Suunto ZoneSense
-
Hi All!!
I’m new to the forum but have been using Suunto for years (Traverse, Spartan and nor Race).
Today I unwrapped a brand new Polar H10 and started a nice running session:
Today there was a 2x5x100m Uphill series on the menu
Below there are two plots: HR vs Pace Plot and DDFAindex vs Pace.
As you can see, the ZoneSense output doesn´t make any sense.I’ll have to test more the H10 in the future but, as far as I’m aware, it is fully compatible with Suunto’s new feature.
So far, the ZoneSense has been working “fine” for me when using Suunto’s HR band. Even when doing Fartleks.Cheers!
-
@Brad_Olwin That absolutely makes sense! And you’re right: When one thinks about it, there are quite a lot parameters that would influence your HR, making fixed Zones really questionable!
-
@panadero As stated many times here and in the information on ZS put out by Suunto. Short intervals will not work! This is clear in you DDFA index plot where the DDFA is trending up on the last set of intervals continuously and then remains higher than most of the rest of the run because you are fatigued.
Vector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
-
@Brad_Olwin while I understand this statement I find it hard to get why while running at maximal HR (180+) and still be on the green or early yelllw zone while my RPE is different . Eg
I think I need to understand this better . Also ther discrepancy between the watch and the app is significant with the app being more pragmatic , but I lose the real Benefit from the real time part .
Anyway
-
@thanasis Your AT was at 154, a good 14-20 bpm higher than mine. My LT is somewhere around 163. If your range is similar to mine your LT is much higher. The graph you show is near AT for a few minutes and ramps up, not constant. For the first one you began getting into Anaerobic. The second enters anaerobic quickly and starts into VO2M, you just were not long enough in VO2M
Assuming we have the same range you should not hit LT until the high 170s to 180 bpm so you were barely at LT. -
@Brad_Olwin thank you !
-
@thanasis it looks like you were going too fast in first 10 mins of ZS calibration, by judging on the HR in this 10 mins and also that it shows right at minute 10 you were on yellow and moved to green. In general going too fast or too slow during ZS calibration will influence threshold measurements, doing a regular aerobic warmup is best.
-
@herlas thanks. You’re correct.
-
Today I did 6x hill repeats - around 3 mins running uphill at threshold pace with 3 mins recovery. ZoneSense was consistent with capturing the increased effort after each hill. Most importantly it detected my AeT at 160 bpm
This post is not meant to add any useful information but just to show off a bit 
EDIT: the change from green to yellow doesn’t happen at the end of each hill, but exactly at the point when my effort increased, when the hill turned into stairs. Amazing!
S9PP
S5 -
Thanks @Brad_Olwin for the reply. I hadd an in-deep look to the forum to realise that short intervals are not captured by ZoneSense. I guess with longer repeats (as @Francesco-Pagano shows) it will work better. Howrever, I have my doubts to be that accurate. Cheers!
-
I extracted a stream CSV file from intervals.icu for that activity above, and asked ChatGPT to detect my AeT using methods such as DFA-⍺1 or DDFA, and here’s the response:
“Based on the DFA-⍺1 analysis of this new file, the estimated aerobic threshold heart rate is approximately 146 bpm. The detailed analysis is available in the displayed data table.”
That looks like an accurate value for me and for my fitness state on that day
S9PP
S5 -
@Francesco-Pagano Really? This works? Did you also get a value from Zonesense you can compare it with?
-
@VoiGAS As you can see from my previous post, SA shows a detected threshold at 160 bpm. I wish this was true!
I know that DFA-alfa1 method has limitations, but it’s fun to explore, and if you repeat the same exercise for multiple activities you get similar results. For today, for instance, chatGPT returned 142 bpm which I find accurate considering I’m a bit sick. -
@Francesco-Pagano I’m confused, so, ZoneSense gave you a (very) bad estimation ?
-
@Elipsus For that specific run I think so. 160 bpm is too high for me. When the estimation is displayed on my activities, ZS usually gives me between 140 - 148 bpm, sometimes less.
-
Found a tiny ZS bug today. When you combine a structured workout with ZS, there’s a little incompatibility.
To describe, usually with ZS you can toggle one of four screens to see, three semi customisable and the default how long in each zone in total screen. I was doing a structured workout from intervals.icu, and I noticed that it seems like intervals reset your choice of ZS screen to the default.
For example, I’d set ZS to my first screen of choice, then an interval occured, I went back and it was the default. As this happened twice today, I assume it’s not me being insane. Steps to replicate should be fairly simple, just requires some kind of imported structured workout forcing laps and ZS in concurrent use. I sent logs and all if anyone fancies looking at 14:12 CET.
-
@The_77 That’s certainly an odd one. I’ve been using structured workouts from TrainAsOne with ZoneSense for months now without issue and I’ve customised the rotation of info on the ZS app. The only annoyance I found was that step alerts caused the ZS app to return to the first ‘screen’ of data but I noticed on Sunday that didn’t seem to happen so maybe even that’s fixed.
-
@far-blue exactly that same issue. I could always uninstall/reinstall the app if it has been fixed, but ZS has no update since December.
-
Today I got strange drop of ZS value while speeding up for two minutes. I’ll expect opposite direction even with delay…
