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{{DISPLAYTITLE:Stryd footpod review}}
Stryd is one of the most useful and impressive running technologies available. It's a [[Footpod]] that analyzes the movement of your foot with greater accuracy than most traditional Footpods. While a lot of the Stryd marketing focuses on their "running power meter" functionality, I see the greatest value coming from their accurate measurement of pace and distance. If you look at my [[GPS Accuracy| testing of GPS Accuracy]], you will see that Stryd gives a far more accurate measurement of distance than any GPS watch. It accurate enough that it really doesn't need any calibration, and unlike GPS, it should work in any situation. Not only is it providing accurate distance measurement, but it provides real-time pace, something that's impractical to achieve with any GPS device. While I believe [[Running Power Meters]] are quite different to cycling power meters and are more of a "power estimate" than a meter, I think that if you understand their limitations they can still be useful. At $200 I think that Stryd is good value for money, and it's one of the few running devices that I would replace unhesitatingly if I lost it. Currently Stryd is only available via [https://www.stryd.com their web site]. (I don't have any affiliate or sales link with Stryd.)
=The Metrics=
Note that Stryd provides no information on foot strike parameters such as pronation, or foot landing position.
=The Pod=
The Stryd pod is similar to other Footpods. It's slightly larger than most, and has an LED status light on the top. Stryd uses a rechargeable battery that they claim lasts about 20 hours. That's good enough for most runners, but may be a problem for longer ultramarathons. Stryd recharges wirelessly, which is nice, as I hate fiddling around with connectors or losing specialist cables. Stryd uses a 9-axis sensor rather than the typical [[Footpod]] that uses a 3-axis sensor. The Stryd pod weighs 0.32oz/9.1g, compared with the Garmin Footpod at 0.34oz/9.6g, and the rather oversized Polar Footpod at 1.0oz/28.1g.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
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|[[File:Stryd (1).jpg|none|thumb|250px|I don't normally show packaging but the design is so minimalist yet elegant that I thought it was worth a picture. ]]
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|[[File:Stryd Comparison (1).jpg|none|thumb|250px|Here's a visual comparison with some other Footpod's. From top left to bottom right there is the Stryd, Garmin Footpod, [[MilestonePod]] v3, Polar Stryd Sensor, Adidas, and [[MilestonePod]] v2.]]
|[[File:Stryd Comparison (3).jpg|none|thumb|250px|This is a view of the Stryd and Garmin Footpods with their cradle to clip into the shoe laces.]]
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|[[File:Stryd Comparison (2).jpg|none|thumb|250px|Looking sideways you can see the Stryd and Garmin Footpods have similar openings for shoe laces.]]
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=Watch IntegrationSupport=Stryd has support for a remarkable levels of integration with a wide array number of running watches. It supports both Bluetooth and Ant+, and it can look like a standard Footpod, or a cycling power meter, or provide more sophisticated data. There are a large number of combinations of watches and configurations to consider, so I'll look at the general integration approaches and then look at specific watches. ==Types of Watch Integration==* '''Footpod'''. Stryd can send standard Footpod data over both Bluetooth and Ant, giving the usual distance, pace, and cadence data. You can use it like this to get accurate distance, pace and Cadence data into the vast majority of watches I 've tested. However, only a few watches will support this while recording a GPS track, and so most will return need to this issue be in indoor/treadmill mode. This means there's two modes to consider:** '''Footpod with GPS'''. This is the ideal mode; you have your watch get all distance and pace data from Stryd, while still recording a GPS track. This will allow you to show where you've run, enable any navigation like back to start or breadcrumbs, and update this section for things like Strava segments. ** '''Footpod without GPS'''. If your watch doesn't support the above "Footpod with GPS" mode, you have to set it to running indoors or treadmill mode where you lose all the GPS data. This works, but may not be what you want. * '''Footpod with Power in Cadence'''. This is similar to the above scenario, but Stryd will put power into the Cadence field. That gives you access to its power estimate on a wide range of watches, but there are two significant downsides. Firstly, you don't get Cadence information, which is arguably rather more important than an estimate of power unless you're really confident that your cadence is good. Secondly, because of the underlying protocols, the Cadence field has a range of 0-255, and power estimates can be quite a bit larger. Therefore, stride divides the near futureactual power by 10, so 210 watts will appear as 21 steps/minute. Therefore, you lose a little bit of granularity, though in practice Idon't think that's a huge deal.