Suunto 7 Altitude Issues

[Egika]

I wonder if the S7 does the same automatic altitude and pressure tracking as other Suunto watches do it.
Slow pressure changes are regarded as weather change and quicker changes are regarded as altitude change…

Does anyone know how it is handled internally when not in training mode?

[Luca Bellardo]

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

[Brad_Olwin]

@luca-bellardo said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

You are incorrect, the S7 uses FusedAlti. I have many examples of corrections and virtually all of my S7 altitude profiles match my S9 baro. I often wear both watches.

[olymay]

I haven’t noticed any issues with the altitude recorded by my Suunto 7.

For example, today I did a run along a local canal and at a defined point I turned around and came bac along the exact same route.
As expected a canal is pretty flat, and the watch recorded only 3m of altitude change (I ran 8.6km out and back with a total of 17.2km).
The plot of altitude change is also symmetrical, as one would expect.

[Egika]

@brad_olwin said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@luca-bellardo said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@egika In my opinion the S7 does not perform any altitude monitoring. I have tested with a third party altimeter, it updates very infrequently and sometimes it seems to me that it does not take the calibration that happens with Suunto rigs. Perfect altitude instead during the activities! (often compared with S9 cheater). Too bad, I too would like an altimeter management as it was for the Ambit series and as it is for S9 … In the end I have always considered Suunto first of all altimeters, to which they added the GPS starting from the series Ambit (which I’ve all had!)

You are incorrect, the S7 uses FusedAlti. I have many examples of corrections and virtually all of my S7 altitude profiles match my S9 baro. I often wear both watches.

Maybe misunderstanding:
Luca states that during activity, altitude registration is Suunto state of the art.
Just not when not recording.
And that was my question: S9 has an automatic altitude measurement that I can have on the watch face and that follows weather changes and switches to altitude change when quickly moving uphill or downhill.
How does S7 handle the altitude measurement when not recording an activity?

Cheers!

[Andrea Antonio Guadalupi]

I find this situation unacceptable, a product that costs almost 500 euros has all these problems …

[Andrea Antonio Guadalupi]

i am very disappointed i bought suunto 7 i believe i will switch to garmin immediately!

[Jamie BG]

@andrea-antonio-guadalupi if you are looking for a pure fitness watch you have made a wrong purchase choice. It’s a full smartwatch first, with good fitness tracking. Much better than anything on full smartwatch, but on low to mid tier on fitness watches, with easier to understand, more simplified metrics for the more complex fitness metrics. But does have some of the best offline maps, which I think confuses some buyers as they think it’s similar to fenix etc. It isn’t and that isn’t is market.

[Jamie BG]

@andrea-antonio-guadalupi what problems? Most of us don’t have these issues. Not sure this isn’t an expectation issue.

[Brad_Olwin]

@egika I had an altimeter app on the watch for a long time, it does a very good job of providing the altitude for where I live, that is about all I know. This was while not recording an activity.

[Brad_Olwin]

@andrea-antonio-guadalupi said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

I find this situation unacceptable, a product that costs almost 500 euros has all these problems …

could you list all of the problems?

[Egika]

@brad_olwin said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

@egika I had an altimeter app on the watch for a long time, it does a very good job of providing the altitude for where I live, that is about all I know. This was while not recording an activity.

Yeah, so probably the whole altitude and baro handling is done by WearOS and 3rd party apps. So probably no intelligent filtering and automatic changeover from baro to alti…

[pilleus]

@egika said in Suunto 7 Altitude Issues:

the whole altitude and baro handling is done by WearOS and 3rd party apps

I think so. Since I installed Alti-Barometer app with automatic altitude calibration the altitude reading and ascent are great. Start and end altitude are correct and ascent and descent too.

But in Ghostracer I must calibrate the barometer even if the Alti-Barometer app does it before.

[Andrea Antonio Guadalupi]

@pilleus alti-barometer app???

[pilleus]

@andrea-antonio-guadalupi

https://forum.xda-developers.com/t/app-alti-barometer-app-w-tile-auto-calibration-notifications-and-more.4136449/

[Andrea Antonio Guadalupi]

@pilleus I tried the application, but the altitude is completely wrong sometimes …

[Kurt68]

I cannot solve the problem. With a run of 400m ascent, the S7 shows between 100m and 200m more ascent compared to an Ambit3 and an S9. There are always short spikes down and up that are wrong. I had the watch at service and was told that the sensor was not faulty.
The S7 is dark green

[Brad_Olwin]

@kurt68 It appears that something is temporarily blocking the sensor holes, either you skin or fabric.

[Kurt68]

@brad_olwinI can exclude clothes I paid special attention to that. If it’s the skin that’s a problem, I can’t change anything? It can’t be dirt. The watch was just at the service.

[freeheeler]

@kurt68
Suunto Core, Suunto 9 and Suunto 7 obviously have this issue.
With S9 and Core it does not matter so much as you have either no HR at all or you can but on the chest belt. With S7 I consider this as an issue, since OHR requires a proper fit on the wrist.
IMHO it is a design flaw that can happen to all designers. Let’s hope Suunto improves that for their upcoming baro watches. I would have ideas… but @cosmecosta and I are still fighting who’ll get the job