Suunto 7 Altitude Issues
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Did a new run yesterday. Close to the beginning of the run I had a steady 20 ascent on the watch, when in reality I was running down hill. Then close to the end of the run I had a few 7 - 10 m drops during a steady uphill section.
I spoke with Suunto as I don’t have a receipt for the watch (I won it in a competition). They sent me a receipt for it and told me to send it in for service. So I guess I’ll be doing that this week.
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@aleksander-h Well, I got it back today with a note basically saying nothing is wrong. I guess I’ll just stick to my SSU when I go hiking.
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@aleksander-h I have a lot of exercises comparing S7 with S9baro. I have very few that have issues and the ascent/descent as well as altitude accuracy are virtually identical. What I see in the profile from the S7 if that is the grey line, would be occlusion of the baro sensor. Depending on which hand you wear the watch and what clothing you may have, the baro sensor is on the left side of the watch. It can be either covered intermittently by skin or clothing that can change the pressure over the hole. A second issue that happens more often with my S9baro than the S7 is wind, which can cause this.
Vector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
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@brad_olwin thanks. I’ll do a bit of experimentation once I start running again next week.
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@brad_olwin
I did this activity on a very windy day… the graph is on the spot IMO
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@freeheeler I have had my S9 over report altitude by 5-10-FOLD in 30 mph headwinds on a run, where the wind is directly hitting the sensor hole.
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@brad_olwin
that’s strange… maybe constant headwind is different to gusts?
But anyway, the issues I have seen so far on my watch when recording wrong is blocked baro holes and dirtyish sensor… but blocking is most common for me.
I avoid that with a loose wearing style -
@freeheeler said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:
@brad_olwin
that’s strange… maybe constant headwind is different to gusts?
But anyway, the issues I have seen so far on my watch when recording wrong is blocked baro holes and dirtyish sensor… but blocking is most common for me.
I avoid that with a loose wearing styleHmm. Maybe I’ve been wearing the watch to tight? I keep it quite tight to ensure the HR sensor gets a good reading.
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@aleksander-h
yes try this… there might be a sweet spot between good HR readings and no sensor covering
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@aleksander-h You can look at the baro sensor hole and if too tight and you bend the wrist enough it will cover the hole. It is the covering and uncovering that changes the air pressure and gives spikes. The sensor has to be very sensitive to pick up 1-3m of pressure variation:)
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@brad_olwin @freeheeler went for a short walk yesterday to give it another try (still not running due to injury). I let the watch sit a little less tight, and made sure not to bend my wrist as I walked. Unfortunately, results were just as bad. Here is a graph showing the difference between the Suunto 7 and corrected elevation on Runalyze. Now obviously the corrected probably isn’t 100% accurate either, but the fact remains, there was very little ascent, yet the S7 seemed to think I was climbing some big hill for the first 0.5 km. From roughly 165 to 210. I’ve no idea why it thinks there was a down hill section just after 0.5km as that part was basically flat.
Unfortunately SafeNor (which handles Suunto service in Norway) says there is nothing wrong with it
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@aleksander-h
that is crazy! do you have a chance to test and compare with another S7 or any other baro watch?living sideways
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@aleksander-h Well the final 100m or so were pretty much on the money so, if you stick in a 2.1km walk before every activity, you should be calibrated. Or maybe that was fluke.
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@aleksander-h let’s see if next week’s update helps.
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@fenr1r said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:
@aleksander-h Well the final 100m or so were pretty much on the money so, if you stick in a 2.1km walk before every activity, you should be calibrated. Or maybe that was fluke.
That section actually surprised me. Made me wish I’d done an extra km to see if it had somehow stabilized.
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@freeheeler said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:
@aleksander-h
that is crazy! do you have a chance to test and compare with another S7 or any other baro watch?Good idea. I have an SSU which has served me very well. I’ll do a comparison walk either today or tomorrow.
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Strange. Synced an activity from my ssu, then switched to my s7 and synes (and IT Aldo Said syncing 1/1 activity), but the S7 activity never showed up in the app
.[Edit] I searched the files system on my phone. Can only find the zip for the SSU activity. Nothing for the S7. I guess the app decided not to sync what it probably considered to be a duplicate. Wish I’d known that ahead of time, as I would have synced the S7 first to see the altitude. The activity is in the diary on the S7, but I can’t find any data files on the watch which might contain the actual activity.
Anyway, I uploaded the json file from my android phone for the activity yesterday and uploaded it to qs. Not sure if it helps at all, but here is the barometer altitude compared to the gps altitude.
Also, here are the graphs for absolute and sea level pressure, which I have absolutely no idea how to inteprete.
As for todays activity, my SSU gave me 80m ascent and 71 m descent. The S7 gave me 198m ascent and 198m descent.
Started and stopped the activity at the same place.
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@aleksander-h the app should not filter duplicates, as far as I know.
Watch: Suunto Vertical Ti
Blog: isazi's home
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@isazi said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:
@aleksander-h the app should not filter duplicates, as far as I know.
Strange. I remember something similar happened when I was doing balcony tests. Only one of them actually made it over to the app.
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@aleksander-h
I remember you need to forget the second watch before you can sync the other watch. But I assume you did that.
It would be interesting to know if Suunto Service would either consider your S7 or your SSU faulty… because obviously one must be wrongliving sideways
