Suunto

Originally Posted by jbarn02

All of your responses have been rude on the other threads so I was a little mad about what you were saying about suunto being a gimmick.

I fail to see why you would be mad about me saying so; I didn't know if you had one already, or were thinking about buying one, because you didn't indicate such one way or the other. I gave you real world information on my experiences with a related model, which I admit would cause some people to not buy the thing. It may function well in certain environments, and under certain conditions; here it is extremely cold in winter, and a fairly high elevation, and I'm not easy on my watches - the Suunto didn't perform under these circumstances, that's all.

As for my statements being rude, I fail to see any of them since my return here that have been rude, save where I was treated rudely first, and those, you'd have to admit if you're being fair, are warranted - I was not rude to you first, and am in fact trying to tailor my responses vastly downward in intensity to maintain the peace here. In other words, I did not think it a reasonably likely occurence that you would be angered over me saying a watch failed to perform. I'm sorry if there were any misunderstandings.

[tribe125]

Originally Posted by Sjors

Jbarn02,

As far as I read Logician gave a fair answer to your question. Logician had a history here and had therfore paid his punishment (sorry, there are probably better words for it, but I have to do it with my simple English and I hoped to be understood). I think logician deserves a fair chance to come back in our community.

Agreed.

[jbarn02]

Originally Posted by tribe125

Agreed.

ThankYou, I mistook it for him being rude. Applogy Accepted

[mot_universe]

Originally Posted by logician

I've found that for serious use, the observer is not all that wonderful. It is often off by several tens of meters and tends to exhibit 'jumping,' the watch getting confused I guess, and then displaying several different values back to back.

Maybe your example was defective.

Suunto in general seems to be very popular choice for serious use (military, diving, outdoor sports, etc.).

Originally Posted by mot_universe

Maybe your example was defective.

Suunto in general seems to be very popular choice for serious use (military, diving, outdoor sports, etc.).

I certainly wouldn't discount that as a possibility, however, most military and outdoor sports wouldn't stress the thing as much as hiking around in the mountains in sub-zero temperatures for hours just to get some good pictures, and I don't think they'd use an oberserver or a vector to dive with. Are Suunto marketed to be low temp resistant?

[Sjors]

I think it is the use for the watch which makes sensor watch precise enough. According to the Garmin Edge 305 the altimeter is most accurate when it's equipped with a barometric sensor for altimeter reading in stead of a GPS altitude. Practically I can state that. I live at sea level and sometimes the GPS readings are quiet off and not adjustable. At my picture at the bottom you see it's 2m off (it should show Hoogte 0m, third row) on my Garmin Legend Europa. If you look at my AT-100 you also see that the un-adjusted altitude is 100m below sealevel. The problem with a barometric altimeter is that you need to calibrate it at a known level before you can use it for altitude readings.

Fact is that the accuracy is dependable with the airpressure conditions, in other words the weather. Also for most sensor watches a corrected reading must be read about +/- 5m.

Other importand part for the accuracy and use is the sample frequncy. I don't know the Suunto, but I believe the Protrek models take samples with minutes intervals (at the start they take many samples per minute).

The sample taking is quiet a energy drainer. I have a Cateye Altimeter for Skiing and delta flying/parapente. It's very very accurate in FLY mode and registrates every move. It gives an alarm when descending faster than 1m/s (3ft/s). The downside, every few months it needs a new CR-2032 battery.

ProTrek and Suunto altimeter watches are more or less equipped for hiking, mountain climbing, mountain biking and other sports where a certain height is involved, were it is not deeded to know if one has climbed 231,21m exactly. It's rather for the people who come at their destination saying "I have climbed about 200m!", which in practice is probably used.

My PRG-80 is pretty acurate. When I climb the stairs in my school it very fast registrates the height difference.



Cheers,

Sjors

[dudegalea]

Originally Posted by Sjors

I think it is the use for the watch which makes sensor watch precise enough. According to the Garmin Edge 305 the altimeter is most accurate when it's equipped with a barometric sensor for altimeter reading in stead of a GPS altitude. Practically I can state that. I live at sea level and sometimes the GPS readings are quiet off and not adjustable.

Right. GPS accuracy for altitude is much worse than for horizontal position.

The altitude is the first thing to go when you start losing view of the satellites. With 4 sats, you get a full 3D fix. With 3 sats, the GPS assumes that you'll be staying at the same altitude for the time being, so it can use the 3 remaining sats to calculate your horizontal position. When this happens, you are getting a 2D fix.

(In fact, provided you have already got a position fix, you can continue to get a position fix of some (possibly dubious) accuracy even down to only 1 satellite in view - given a few assumptions that the GPS makes.)

[jbarn02]

"bump"