I currently have the F5 and use it for all training; treadmill runs included. I’m trying to determine if a foot pod would be more accurate than the built-in accelerometer functionality of the Garmin. The F5 results seem a bit variable compared to treadmill. Not that the treadmills I generally use (health club, my basement) are super accurate, of course.
Thanks in advance for any insight or experiences.
Yes, footpod mo betta.
All you have to do with the watch is change your armswing to influence measured pace.
The footpod is way more accurate, especially if you do a few runs outdoors to get it fully dialed in.
YMMV but for me the accelerometer is hilarious. The faster I put the treadmill the slower the watch says I’m going. I am not even kidding. I can set the treadmill at 6:00 mile and it will say I am doing 11:00 a mile but if I reverse it then the watch says I am doing 7:00 a mile.
Every garmin I’ve ever had with the accelerometer has been that way.
The footpod is way more accurate, especially if you do a few runs outdoors to get it fully dialed in.
YMMV but for me the accelerometer is hilarious. The faster I put the treadmill the slower the watch says I’m going. I am not even kidding. I can set the treadmill at 6:00 mile and it will say I am doing 11:00 a mile but if I reverse it then the watch says I am doing 7:00 a mile.
Every garmin I’ve ever had with the accelerometer has been that way.
My old 920XT seems to be more accurate on treadmill than my new 935.
I don’t know how accurate the F5’s accelerometer is, but the Garmin footpod is extremely accurate if you’ve done a few outdoor runs with it to get it calibrated. I can’t imagine the wrist-based accelerometer would be more accurate than one that’s measuring how far your foot moves.
I have found that the accelerometer is good for paces between 7:00 and up. Once I start doing more speed or intervals, the pace is 00:20 off at least from the treadmill.
I have found the footpod to be way more accurate at faster speeds, but the accelerometer was surprisingly accurate sometimes.
I also have the Fenix 5. I tried several treadmill runs without the foot pod and because I have a long, loping stride the accelerometer measure me at close to 20 seconds per mile slower than my actual pace. I would highly recommend the foot pod as it helps increase data accuracy. Just make sure you have the right info in your athlete profile in the Fenix (e.g. stride length).
Footpod indoors far better than the watch’s accelerometer, my 920 was 20-30 seconds off as well.
Tried this one a few months back and i think this will work with your f5
http://www.milestonepod.com/
Agree with everyone else. I do recommend if you’re going to be using it a lot to take it outside every few weeks. If your running improves and you change cadence/leg speed for a certain it’ll start throwing the numbers off. But besides that it’s pretty remarkably on.
Same issues as everyone else, and same (good) result when I use the foot pod instead.
I don’t always remember the foot pod…and the 9:15 pace on the watch compared to the 8:20pace on the machine is why I’m not doing the 100/100 challenge. /Pink
The accelerometer is pathetic. A run of the mill foot pod is much better, better even than GPS. A Stryd, though, is on another level.
I find treadmills much more accurate than my watch. I don’t use a footpod so can’t speak to that but I workout at 3 different gyms depending on where I am working that day and use maybe 25 (I am guessing) different treadmills from about 5-7 different companies…and they are all pretty consistent with one another for pace/time/distance. No way all of them are off by the exact same amount - meaning its would appear they are reliable indicators of my time, distance, and pace (and most of what I have read says this same thing). This leads me to believe that most treadmills are probably more accurate than the ‘treadmills are way off’ comments I see a lot. But sure, if only use one you can’t compare and see that difference like someone that uses multiple. Having said that, my workouts on my watch are always off on the treadmill and its so easy to trick the watch on the treadmill. I would assume pods are way more accurate but personally I just record the distance the treadmill says at the end and call it a day.
Does anyone know if you can connect both the foot pod and the tri heart rate strap at the same time to have both measurements be as accurate as possible?
Does anyone know if you can connect both the foot pod and the tri heart rate strap at the same time to have both measurements be as accurate as possible?
Why wouldn’t you be able to do that?
Does anyone know if you can connect both the foot pod and the tri heart rate strap at the same time to have both measurements be as accurate as possible?
Yes. I do it every day. 920xt, Garmin footpod, hrm-tri. But, it doesn’t do anything for accuracy. Pace is all done by the footpod. Run dynamics and hr (if you care about that, I don’t) is collected by the hrm-tri.
Speaking of treadmill running, footpods, etc.:
https://blog.stryd.com/2017/02/10/mysteriously-low-treadmill-pace-2/
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I have a 935XT which I believe is the same watch as the Fenix 5 inside. I find that that built-in accelerometer does a great job for pace once I calibrate it to my treadmill (and only my treadmill).
Back when I had a 310XT, I used the footpod on many different treadmills, and that did a pretty decent job.
I didn’t realize you could calibrate the watch accelerometer. I’ll have to look that up and give it a try before spending more money! Thank you.
Does anyone know if you can connect both the foot pod and the tri heart rate strap at the same time to have both measurements be as accurate as possible?
Why wouldn’t you be able to do that?
No clue, but I didn’t see it online when searching so I figured I would ask all of the kind people here.
Does anyone know if you can connect both the foot pod and the tri heart rate strap at the same time to have both measurements be as accurate as possible?
Yes. I do it every day. 920xt, Garmin footpod, hrm-tri. But, it doesn’t do anything for accuracy. Pace is all done by the footpod. Run dynamics and hr (if you care about that, I don’t) is collected by the hrm-tri.
So you see benefit in using the foot pod and hem-tri instead of just doing the calibration mentioned by nickwhite?