BillX said:I bought an S625X several weeks ago and have mixed feelings about it.
Looks like you've gotten answers to most of your questions.
Quoted message said:
Altimiter response time is delayed and accuracy less than +/- 5 feet
from point of calibration.
I'm finding the altimeter works reasonably well for my purposes. I use a
15-sec interval, rather than th 5-sec that I think is default.
"Reasonably well" means an out/back course is symmetric and I end up at
approximately the same elevation I started, unless there was a
substantial change in air pressure (storm). My rolling hills are about
30-70 ft high and it seems to pick those up just fine. I'm more
concerned with elevation change rather than actual elevation, which will
depend on me setting it to known elevation each time, which I rarely do.
It was within about 5% on a recent hike up a 3000 ft mountain, although
I'm not sure of the exact altitude of parking area.
Quoted message said:Temperature is supposed to be computed from
calibrated altitude and measured atmospheric pressure.
Do you have a reference for that? It makes some sense at time of
calibration, but as your run progresses and temperature and elevation
change, I'm not sure how it gets temperature then, but it may (my
brain's dead at the moment and maybe in the morning I'll remember those
calculations).
Quoted message said:My air
conditioned office at work was 88 degrees F according to the watch :-(
Documentation does indicate that air conditioning messes things up.
Mine tends to indicate what I'm interpreting as wrist temperature, where
it's mounted - hence I assumed there was a sensor, but maybe not if
temperature is calculated from calibrated altitude and measured atm
pressure. In long winter runs, it gradually decreases - more so on the
days when I was lightly dressed relative to weather and my skin was
getting noticeably colder.
I record the temperature range of the run based on the weather station
data or a nearby thermometer, certainly not the 625.
Quoted message said:
The watch will download time and speed but not distance. Frustrating
to see speed, HR, and time plotted without distance. I'll bet their
Technology group spotted this oversite but that Marketing insisted
I think you've found how to change the options of the display and
customizing plots.
Quoted message said:
I haven't experimented yet with Laps. You can record laps by preset
distance, time, or use autolap feature to record every X units of time
or distance up to 30 intervals. Has anyone played with this feature
and know if you can download and plot the lap data?
I haven't. I just use manual "laps" at trail intersections.
One thing that may be amiss is distance calculations on steep hills.
I've only tested this trail once - hiked up, ran/hiked down - but on
steep uphills (>30%), it seems to lose the horizontal component - thus
underestimating the distance for uphills, but the downhills seem ok for
same route. I say miss the horizontal component since the elevation vs
distance plot has vertical lines on thos steepest areas. I wonder if the
forward component was small enough per unit time that it was interpreted
as noise. I'll have to try it again later in the summer.
Enjoy! I really like mine and will try to calibrate the footpod one of
these days.
Dot
--
"So many people get stuck in the routine of life that their dreams waste
away. This is about living the dream." - Cave Dog