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The training data in my Suunto watch, Suunto’s digital service and Strava shows different values. Why?

Elevation information (altitude, ascent, descent)

If your watch uses only GPS to provide elevation data and does not have a built-in barometer, Strava will cross-reference the GPS data to Strava's elevation basemap in order to find the elevation. The elevation information of Strava’s elevation basemap may be different from the elevation data which is provided by your Suunto watch. In this case, Strava will use the information of the elevation basemap. This may cause differences in data. Learn more about how Strava calculates the elevation of your activity.

If your watch has a built-in barometric altimeter, the altitude information displayed in Strava is based on the original elevation data provided by your Suunto device.

 

Duration

Strava and Suunto use different duration concepts which may be the reason for differences in data.

Strava provides 2 duration values:

  • Moving time: This duration value reflects the actual time you have been moving during your training. The value is based on GPS information or speed data i.e. for swimming. The value excludes the time you are standing still and when you manually pause your exercise or use the auto-pause feature on your watch. Find more information on Strava’s definition of Moving time.

  • Elapsed time: This duration value shows the total duration between start and stop of your exercise. It also includes the time you are standing still and the duration of pauses you manually set on your watch.


Suunto provides one duration value which reflects the duration between the start and stop of your exercise excluding the time where you manually paused your exercise on your watch.

Example: You swim 1 h with a Suunto watch and take 10 times a break for 1 min where you stand still and rest at the pool ends.
Strava will display 50 min Moving time (60 min -10 min where you did not move), and 1 h Elapsed time.
Suunto will display a duration of 1h.

Additional: You pause the exercise for 20 min on your watch.
Strava will display 50 min of Moving time, and 80 min of Elapsed time (60 min + 20 min of pause).
Suunto will display a duration of 1 h.

Note: Strava’s moving time, average speed and pace information is based for certain exercises on GPS data. To minimize data differences and to be able to use all features provided by Strava, we recommend using the best GPS accuracy (GPS interval of 1 second) available in your Suunto watch. Using GPS accuracy settings with longer fix intervals may result in inaccurate moving time, average speed and pace information because Strava might consider the down time between the GPS fixes as stationary time. 

 

Heart rate, pace and power zone information

Strava uses the heart rate, speed and power data provided by your Suunto watch to analyze and recalculate the data for Strava’s power, pace, and heart rate zone distribution feature, and other performance parameters.

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