Steep counter

freeheeler

the step counter discussion is relatively old and my personal opinion, it is really not that important.
I know some people will not agree… but what do you want to know by the steps? what does it tell you?
fenix says x, suunto says y… what you can use the step counter for is to track how active or how lazy you are over time.
I find it much more important to track my fitness level, HRV and sleep duration.

Todd Danielczyk

@freeheeler HRV is a game changer for me. When Suunto turned that on for the Vertical I immediately (well after 14 days) saw the benefit to tracking that for sure!

A Former User

@freeheeler said in Steep counter:

the step counter discussion is relatively old and my personal opinion, it is really not that important.
I know some people will not agree… but what do you want to know by the steps? what does it tell you?
fenix says x, suunto says y… what you can use the step counter for is to track how active or how lazy you are over time.
I find it much more important to track my fitness level, HRV and sleep duration.

The watch calculates calories burned based on the amount of steps… For many people, the daily calories spent is important. When you base one important metric on another metric that is completely unreliable, then you have garbage data. If it doesn’t work properly, just remove it or turn it off! Why include a stepcounter if it is garbage?

I understand you dont care. But many people do care. And when the product is advertised with a stepcounter that calculates calories spent based on the step counter, the stepcounter should be reliable, not hot garbage.

And if Suunto can’t get a basic thing like step counter somewhat reliable, then how can i trust ANY of the other metrics or data? … Do it right, or don’t do it at all!

pilleus

@freeheeler said in Steep counter:

my personal opinion, it is really not that important.

The question is not, if data which are captured by the 9PP or Vertical are important for me, but if these data are reliable.

The cyclist says: pedometer doesn’t have to be right, I’m cycling.
The kayaker says: GPS doesn’t have to be right, it measures the wrong speed on the river in the current anyway.
The sailor says: Altitude data doesn’t have to be correct, I’m only traveling at sea level.
The runner says: Calories don’t have to be right, I can’t eat as much as I consume.

Suunto offers widgets for all measured data on the watch and in the app. And I expect the data to be correct. Regardless of whether I need it or not.

And if these two watches differ greatly compared to other watches and to a pedometer, I don’t have to question the other watches and doubt their data. I simply have to make improvements.

That’s all that happened.

pilleus

@neonix said in Steep counter:

And if Suunto can’t get a basic thing like step counter somewhat reliable, then how can i trust ANY of the other metrics or data? … Do it right, or don’t do it at all!

Chapeau!

Zdeněk Hruška

@pilleus sorry but all of those examples you have provided are totally different to a step count issue. Suunto are outdoor / sports watch so I would argue their main purpose is to perform great measuring important stats for sports. If they fail in that purpose then yes it’s an issue. Step count isn’t important for any sport as far as I know. That’s why the gps is there for example and you want it to be precise, because it measures distance, that’s a good stat. Steps? It’s interesting to see how active you were that day. It doesn’t tell you anything more if you know the exact number. And burned calories are total guess for every watch and every device out there. It can’t be measured precisely. Again it’s there so you can see approximately the value of the calories you could burn. The exact number is wrong for different people no matter what.

freeheeler

@neonix
a company has a feature that someone isn’t convinced of its precision and hence all features are doubtful?
I’m surprised.

I don’t know how Suunto is estimating calories and I must say: I don’t check calories either…
is it differing between your devices as well?

wakarimasen

The curse of comparison! Which one is really correct, from all of the devices that are an estimation anyway?

thanasis

@Zdeněk-Hruška said in Steep counter:

@pilleus sorry but all of those examples you have provided are totally different to a step count issue. Suunto are outdoor / sports watch so I would argue their main purpose is to perform great measuring important stats for sports. If they fail in that purpose then yes it’s an issue. Step count isn’t important for any sport as far as I know. That’s why the gps is there for example and you want it to be precise, because it measures distance, that’s a good stat. Steps? It’s interesting to see how active you were that day. It doesn’t tell you anything more if you know the exact number. And burned calories are total guess for every watch and every device out there. It can’t be measured precisely. Again it’s there so you can see approximately the value of the calories you could burn. The exact number is wrong for different people no matter what.

the issue i have is if Suunto knows that the step counter is not accurate at all, then how come on the new watchfaces they provided with the recent update the Steps widget cannot be removed? to my understanding , It seems that the company feels that this metric is as important as showing the time

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

In general you are trying to achieve a decent step counter with something worn on the hand.

Back in the days even htc had phones with step counters.

While the basic need to know steps and calories is there , personally I prefer polars approach of activity instead of steps and calories that will always be so inaccurate.

