I've had an Ambit 2 for over a year and have never noticed any power drops. I use a Garmin 500 and wear the Ambit on my wrist, they have the same average power for every ride I can remember. The Ambit has a more sensitive auto pause, it takes more time to realize I have stopped, so the average MPH is sometimes different.

Thanks. Just got back from a ride where I wore a Garmin 310 and the Ambit 2S and even though I did see a few instances on the Ambit where the power would display ---, I still ended up with the same average power when imported into SportTracks. But now my question is, does the Ambit not include zeros in the average power display??? It shows on the watch, and on the Movescount site, that my power is 22 watts higher than what the exact same data shows when uploaded to SportTracks. I can't seem to find any setting for "Include zeros" on the Ambit. Thanks.

I don't know how to switch zeros on or off. My guess is the default is zeros on.

You bring up something that I have seen on occasion, the data on the watch does not match what is uploaded to Movescount. For me it happens most often with my indoor swims where I will increase the distance in the drill mode and I get a different distance (different than the original and revised distance) in Movescount. You can edit the data in Movescount so it isn't that big of a deal for a swim, but if it is doing it in other sports it could be a problem.

I went and did some testing, Suunto definitely doesn't include the zeros, I coasted and the average power didn't budge. Fortunately the App Zone may come to the rescue; I wrote an app that displays the average power including zeros (pretty cool how Suunto has the whole App Zone thing, BTW). I am going to test it out and if it works OK I will make it a public app on the app zone.

The pool stuff, I have only been to the pool once and it worked well, but if you use SportTracks, it seems to do a really nice job of cleaning up the swim data, as described here:

http://sporttracks.mobi/...th-the-suunto-ambit2


I did a set of 10x200 and it was spot on without me ever pushing a button.

I'm trying to use my new stages cycling power meter with the Ambit 2s. I say trying as it worked briefly but has become intermittent. It displays power readings for around 5 secs then drops out for a minute or so whereupon it displays the power briefly again before going into the same dropout loop again. I have the stages power crank paired also with my Garmin edge 510 which displays the power faultlessly. When I download the ambit workout data to movescount the power data is all there, not showing any data loss. It seems to be some sort of Suunto display glitch so I have logged a case with Sunto customer support on the issue. Will see what they come back with.

Let me know what you find out on that. I posted a question to the Suunto product forum about two weeks ago and no one replied. But I did list my average power app in movescount.com and that yields the same exact average power numbers as my Garmin, so my question is pretty much answered now. And although I do see an occasional time where the power drops out on the display it's not often and like you said, after upload all the data looks good. But if mine were dropping the power reading as often as yours, that wouldn't be acceptable.

Anyone have an update on this issue?

I find that when I use the Ambit 2 to display power during indoor trainer rides (paried to Quarq) it works flawlessly and I get no drop outs for the entire session. On outdoor rides (same bike / Quarq) I get the power drop outs on the display, but when I download the data in movescount the data is all still there.

I did notice that I seem to get more drop outs when riding outdoors in a group vs alone, and also when its colder, which seems to suggest that it may be enviromental factors causing the drop outs (ie other ANT signals / radio, temperature, etc). Also the fact that I get no drop outs riding indoors on the trainer in a controlled environment supports this.

Would love to know if there is a fix, as there is nothing more irritating when doing a hard interval, looking down at my watch which reads -- for my power!

Update:

After some internet sleuthing I may have figured this out.

I think its probably my phone's WiFi signal interfering with the ANT connection between power meter and Ambit - some running forums have reported WiFi interfereing with ANT HR / device pairing.
From Wikipedia: ANT, ZigBee, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and some cordless phones all use the 2.4 GHz band

This makes sense, as on my indoor trainer sessions I generally don't have my phone nearby, whereas on mt outdoor rides my phone sits in my back pocket. This may be causing the interference. Will try riding with my phone in airplane mode next time and see if this improves the power drop outs.

What I still don't get is why the Ambit still records the power data during the drop outs, but just doesn't display it ...

I'm reviving this bc I just got a powertap. I've been using the Ambit 2s for a few years now without issue.. Until I added power. My power drops out a lot, and I haven't really experimented to see if it's losing the data.

