Race 2 accuracy
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@2b2bff I wrote about this before, but from my n=1 sample size, the Race 2 measures short, and is further from true distances than other watches from Suunto, COROS, and Garmin. I’ve measured it against a measuring wheel. Also, recent race performances by elites wearing the Race 2 in certified road races also have it measuring a bit shorter than race distances.
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@2b2bff said in Race 2 accuracy:
It measures shorter than the other models. The question is is it more accurate, though?
Nordic Walking on a measured loop of 2260 m:
March 31
Loop Race S Garmin 955 1 2277 m 2259 m 2 2263 m 2263 m 3 2267 m 2262 m 4 2255 m 2267 m April 19
Loop Race 2 Garmin 955 1 2244 m 2261 m 2 2241 m 2263 m 3 2244 m 2267 m 4 2242 m 2272 m 5 2238 m 2265 m On measured straight paths, errors were smaller.
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@2b2bff I don’t think so…surely all the other devices can’t be wrong?
Additionally, when I plot a route on footpath or the Suunto app, the Race 2 always returns a shorter distance than the plotted route too…my other watches don’t. This is mainly on canal towpaths so not a lot of cutting corners going on…but plenty of weaving round walkers etc. that could add a few meters.
But it appears it’s not going to be looked at and I’m struggling to see why this would be.
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@shamilt1 you cannot address it easily. You cannot add 0.5% distance to everything, because there are situations where it does not measure short.
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@shamilt1 ran a marathon at the weekend and measured 45metres out (short)…which seems very decent, especially with some distance of that being spent on narrow streets with tallish buildings.
My km auto-lap buzzes were generally bang on, or up to maybe within 10-20metres when passing the course distance markers through until at least 30km…(I stopped caring/noticing beyond that!).
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@Nigel-Taylor-0 I’d certainly settle for that over such a distance. In comparison, my last run was 14k and my Race 2 measured 90 meters shorter than my other watch, so not as good as you got.
I understand it may not be an easy fix, but let’s hope the boffins decide to take on the challenge and get it sorted…it’s the one thing that bugs me about this otherwise excellent watch. -
Hi,
To contribute to the thread, today I did a mountain bike ride with my Race 2 Titanium and a Garmin 530. The difference was only 40 meters: Race 2, 30.98km vs Garmin 530, 31.02km.
Regards -
I’m commenting to myself to point out that, however, the distance after applying Strava’s distance correction increased to 31.45 km. I assume Strava performs the correction using 3D distance (taking into account the terrain’s elevation), which in this case was 840 m of positive elevation gain.
Related to this, does anyone know if this parameter can be applied to the distance calculation? I haven’t seen it on Suunto, but Garmin has the option, although it’s disabled by default.
Regards
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80 km trail race here is distance from V2 and R2 well within GPS error. First V2 and second R2 with V2 right wrist and R2 left wrist. Last Saturday 18/04
Distance 85.76 Km 84.32 Km 1.44 Km (1.7%)Vector/T6c/Vertical 2 Ti
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@Brad_Olwin said in Race 2 accuracy:
80 km trail race here is distance from V2 and R2 well within GPS error. First V2 and second R2 with V2 right wrist and R2 left wrist. Last Saturday 18/04
Distance 85.76 Km 84.32 Km 1.44 Km (1.7%)There you have the ~1.5% difference in mountainous terrain, as I wrote in my tests thread.
The thing is that older models (Race, Vertical, Race S) will be closest to V2 distance than to R2 distance so clearly accuracy is different in Race 2. -
@Brad_Olwin that difference is on the ‘bigger’ side. I had similar shortening with Fenix 6x and Galaxy 3 (I think) and these were no multi-band, multi-system watches.
Having ~750m difference on a marathon (race) is not small number I believe. That being said I think someone has shown here that the distance is good but the watch filters the gps points that leads to shorter track, so theoretically increasing the snr threshold should ‘fix’ this.
In any case R2 for training and V2 for the race day for me
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@Brad_Olwin said in Race 2 accuracy:
80 km trail race here is distance from V2 and R2 well within GPS error. First V2 and second R2 with V2 right wrist and R2 left wrist. Last Saturday 18/04
Distance 85.76 Km 84.32 Km 1.44 Km (1.7%)To be able to compare the raw data recorded with both watches, can you share the final distance shown in the graph in your www.sports-tracker.com/ activity information?
