Customer Reviews

Suunto GPS Pod Wireless Transmitter

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Have had my T6 for nearly 3 years with bike, shoe and now GPS pods. Have had GPS pod over a year and use it across several sports-- road and MT biking, running, adventure racing, and kayaking. Perfect tool for Ironmans, ARs, ultra-distance events-- Does everything I need it to do very well and unlike the other pods requires no calibration. Exceptional overall accuracy but for slower sports the momentary speed numbers may not always stay stable due to GPS inherent positional errors- not a Suunto problem but a GPS satellite problem. If you watch for a couple seconds you'll have a solid feel for your actual speed-- this is only an issue while running; my shoe pod has been fantastic when I've used it by comparison. Both are more than adequate for distance and average pacing and speed while biking is dead on. Distance is always accurate. Antenna sensitivity has been good for me; challenge has been the link between watch and pod, they need to be within arm's length to keep a good connection. Jersey pocket or same arm as watch is fine. Battery life 18-20 hours on alkalines, 30+ hours on lithium aaa's. I wouldn't trade mine for anything but only wish it added GPS altitude and lat/long/grid readouts to my T6.

This pod plus a T6 replaced my annoyingly unreliable Garmin Edge 305, and I could not be happier. The GPS has worked flawlessly. I use it for road biking and trail running. It finds satellites fast and holds reception even under fairly heavy tree and cloud cover. I use the arm strap for running and it's very comfortable. On my bike I just throw it in a pocket in my handlebar bag and I'm good to go. The battery life is longer than advertised. I wanted to check the accuracy, so I ran several laps on a quarter mile track and it was never more than 1/100 of a mile off.

The unit worked very well as long as it was position so that it faced upright to the sky at all times. If I had chosen to mount it on my bike rack, it would have been a good tool. However, I could not get it to stay facing upright enough while walking or running to maintain contact with the satellite, and so I kept losing the signal and needed to stop and reposition the unit.

First of all, please allow me to state that I LOVE my Suunto t6c! The heart rate monitor and foot pod are exceptional. Therefore, despite the admonishments of some of my fellow Amazonians about the GPS unit's unreliability, I figured I'd give the product a try. BIG MISTAKE! I took the unit out for a "test drive" on a 5-mile run this morning. Despite the fact that I live in a relatively open area, the unit repeatedly lost the satellite. It also gave false speeds throughout my run (last time I checked I could not run 13 miles per hour -- I'm lucky if I can accomplish half of that for a short period of time!).

Post-run, when I downloaded the data from this morning's outing to my t6C, the graph resembled the EKG of a college kid who drank too many Red Bulls and washed it down with Pop Rocks; as my "speeds" ranged from 4 MPH to 13 MPH sporadically.

Bottom Line: The Suunto foot pod is reliable right out of the box, so I'd suggest sticking to that. As for the G-P-S, it is B-A-D!

Keep on Runnin'

- Hank

I see about half the reviews complain about reception and accuracy, the other half don't. Some of this I think stems from the fact that GPS by itself has some error in its readings and a slower paced sport like running will exaggerate those errors. I use the pod for biking and for that purpose it seems very accurate. The speed changes are usually more smoothly reported by the GPS pod than by my bike computer, which only makes sense because the readings are every two seconds rather than continuously (and note that the t6c watch has the ability to take readings every 10 or 2 seconds, so maybe the discrepancies people are reporting are due to the wrong setting on their watch). The t6c may report an increase in speed a split second later than my bike computer, but likewise the decrease is reported a bit later -- more like a moving average. When I return home, though, the two report what I would consider statistically identical average speeds and distances. If I had a way to export my bike computer's data, I wouldn't need the GPS pod. As it is, the pod does what it says it does -- but ONLY what it says.

My biggest disappointment is that this is only a speed and distance calculator. It does NOT report latitude / longitude or altitude -- all of which should be available from a GPS unit. Reviewing the logs, it appears Suunto chose to only output a distance value to the watch and then lets the watch calculate speed based on that distance over time. It would have been so much nicer if they sent Lat/Lon values and altitude to the watch. With that I could more easily map routes and truly get an idea of altitudes (since the watch's calculations for altitude are usually way off).

The major reason I bought the t6c/GPS combo was to get accurate instantaneous run pacing information. Maybe, as some have pointed out, this is impossible due to the "limitations" of GPS, or maybe it's a problem with Suunto's implementation. I tend to believe it's a little of both. In my experience, the distance measurements reported via GPS are spot on, but the instantaneous speed information is off by 10-20% (almost always reading slow). I have discovered that I can use the autolap feature to get a reasonable approximation of current speed (I use .5 mile) -- I am a little puzzled as to why the instantaneous speed reading is consistently so far off given that the device is measuring both distance and time (duh!) accurately. I have to disagree with one poster who said this was an ideal device for Ironman. I do Ironmans, and what I would love to do is keep the watch running for the entire race, use the bike pod with autolap off and GPS for the run, with autolap on (given that the speed reading is useless). Unfortunately, you can't change autolap parameters without restarting your timing. In general, I like the t6c, but am disappointed in the GPS performance. As a software engineer, little interface nits like not being able to toggle autolap really bug me.

But after using it on a couple of long runs, it was spot on. Verified with [...]. The strap for the arm is comfortable, my only recommendation is to have it on the same side as the watch, other than that I love it!

I bought this and put it to use on an 8 mile run 4 days after it arrived. It catches on to the satellite but have constant trouble hanging on to the signal as I run. As a result the readings on the T3 fades in and out. It is a very frustrating experience. I had thought of using this to compare against the foot pod, however T3 only allows the use of one (either the foot pod or GPS pod) at a time. Though the foot pod requires frequent calibration it is atleast consistent. I returned the product. I have read better reviews about Garmin. Garmin can cost 3 times as much. At this point, however I am willing to pay extra to get better reliability.

I purchaced the Suunto T4 and added the GPS to track speed and distance. My wife uses the Garmin 205 and the GPS reception on the Garmin is far superior. Suunto GPS takes along time to initially find a satellite. Once you have a signal it drops it throughout your run. I run in a rural area and still have bad reception. I used the garmin 205 for a couple years and it had very reliable reception. I am considering the foot pod due to the GPS problems.