But my question really is this.. Does the power meter auto calibrate with this watch? I have a powertap and can't find the "auto zero" that DCRainmaker refers to. Maybe Suunto turned it on as a default?

Also, I don't use a designated bike computer. So how do you handle calibrating during a race? I don't want to stand in transition and wait on it. I have some ideas, just curious if anyone else has more experience.

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Team Zoot - Great Lakes

When the Suunto first connects to the powermeter it says "calibrating" so I assume the calibration is automatic. I haven't worried about calibrating it before races, but if I did I would probably put it in cycling mode, let it find the power meter and do it's "calibrating" as it connects, then back out and put it in multisport mode. Sounds like it should work anyway!

Like the other poster said, the Suunto auto-calibrates the PM when you first connect to it - you should see a message saying "calibrating" just after the Suunto has "found" the PM.

For a race, I will connect and auto calibrate when I'm checking the bike on race morning before the start - then leave it. If during the ride i want to do another auto calibrate, I do this by back-pedalling 5x (for the Quarq - not sure about other PMs).

I use an ambit 2s and recently got a power2max. I can't wear the watch on my wrist and pick up power. I did a 2 hour ride and have about 3 minutes of power recording from that ride. The ambit sucks at reading power

I see it calibrate when I connect to it. But for my powertap that means off the bike with it standing still. I don't want to wait for that (though in reality it's only a few seconds).

I think I'm going to calibrate when setting up T1, then head to the swim start. In T1 I'll just jump on and go, then coast sometime in the first few minutes and let it re-calibrate. That should give me clean data for the rest of the ride, hopefully.

And I don't know why power drops so much. Nothing else does. Maybe they'll have an update out eventually.

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Team Zoot - Great Lakes

That was my one major gripe with my Ambit 2S...it constantly dropped power from my Quarq Riken. I would do better than 3 minutes, but there were always significant gaps in the data, so that by the end of the ride the data was useless. For bike rides I used the data off of my Garmin 510 rather than the Ambit.

Spot

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

I use an Ambit 2S. PM is a Power2Max classic. I also use an Edge 510.

90% of my rides are on the trainer via an ANT+ stick. Never dropped power. Never dropped power either on the Edge or the Ambit 2S as far as I can see, although I'd say I used the Ambit on about 3% of my total rides.

  
Did you see a major difference in the ave power values between your 2S and 510 after the rides?

Interestingly, although my Ambit 2 regularly drops the power measures on its display during rides, the data is there when I download it later. Eg during constant effort intervals where I never stop pedalling I don't get any dead or zero power values in the downloaded data, even though my Ambit "lost" power display during the actual ride.... Also when it picks up the PM again it this doesn't mess up the Ave power values, so it seems the data is still there, even though its not being shown. Wierd.

With my Ambit 2 i think the power drops have something to do with the "line of sight" between the Ambit and Quarq. When riding in the aero bars, I think my arm and BTA bottle somehow block the ANT signal (I do ride with my arms close to together, so there is no gap between by arms and bottle and the watch rests right up against the bottle in aero position. I speculate this because I dont get drops (i) riding with hands on the base bar, (ii) if I ride with the watch on my right wrist (more direct line to the PM?) or (iii) riding indoors on the turbo trainer where I generally don't keep a BTA bottle.

Hoping someone can help me. I just purchased a Quarq Riken Al and trying to pair it with my Suunto Ambit 2. I zeroed my power meter, but my watch won't pick up any sort of data. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to pair? Thanks.

Are you having problems pairing or post-pairing? I ask because you mention zeroing, which is typically done post pairing.

In any case, as for pairing, the trick with the Ambit1/2 units is simply to keep trying. Place the watch right next to the Quark (rub them together). Then just keep pressing retry till it takes. It may be 1 time, 5 times, or 18 times. Eventually it'll find it though (always does).

Once you've found it, you're good to go for life at normal distances. It's just that initial pairing that is so oddly finicky on those units.

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My tiny little slice of the internets: dcrainmaker.com

That worked... thank you!