Stryd is not all it's cut out to be...maybe

This morning I ran twice with one watch hooked up to a Stryd and set to Always use for Pace and Distance and another just on GPS. In both cases the Stryd came up with a longer distance. First up was a trail run that we've been running for years so we know it is close to 9km. Stryd returned 9.31 where my GPS Trail Run gave 8.99 and my wife's 945 8.97km. Next up was parkrun. For those who don't know, parkrun is always 5km. Our parkrun has been accurately measured using a calibrated wheel so we know it's 5.04km from the wheel. And every GPS run we've done has been 5km +/-20m or so. This morning Stryd gave 5.24km while the GPS watches gave 5.02 and 5.01 respectively.

This wasn't the first time out with the Stryd. Several runs on a 400m track and a couple of other trails runs should have seen it calibrated by now. I haven't looked over earlier runs as I did want to make sure I had a number of different runs with the Stryd.

Let's see how things progress. I have done a couple of runs on a 400m track but not sure if I had the Stryd set up properly so can't comment on that except to say the watches gave the same distance. However, I now have the Stryd where I want it so can. and will, do some more comparison runs to see how this plays out.

  • I agree Philip, although both of my Styds come up short, not long. Actually neither Stryd agrees with each other, 2% distance difference between the 2 over a 10k and even power is different. I've worn 2 Stryds during 1 run on several occasions and this is repeatable.

    Try contacting Stryd support - you will never meet a more arrogant company - they will claim EVERYTHING else is inaccurate - GPS? We are better. Measured track? - measuring wheels can be wrong..... 400mm track...400m tracks can be inaccurate. Treadmill - treadmills are inaccurate. When you present data from TWO Stryds on one run (either worn on either same shoe, or different shoe), so BOTH clearly cannot be accurate when both dis-agree with each other, it's amusing the logic bending they come up with. It's like a parallel universe in Stryd-land.

  • I absolutely love my Stryd, but like you, I'm not terribly impressed with its distance calculations. It's accurate to within maybe 5% or so, but really that's just not good enough, when my 6X GPS is accurate to within 0.5% or 1% on its worst day, and is usually spot-on accurate. People swear up and down that Stryd is superior to GPS at measuring distance, and I'm happy if that's true for them, but that's just not my experience. And calibration won't change anything because it isn't off by the same % every run.

    For running power, and instant pace, the Stryd is awesome, and was money well spent. And the wind sensor on it is super cool. I always find my running power to be very representative of how hard I feel like I'm working at that moment. Absolutely worth the money, for that feature alone. Honestly I didn't buy it for, nor intend to use it for, measuring distance anyways, so it's no big deal. But for outdoor (gps) runs, I see no benefit to using Stryd for distance. I use it for distance on the treadmill because I don't really have a choice, but it's WAY off on that. Like, 10% off. I tolerate it because the watch alone obviously isn't any better at measuring treadmill distance, and I just keep in mind that the distance reported is only 90% of how far I actually ran on the treadmill.

  • I see it too...running in US, clear skies, good GPS. Stryd WAY off. Can calibrate, but not good out of the box. If u change shoos, the distance changes too..yep..not BS'ing, shoos change it (somehow), so need calibration per shoo pair

  • I'm not terribly impressed with its distance calculations. It's accurate to within maybe 5% or so, but really that's just not good enough, when my 6X GPS is accurate to within 0.5% or 1% on its worst day, and is usually spot-on accurate.

    I see exactly the same, actually I'm not 5% off, but 2-3% is pretty repeatable. I am one of those people who can often see pretty bad looking GPS tracks, but strangely my GPS distance has always been accurate from Garmin. Like repeatable distances over 100s of runs, where it rare a run is anything more than 0.01 miles different between runs.

    Calibration doesn't help as you say, as it's not off the same each time, you end up settling for some middle ground that sortof works.

    Regarding instant pace, this is 'OK' but I still need to smooth pace between 3 to 5s with a datafield, I actually don't see huge wins here either, and I think a lot of the gains here are because Garmin instant pace is pretty bad @AndersB doing some interesting work on this on other threads.

    If the Stryd is off-distance wise, then the pace will be off as well - example: if your Stryd is 5% off, your pace is also 5% off - over a 5k run thats 250 meters, so you can see how that impacts pace, 250 meters is a lot during a Parkrun if you want to pace yourself to beat a PB!

  • GPS. Stryd WAY off. Can calibrate, but not good out of the box. If u change shoos, the distance changes too..yep..not BS'ing, shoos change it (somehow), so need calibration per shoo pair

    And that is one reason I'd never buy Stryd. I rotate through multiple (many) pairs of shoes on a daily basis and rarely run in the same shoes on consecutive days.

  • And that is one reason I'd never buy Stryd. I rotate through multiple (many) pairs of shoes on a daily basis and rarely run in the same shoes on consecutive days.

    Power is also impacted in the same way. For example if you have shoes with a big stack height, think Hoka Clifton then go to a more minimal low stack like Altra, and the power difference is quite apparent. I think probably it's because Hoka absorbs more shock, and you get less springy-ness.

    The problem is you can't calibrate power at all, so even if you were willing to caliberate distance / pace per shoe, you can't do that for power.

    Unfortunately the reviews don't tell you this at all.

  • I have. And Stryd say:

    "Many Garmin and Coros watches allow Stryders to set a calibration factor. The Stryd power meter is accurate out of the box and should not require calibration."

    or words to that effect in both posts as I am sure you know. I confess to not having much experience with running pods. This one came to me for research. However, I've never been convinced that any footpad can be accurate over a range of paces, especially when running off road. In fairness the distance error is no more than GPS for both the runs today ~5%. 

    But, as I've said, for me the jury is out for now. I'll see how things progress.