjavi z Amazefit uro na drugi roki, pri enaki hoji, izmeri cca 45% manj korakov, torej mora Suunto to funkcijo vsekakor posodobiti, ali zamenjati vsem kupcem kupljene pametne ure.