So sure, if you are demanding a fish to climb a tree and judge it’s swimming performance by the climbing performance (how can other metrics be accurate ) go ahead and garbage Suunto.

pilleus

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.

EOF …

A Former User

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I completely agree, but I think the value of a metric, whatever it is, has to be somewhat sensible for the context for which it was designed, and I mean, since we are talking about steps, that at least when you are sitting on the couch it does not start to increase almost spontaneously. Having said that even if I do not care about steps, I think if we had called it movement the issue would be more than resolved .

Zdeněk Hruška

@pilleus Maybe you should read it again. That is definitely not what anybody here have said. There is no point in repeating the same arguments again.

A little bit off topic, recently I have read reviews for new watches from Polar and Coros, both of them have a new shiny optical heart rate sensor. For some reason there are many situations where the OHR doesn’t work correctly or is completely off. Even Garmin watches doesn’t measure HR with the sensor on the wrist correctly for all the people in all the situations. Why is that I wonder. Maybe the wrist is not the best place where to measure heart rate (at least with the current technology it has some limitations). But it’s unreliable if you don’t know when it’s off or when it’s correct. According to your logic why did all the companies bother to implement OHR if the values are not correct and can be measured better with other devices? And OHR is quite important metric. Almost as important as steps I would say.
Anyway…

A Former User

@Zdeněk-Hruška said in Steep counter:

@pilleus Maybe you should read it again. That is definitely not what anybody here have said. There is no point in repeating the same arguments again.

A little bit off topic, recently I have read reviews for new watches from Polar and Coros, both of them have a new shiny optical heart rate sensor. For some reason there are many situations where the OHR doesn’t work correctly or is completely off. Even Garmin watches doesn’t measure HR with the sensor on the wrist correctly for all the people in all the situations. Why is that I wonder. Maybe the wrist is not the best place where to measure heart rate (at least with the current technology it has some limitations). But it’s unreliable if you don’t know when it’s off or when it’s correct. According to your logic why did all the companies bother to implement OHR if the values are not correct and can be measured better with other devices? And OHR is quite important metric. Almost as important as steps I would say.
Anyway…

Are you seriously comparing wrist-based heart rate monitoring (extremely advanced and difficult, and highly individual based on anatomy and skin color) and counting steps (fairly easy to measure and not so individual)? Seriously?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@neonix I think he compared the importance of counting steps vs tracking HR.
Which I would agree that HR is more important than just steps.

Typically every person that starts with fitness looks at steps and later might become like other people that focus on athletics look at distance tss etc.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@pilleus how have you learned that ?

In all seriousness there are calories and other metrics that in 90% of the brands out there are not correct. Ie calories.

The absolute value is not important as it’s not correct. However the relative value is valuable.

Perhaps don’t jump into conclusions like I am trying to defend Suunto on step counting and because it’s not accurate it should not matter. I didn’t say that. I said that don’t jump into saying that if steps are not accurate on a diving watch then the decompression time ain’t as well example.

I remember the good old days with Google fit detecting a run in the middle of the night. Step target reached. Moto 360 sport.

Zdeněk Hruška

@neonix Yes seriously just using the logic “if it’s not perfect don’t put it there” because the point is the same. There are better ways how to measure heart rate and there are better ways how to count steps if it’s important for anyone.
Also the point is: For heart rate it actually matters if it’s accurate because there are training methods based on it for example. For steps it doesn’t because it has no use in real life and the body doesn’t care if you do more or less steps as long as you move enough.

I am probably blinded by my own view of training and fitness. For me the watch is something that should help me become a better version of myself. The step counter is not a tool to achieve that in any way. But ok, I get it. There are people watching that metric and probably thinking it has some value. Why not. There is no point to argue.

freeheeler

@Zdeněk-Hruška
that’s a good summary of what I wanted to say

A Former User

@Zdeněk-Hruška If the metric has no value, and especially when its proven to be very inaccurate, then it shouldn’t be there. And maybe the widget shouldnt be listed with steps and calories as prominently as it is. By comparison, my Garmin is actually more accurate counting steps. But even the Garmin widget is down-prioritized, and does not combined steps and calories like the Suunto widget does.

The way the widget is presented in Suunto make it seem like it is important. Especially when it combines steps AND calories (that is literally the name of the widget). My Garmin has a “steps” widget only, that is far down on the list, which indicates it is not as high priority as it is in the Suunto.

freeheeler

@neonix
did you count the steps?
I just wonder how you know, because my activity summary shows an avg of 12.3k steps and sometimes days with well beyond 30k steps. I would be simply to lazy to count…