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Foot pod running outside.

6928399
over 1 year ago

Edit: This is the old foot pod and not the slightly newer running dynamics foot pod with the yellow colour.

Can someone help me set up the Garmin Foot Pod properly? I want to experiment a bit with it. It's for outside running, and despite multi-band and all options GPS signal is weak in some places (but not off) and there's a 400m stretch of open sky road along some railway tracks where pace always tanks despite the road being flat like everywhere else. My guess is that something messes with the GPS here. Unfortunately it's close to my home.

I think using it as a speed source I need to set it to Speed: always. What is Distance about? Or would I need this one? Calibration factor? Due to the GPS problems most of my runs are measured shorter than they should be, and hence pace is calculated to be slower. But I also don't want to switch off GPS to get a nice map I think. So basically, what I'm missing is a good manual for outdoor running. Pairing is not problem, setting it up is though.

And just a thought: if I run a race route with known length and knowledge where the km markers are can I set km markers manually during the run to fix this issue without additional technical kit? The problem is that the recorded runs are a bit shorter than they should be, thus the km marker would be set earlier than my watch would notify me of another 1km done.

Thanks a lot.

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  • 0 over 1 year ago

    https://www.techwalla.com/articles/how-to-calibrate-a-garmin-foot-pod

    I have just resurrected my old footpad for my treadmill, so gone through the same process of trying to calibrate - albeit I do have GPS - this article was very helpful, giving options to calibrate with GPS (me) and without (you)

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I've been using a footpod for years. For outdoor runs I select "Speed: Always" and "Distance: Indoor". You can choose auto-calibration, but this doesn't work well if you regularly run in areas with poor GPS reception. Calibration is best done manually on a known distance. An athletic track (olympic-size, i.e. 400 m) would be perfect for this.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to tmk2

    Cool! I'll try this on a few test runs/walks tonight. Do you still get a nice map or would it be gone then?
    And how do you calibrate it? I don't see an option for that in my watch unfortunately.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to RobertSterling

    Thanks. I'll have a look at this after work today!

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 6928399
    6928399 said:
    Do you still get a nice map

    Sure, as long as GPS is enabled you still get the map, even if speed and/or distance setting for the footpod is set to "Always".

    6928399 said:
    And how do you calibrate it?

    Hmmm, I can't remember now how I did it. I'll try to check and I will get back to you later.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to 6928399
    6928399 said:
    And how do you calibrate it?

    By the looks of it manual calibration by distance is not an option anymore on latest garmin watches. Too bad. In that case the best way to proceed would be to enable auto-calibration temporarily, run a known distance (like for example 4 laps on a 400 m track, which should give you exactly 1600 m) and see if the resulting distance is accurate. If it is, then disable auto-calibration, so that future runs do not mess up the calibration factor. If the resulting distance is too short, try increasing the calibration factor. If it is too long try decreasing the calibration factor. You might need several attempts until you get it right.

    Also please note, that even best calibrated footpod is not 100% accurate. A 2% inaccuracy is quite normal.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to tmk2

    Thanks a lot :) Lets see what I get out of this. I might just use the standard calibration for now and see if this makes a difference for the problematic areas along my route. Maybe that's all I need in the end. Funny, that every town I ever lived in has an annoyingly open stretch of road where my watch has problems. Big trees, narrow roads lined by houses with 4-5 floors, a corner where a building is right next to the sidewalk? Yeah, I get that. But open road and poor signal? *shrugs*

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to tmk2

    I don't think manually tweaking the calibration factor is possible in newer watches either. Either you rely on the auto calibration (with minimum of 2 hours of running with GPS, not necessarily in one activity). Or you run on a treadmill and calibrate using its reported distance.

    support.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti
    Bitti said:
    I don't think manually tweaking the calibration factor is possible in newer watches either.

    It is. In the footpod sensor settings you can still set a calibration factor manually.

    Bitti said:
    Or you run on a treadmill and calibrate using its reported distance.

    Treadmill calibration has nothing to do with footpod calibration, and it won't affect outdoor runs with footpod.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to tmk2

    Sorry, I somehow mixed the actual old Garmin footpod and the fact that nowadays HRM Pro(+) can be used as a footpod. Seems that they are calibrated quite differently.

    At least on my Forerunner 965 when I go to HRM Pro+ settings, I see just "Use for pace", "Use for distance", "Auto calibration on/off", and "Reset calibration". No way to enter or even see the calibration factor (which used to be possible on my old Fenix 5+). With HRM Pro(+), you can calibrate it to the distance the treadmill gives you.