Skiing

[Cepi]

Does the Ionic track skiing and snowboarding?

[avanarden]

After waiting for what seems like forever I think the way to do this is to buy an apple watch

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/apple-watch-apps-now-track-ski-performance/

[bbarrera]

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@avanardenwrote:

After waiting for what seems like forever I think the way to do this is to buy an apple watch

https://techcrunch.com/2018/02/28/apple-watch-apps-now-track-ski-performance/

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And Garmin has support skiing for years.

[PeteG-1]

Yeah, I think Suunto has the edge, for skiing, personally.

You can customize all the GPS intervals and such, to track speed (more frequent), or just to track where you went, and how much (runs, lifts, hikes, etc), say every 10s or 60s, for dramatically more battery life.

It also has some great ski apps, available on the appstore, from other end-users or retailers, which allow you to track almost any stat, and view it in configurable ways, on-screen or on the big screen, both.

I'm sure the Apple watch and the Garmin (I briefly had a Garmin, but was frustrated some some of it's issues), do a good job, but not like the Suunto.

I've logged 11 (year 12 this year) worth of Suunto ski data, about 275 ski days, and I've yet to have one that wasn't great data, for later.

[bbarrera]

@PeteG-1 which Suunto? Maybe a year or year and half ago, they launched one with broken software. Outside that particular model, I've heard good things about Suunto. Everyone I know either has a Garmin multisport, or uses app on phone (I've used Ski Tracks app). Thanks.

[PeteG-1]

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@bbarrerawrote:

@PeteG-1 which Suunto? Maybe a year or year and half ago, they launched one with broken software. Outside that particular model, I've heard good things about Suunto. Everyone I know either has a Garmin multisport, or uses app on phone (I've used Ski Tracks app). Thanks.

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Several.  I had one of the early, purely barometric models, I think called simply the "ski" model.

It was nice though, usually one 2032 battery was good, for a whole season of run tracking, or close.

Then I've had an Ambit2, and an Ambit3, which are both awesome (the Ambit2 with a waning battery, is now my road-cycling tracker).

I've had close to zero issues, with both, although I use them a bit "differently" than I do my FitBit, no wireless syncs (this has never worked well for me with Suunto), but because I usually ski 2-4 days on a weekend, I can usually "fit" each days' tracking into one "charge-cycle", before I pack it back up in my ski bag.

On days where I'm skiing powder stashes, or crud somewhere, I could care less about how fast I'm going, so I use 10s or 60s intervals, and you could probably get 4-6 days in these modes, respectively, and still see more or less where you were skiing during the day.

In 1s GPS mode, I can get 2, maybe 3 days, of 4-5 hours each.  I mostly use this if I'm doing speed work with my daughter (who's now the family racer, I retired, positive handoff ;-]), or dual-course races with her, stuff like that.

I also have a mode where it just tracks my up/down barometric movement, so runs, and some times per-descent, and it would probably run at least a weeks' worth of skiing in this mode.

So, there you have it, totally customized for different for 4 types of ski days, good s/w for tracking things like skiing (I like the Suunto site for *this*, and hiking/climbing, they do a great job of this aspect), physical data syncs that are basically 100% reliable, and it lasts long enough for my ski weekends and such.

I think the customized modes took me about 15 minutes each, to derive from the "base ski" mode, and tweak to how I wanted them.  I used some simple script, but you can do it via the UI too, fairly quickly/easily. 

I wouldn't get a Suunto for overall fitness though, myself, given that they don't really track resting HR, sleep, and fall short in a couple of other areas.

They do seem to have a really good optical sensor though, the reviews often talk about it being one of the best, ever.

[3.14]

Can it also be done the other way around, track with my fitbit ionic (e.g. in bike mode) and import it to get the skiing stats?

[stuartma]

Its possible, but I think inorder to do it I would have to pull the activity from Fitbit then generate all the same stats as Ski Tracks does before creating a SKIZ file for you to then import back into Ski Tracks and since you would lose any of the lift information it might be easier to build an application to give you all your stats directly. Rather than trying to put them back into Ski Tracks - at least initially

[3.14]

Thanks for your quick reply. I agree it would be better to have it directly, too bad it is currently lacking in the Ionic.

I'll try the app on my phone, but I would prefer not to drain my phone continuously with GPS since I have my watch for that 🙂

[stuartma]

I know what you mean about the GPS. I'm just back from as week skiing and ran Ski Tracks each day, just started it at 9am and stopped it around 4ish and by the end of each day I still had more then ~50% battery left - which included listening to music all day and taking a load of photos. So I'm feel quite happy with Ski Tracks battery usage. They claim around 14 hours battery life, but since the lift are only open for about 7-8 hours I've not been able to actually test that