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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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  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    Bitti wrote "I don't think manually tweaking the calibration factor is possible in newer watches either."

    It is possible on Fenix 6 and 7; Settings - Sensors - Your foot pod - Cal. factor - Set value. After you set it make sure to disable auto-calibration.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Former Member

    Ok, good to know calibration factor tweaking exists for actual footpods. I don't have one, and at least my Forerunner 965 manual only covers HRM Pro(+) and just mentions actual foot pods passingly. The same thing seems to apply to the Fenix 7 manual. Slight smile

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    I suspect that foot pods are on the way out. They are becoming hard to obtain and their use is, as you said, not well documented.

    I like the instant pace of foot pods. I have two, calibrated to different usages; running medium/mixed pace and walking. For races (infequent) I enter the factor manually. It is real easy to pick the right foot pod for the activity without adjusting anything. 

    And they work with the older Fenix models that I still use sometimes.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Former Member

    I tried using the "foot pod" in HRM Pro+ for outdoors pace while running intervals. On my old Fenix 5+, its GPS pace was useless for speed intervals, and the pace provided by HRM Pro+ was better, although not perfect in any sense (I live in a quite hilly area).

    I still haven't had my Forerunner 965 long enough to decide whether it's multiband GPS provides better interval pace than HRM Pro+.

  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    I have not even tried what instant pace with the Fenix 7's multi-band GNSS is without foot pod, I am too used to how the FP works. I am interested to learn what your experiences will be.

    BTW I do not use instant pace for short intervals (<=200 m), FP or not, it adapts too slow anyway (for me).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Former Member

    My experience with Fenix 5+ was that the HRM Pro+'s instant pace reacted much faster to changes in pace than Fenix 5+'s GPS (which is to be expected, Fenix 5+'s instant pace fluctuated a long time on speed change). However, HRM Pro+'s pace didn't react that well when running uphill/downhill without changing your cadence (it kept telling the pace was almost the same, even though I clearly ran slower/faster).

    I'll chime in when I've had time to do the exact same interval workout with the exact same route with multiband GPS pace and HRM Pro+ pace. It's too bad 965 shows the HRM Pro+ as one device only, my Fenix 5+ showed the HRM and foot pod separately, making it possible to use an ConnectIQ app to show both GPS instant pace and foot pod pace simultaneously.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti
    Bitti said:
    It's too bad 965 shows the HRM Pro+ as one device only, my Fenix 5+ showed the HRM and foot pod separately, making it possible to use an ConnectIQ app to show both GPS instant pace and foot pod pace simultaneously.

    My Instinct 2 shows the HRM-Pro as a single device too, but it does not prevent me from having both the standard pace (which is by default the mix of GPS and accelerometer data) and the GPS pace. If you change the settings of the HRM-Pro, you can force the watch to use the HRM-Pro pace instead of its default mix. So, you can still compare the GPS pace (which is though almost never used directly by the watch), and the pace from HRM-Pro (or from the foot pod).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to trux

    Ah, so you are doing it the other way around, using an IQ app to record GPS pace. Thanks, maybe I'll try that as well (although that of course still doesn't get me 100 % of the way and allow comparing 965's GPS-based filtered instant pace and HRM Pro+ pace).

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    , what IQ app are you using for storing GPS information? It doesn't seem to be one of your apps published in the Garmin IQ Store...

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Bitti

    Yes, the apps shown on that screenshot are not public. Never had the time to tune them up for the public release, write the documentation, etc. I may do it once I find a bit more spare time.