Due to hip arthritis issue I have been relegated to running on a treadmill for a while so I bought a Zwift run pod a few weeks back.
I have frustrated at how inaccurate they are compared to my Garmin pod, even after calibrating it every single time I use it, it seems to be wildly wrong no matter what I do.
For example: calibrate at 7.5 8.0 9.5
If I walk for a warmup at 6.5 the pod reads 5.5.
Start running at 7.5 pod reads 8.0-8.2, run at 8.0 pod reads 8.0-8.3, run at 9.5 pod reads 10.0-10.6, run at 12 pod reads 13.
I have tried calibrating at various speeds (6-8, 8-10,10-12) and it it seems the higher speed I calibrate the worse it gets, to the point where it will be out by 2-3kmh.
Itās annoying if you are working through a training plan and miss out of stars as your running at the wrong speed, its also annoying to calibrate these units every single damn time.
I have used the Zwift run pod one foot and my Garmin pod on the other and my Garmin reads perfectly in line with my treadmill so I donāt believe its a treadmill belt speed issue, however the Garmin will not work with my Phone.
Has anyone found a reliable way to get these Zwift pods working somewhat accurately?
Yeah thatās just how it is. I feel the reason itās less accurate at higher speeds is because it sits so high up on the shoe. Other foot pods all have lower profiles.
I just got my footpod and the first run it took three tries for it to sync (it just hung during 2nd or third syncing speed) but then I would say it was pretty accurate. I synced it to 7.5mph for my target speed. I ended up running most of the run between 7.2 and 7.4 with brief āpickupsā (I use that term loosely) to 8.3mph. It was within 3 secs per mile of my treadmill speed.
My second run at similar speed, I started out and realized the calibration was way off. tried to sync and it never got all the way through syncing. Finally gave up and didnāt get the highest speed synced. It was off by 40 secs per mile for 4 miles. Iāve been running off my iPad.
Just sent a support email to Zwift. Calibration need to work at least 98% of the time or Iāll be sending it back and not subscribing this year since Iāll only be biking about once a week indoors. Perhaps Iāll try a Garmin pod and just go off my watch and put on youtube while Iām running instead of Zwift. Iād be happy to pay for Zwift if the connection and speed were reliable.
I ended up with Stryd. Expensive, but it works. No calibration needed, connected easily and very accurate with Zwift. I tried the Zwift pod and it would never connect. Returned it and paid for the much more expensive Stryd after seeing all the positive reviews by avid runners. Best part, I also run outdoors and use Stryd there as well. I have become addicted to power zone running that Stryd provides. Very cool tech. Another cool feature is that it is Ant+ so I can connect it to my Garmin watch as well as Zwift at the same time. Use my watch to monitor power since Zwift does not support the display of power at this time.
Stryd is a little to expensive for my requirements, I figured maybe Zwift themselves might respond since their own product line doesnāt seem to work with their softwareā¦
I have mine workingā¦ok itās usually out by half a KMH or so but its good enough to get me through.
I have finally had success using my runpod in the last few workouts. The new calibration where you select the range to calibrate to helped quite a bit, but takes awhile to find the right range and learning how to calibrate that range! Maybe when Iāve done it a few more times I will get a good idea as to what is really happening and what finally got it working well for me!
Robert, will that tend to make your workouts faster or slower? I set my Normal to 8kph and all my workouts so far seem waaaaay too slow. Like āeasy jogā at 4.5ā¦ Thatās just a stroll!
Short anwser is no. I calibrate it everytime but when Iām at a speed higher or lower than the specified calibration range it gets wonky. This especially troublesome at 1.5 to 2 mph over the high speed as the fast I run the slower it shows me running. I actually have to slow down to go faster and be extremely careful with my stride or it falls out of range. I hate this damn thing.
Yeah Kelley, I spoke too soon tried calibrating at almost every level, but anything over 12kph or 6.5mph seems like it just wonāt take it tried nearly every range and a little fast or slow on the mid range, but any higher speeds just get lost I was running at 7.8 almost as fast as I could and it wouldnāt give me more that 6.8mph with kph canāt get over 12 no matter how much faster I go! Donāt really care to go any faster, but there were a couple of the tri workouts that I just couldnt perform because of this! Bill
Ha! Mine seems to be overly generous at + 7.0 kph (gives me higher) and overly stingy at -7.00 kph (reads lower) so maybe it averages out.
I am going to calibrate again one of these days. I need to do it AFTER a run so I am warmed up at least!
I find the same thing. It is relatively close when I am running easy to moderately hard ā¦ 5:00/km up to around 3:45/km, but beyond that not so goodā¦ I Just did my first race, was running at 3:35/km by TM for first 3km and Zwiftpod gave me 3:40, 3:46, 3:52. I decreased the TM to 3:39/km for the last 2k and Zwiftpod read 3:49 and 3:47. Definitely frustrating.
I use the Zwift RunPod and find the results quite in line with the ones from the treadmill. However, if your Garmin sensor produces results that you feel are more accurate, you can use that sensor with a kind of bridge to get the data into Zwift. I use a device called Cable to get my heart rate into Zwift. That should bei possible with the cadence as well. The manufacturer is North Pole Engineering (NPE) and the Cable can be found on Amazon pretty easily.
So this will be interesting soon to get the Zwift Runn and Iāve heard it is really accurate from my of the well experienced Zwift Runners, so Iām hoping to see if my zwift pod analysis of inaccuracy at higher cadence and speed is correct!