Suunto vertical ascent/ descent totally incorrect

[maszop]

I will write about my experiences.
Since Suunto 9 Peak/Pro/Vertical (possibly due to a change in the position of the pressure sensor or too aggressive measurements), always in relatively windy conditions the measurement of the sum of elevation gains is completely overestimated, from 30% to several hundred percent.
As you walk, you can see the altitude reading fluctuating every few seconds, which is where the erroneous results come from.
In older watches, Ambit, Traverse and 9Baro, the altitude indication at individual points was less accurate, but such problems with the sum of elevations were much less common.

In the mountains, the sum of elevation gain is one of the most important data and the statistics from newer watches are partially useless.

[Brad_Olwin]

@maszop I do not have this issue and where I ski is very windy almost always. Front Range of Rocky Mts USA. I wear my watch outside my jacket.
There may be something with your device. I have used the Vertical the most.

[maszop]

@Brad_Olwin The key word is “skiing”.
The problem occurs with slower activities (hiking mountaineering etc.). The altimeter shows rapid fluctuations in the altimeter, which are completely unrealistic, e.g. when climbing a mountain.

This applies to several watches, so it is not a defective item.

[Elipsus]

Theres also the “up down” threshold that seems overly sensitive, I talked a bit about it with my father and the main trouble is that the ascent values are far, far above the actual vertical ascent, and thus not really realistic when looking at a map, its a bit of dissonance between old and new methods :

• “so, we’re at 600m, the peak is at 2000m, so that means that this hike is a 1400m ascent”

• “according to my watch its a 1800m ascent, because you have tons of very tiny downhills”

So that means that when your watch told you you did 700m ascent, you don’t have 700m left like you would expect when you looked at the map, but far more.

So the thing is skewed, and my father kindly berate a bit my results (he is an hardcore, very old school mountaineer) :

• Me : "Hey dad I did a nice hike today, 2000m ascent ! "
• Dad : “what, you mean 200m ascent right ?”

This problem is not Suunto only, but its indeed a bit frustrating

[Brad_Olwin]

@maszop I do not have issues trail running mountains either, sometimes very slow including 100 mile mountain races.

[The_77]

(9PP) I’ve had a variety of elevation change issues recently, but I can accept that because of the wind being severe whilst trail running. I was ~ 800m out on Sunday last week (2.1k vs 1.3k) and 300m out on Thursday (830m vs 530m), but those were in winds I was being slapped with and severely impeded movement sometimes. Not sure any sensor position is getting around those.

If I notice it more on low wind days then I’d be concerned. Always on top of layers, and not being trapped by a jacket/top flapping on it.

[maszop]

@The_77 In the case of Suunto 9 Baro (and older watches, and watches from G), the problem occurs rarely. Very common in newer models. So there should be room for improvement.

[freeheeler]

@maszop
we’ve had different issues with the S9B that I am really really happy Suunto got rid of them

[maszop]

@freeheeler I understand progress and new features, but breaking things that work well is unacceptable.

[isazi]

@maszop the Baro was not working well at all, in fact it was much worse than new watches, being not only susceptible to wind but also rain and water. And the Ambit had the hole on the bottom of the watch, getting crazy if you did sweat.

Edit: not to minimize the issue, I had it today for example, 35 meters of ascent when it should have been 0, because of code yellow winds

[maszop]

@isazi I used 9 Baro for a long time and then 9PP and Vertical. The same routes, similar weather, many times the same crossings. My results are clear. 9 Baro calculated the total elevation gain correctly in most cases. Newer ones almost always add at least some 500-1000m for routes of 15-20km distance and 1500-2500m of elevation gain.

Edit:
One from many examples:
9Baro, bad weather - 18.06km, 1860m total ascent;
9Baro, good weather (slightly shorter version) - 1740m total ascent (Garmin Instinct, the same hike - 1708m ascent);
9PP, good weather - 18.19 km, 1763m total ascent;
Vertical bad weather - 17.99km, 2302m total ascent (9Baro with the person I hiked with - the same bad weather - 1840m ascent).

[Brad_Olwin]

@maszop said in Suunto vertical ascent/ descent totally incorrect:

@isazi I used 9 Baro for a long time and then 9PP and Vertical. The same routes, similar weather, many times the same crossings. My results are clear. 9 Baro calculated the total elevation gain correctly in most cases. Newer ones almost always add at least some 500-1000m for routes of 15-20km distance and 1500-2500m of elevation gain.

This is your use case, not a general phenomenon so I disagree. It is very windy where I live and very, very rare to have ascent/descent errors.
Have you tried cleaning the sensor area? Have you performed soft or hard reset? My experience is with2 different S9PP, 2 Race watches and 2 Vertical watches.

[pilleus]

@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto vertical ascent/ descent totally incorrect:

so I disagree

+1

I never had problems with a Suunto watch and wrong ascent/descent data. Okay, the Spartans record a little less than the actual watches, but only if there are long flat passages with only a little up and down.

[maszop]

@Brad_Olwin Do you hike in the mountains with many steep climbs, without trails, i.e. relatively slowly? You’ve previously written about skiing and cross-country running, and these are completely different activities that may not have these problems. The problem is a lot of erroneous altitude measurements that are too fast - pulsating altitude readings that do not correspond to the ascents or descent.

These sample routes given earlier are approximately 18 km, 1800 m ascents and approximately 8-9 hours long.
With these types of routes, the error is usually 500-1000 m more than it should be.

[freeheeler]

@maszop
I know what you mean and I saw this kind of measurements when road cycling. it is the activity where you point the sensor directly into the wind.
it doesn’t happen if you slightly cover the sensor holes.

I have put my watches in many different situations and cycling headwind is the worst. actually it is the only bad situation in my experience. there’s a workaround for it to put the watch on the handlebar.
so in my opinion it is the best compromise across all kind of sports.

[maszop]

I may be wrong, but I think it could be easily solved using the same principle as calculating distance based on GPS data.
To simplify, the position is recorded using GNSS every second, which gives 32,400 measurements for 9 hours. If all these points were connected with a line, the same absurd results would be obtained. This does not happen because before calculating the distance, the route is simplified and fewer points are used.
By the same principle, it would be possible to remove such noise from redundant measurements. It seems that these measurements are still too many for “slower” sports.

[pilleus]

@freeheeler said in Suunto vertical ascent/ descent totally incorrect:

it is the activity where you point the sensor directly into the wind.

With the Vertical it is impossible to have the sensors in the wind when mounted on a handle bar, because the openings of the sensor point towards the driver and not forward (below the Sunnto logo).

Or are these not the openings for the sensor?

[freeheeler]

@pilleus
absolutely correct.
I usually wear my watch on the wrist, even for cycling and mtb. I do put watches on the handle bar for testing purposes. depending on the speeds, position of my hand, headwinds, gloves, jacket sleeves etc. there can be differences in total ascent and they are visible on the graph similar as in @maszop ‘s graph.

[pilleus]

@freeheeler

I never had issues with a Suunto or other watch while cycling. Neither on the handle bar nor on the wrist. And I am on the bike every day and often have 500 to 1000 meters of ascent.

An easy way to check it is in Strava the auto correction or a gpx viewer.

I’m glad to have no problems with ascent/descent.

[freeheeler]

@pilleus
do you have a bike with dropper bars?