Maybe that raw distance is more similar in both watches than the showed distance, showing the shorting distance behavior also in your Race 2.Suunto Vertical Titanium Solar, Suunto Race 2 Ti & Suunto Wing.
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Hi,
I’ve done a new comparison, this time of an old running activity. The activity on Sports-tracker shows a distance of 9.52km, and the GPS points of the route are almost perfect. I marked the same route with an online distance calculator (https://www.calcmaps.com/), and the result was 9.67km, practically exactly the 1.5% difference mentioned in the thread.Here are the screenshots:
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@isaac.net said in Race 2 accuracy:
Hi,
I’ve done a new comparison, this time of an old running activity. The activity on Sports-tracker shows a distance of 9.52km, and the GPS points of the route are almost perfect. I marked the same route with an online distance calculator (https://www.calcmaps.com/), and the result was 9.67km, practically exactly the 1.5% difference mentioned in the thread.Here are the screenshots:
If, in your SportTracker activity, you open the “graphs” menu, you can show activity information over the map. If you move to the right (end of the activity) maybe you could see a final distance close to the 9,67km (the “Raw” measured distance).
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@jjpaz said in Race 2 accuracy:
@isaac.net said in Race 2 accuracy:
Hi,
I’ve done a new comparison, this time of an old running activity. The activity on Sports-tracker shows a distance of 9.52km, and the GPS points of the route are almost perfect. I marked the same route with an online distance calculator (https://www.calcmaps.com/), and the result was 9.67km, practically exactly the 1.5% difference mentioned in the thread.Here are the screenshots:
If, in your SportTracker activity, you open the “graphs” menu, you can show activity information over the map. If you move to the right (end of the activity) maybe you could see a final distance close to the 9,67km (the “Raw” measured distance).
Yes, that’s right, in that case the distance it shows is 9.65 km. It’s clear that Race 2 correctly captures the GPS points but then processes them incorrectly. In my opinion, this should be a priority bug fix.
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@isaac.net said in Race 2 accuracy:
@jjpaz said in Race 2 accuracy:
@isaac.net said in Race 2 accuracy:
Hi,
I’ve done a new comparison, this time of an old running activity. The activity on Sports-tracker shows a distance of 9.52km, and the GPS points of the route are almost perfect. I marked the same route with an online distance calculator (https://www.calcmaps.com/), and the result was 9.67km, practically exactly the 1.5% difference mentioned in the thread.Here are the screenshots:
If, in your SportTracker activity, you open the “graphs” menu, you can show activity information over the map. If you move to the right (end of the activity) maybe you could see a final distance close to the 9,67km (the “Raw” measured distance).
Yes, that’s right, in that case the distance it shows is 9.65 km. It’s clear that Race 2 correctly captures the GPS points but then processes them incorrectly. In my opinion, this should be a priority bug fix.
I don’t know if it process de GPS data incorrectly, for sure it does it in a different way in comparison to other models.
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@jjpaz what I posted are raw data from JSON files in quantified self. One of the watch recordings is no longer in the Sunnto database. I believe 3% is the acceptable GPS error for handheld devices.
Vector/T6c/Vertical 2 Ti
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@Brad_Olwin I think that is valid for GPS but not for GNSS dual band devices (and even more when It seems something strange is happening with the Race 2 but not the others). Someone correct me, if I’m wrong.
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@Brad_Olwin In my opinion, an error of more than 1.2km in a marathon (3% of 42km) is unacceptable under any circumstances, especially if all other devices measure close to the actual target (even the cheaper ones). Especially considering that the position values recorded by the watch are very precise
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I think while the actual position data of a point may have some error, the distance measurement by GNSS is quite precise these days. Also some filtering occurs to the data measured every second.
What we see is, that under some circumstances Rce 2 measures short, while this is not always the case (see John Korir’s Marathon distance in the other thread).
As this is not a special setup only in Race 2, there is not much to do about it. If it does not happen everywhere and every time, this is just an arbitrary deviation with the range of 0.5%.
Not sure what else to add to this thread now.