* '''Cycling Power Meter'''ll also include . Stryd can send the same data that a cycling power meter would, so any watch that supports the cycling power meter will support stride in the same way. This gives some good support for power, and in indoor cycling mode you should be able to get pace, distance, and cadence data from the stride as well. There are a few annoyances with this approach, the biggest one being that you get your speed in MPH or KPH rather than min/mile or min/Km which would take some recommendations getting used to if you're a runner that used to thinking in terms of pace rather than speed. The other annoyance is that all of your data files will be considered as cycling rather than running, which could confuse your training log.* '''Connect IQ'''. The advantages of Garmin's [[Connect IQ]] are shown in the best ability for Stryd to add their sensor to any Garmin watch is that supports Connect IQ. If you install the Stryd Connect IQ data field, it will show the power estimate, as well as recording all of the Stryd data into the fit file. Using this data field does not stop you using the Stryd as a normal Footpod at the same time. Because the Connect IQ only gives you the power, you still have two modes of Footpod integration, giving you two modes:** '''Connect IQ + Footpod with GPS'''. The perfect solution; you get all the Stryd data, the distance/pace accuracy, and GPS for navigation. ** '''Connect IQ + Footpod without GPS'''. On the lower end Connect IQ enabled watches you have to set them to use with indoor/treadmill mode, so you get all the Stryddata, the distance/pace accuracy, but you don't have any GPS data.==Watch Support==This section will follow soon.
==Bluetooth or Ant+==
Stryd supports both Bluetooth and Ant+, and both work well. Bluetooth has the limitation that you can only have one receiver talking to Stryd at a time, so you can't have it linked to two different watches simultaneously, or to a watch and your smart phone at the same time. (I have had occasions where the Stryd has stayed linked to my smart phone, so I've had to turn off Bluetooth on my phone to allow Stryd to link to a watch.) With Ant+ you can have as many watches linked simultaneously, and it's possible to have Stryd linked to both one Bluetooth watch and several Ant+ watches at the same time. If you're using Garmin [[Connect IQ]], you can have Stryd work as both a standard Footpod and connected via the Connect IQ data field.
=Testing Running Power=
I don't view Stryd as a "power meter", but a way of estimating relative training intensities, rather like [[Heart Rate]]. There are some important benefits to using Stryd over heart rate for estimating relative training intensity. The graph below is showing a run up and back down a local hill. It's not a very long Hill, but it is fairly steep, averaging 6% with sections nearer 10%. The first graph below shows me running hard up the hill, then resting on the way back down. You can see that both my heart rate and power estimate rise on the uphill and decline on the downhill. You'll notice that my heart rate response rather slower to the change in intensity than the power estimate, making it more useful for providing a useful, real-time estimate of intensity.
[[File:StrydHardUpEasyDown.jpg|center|thumb|500px700px|Traditional Hill training, focusing on high intensity on the way up and easy back down. Power data from Stryd, Heart Rate from [[Wahoo TICKR Run]], elevation/distance/pace from GPS using [[Suunto Spartan Ultra]].]]
Another interesting use for Stryd is to provide more even pacing on hilly courses. The graph below shows me attempting to keep an even effort based on the Stryd power estimate. My goal was to keep my intensity at about the same level as a running at 8:30 min/mile pace on level ground, which at the time of this run is about 200-210 watts and about 135-140 BPM heart rate. You can see that I was moderately successful, though both my heart rate and estimated power were a higher than my target. I was surprised by just how slow I had to go up the hill to compensate for the slope. You can see this more accurately in the lower image that's looking at the Stryd pace data. Even though my pace has dropped to 12:18 min/mile my heart rate and estimated power are both well above target. This means that to go up this hill with the same effort as 8:30 min/mile on the flat, I'd need to drop to quite a bit slower than 12:30 min/mile pace. Here the estimated power data is far more usable than heart rate, as I can tweak my pace moment by moment rather than waiting for my heart rate to adjust. I found that in practice, the Stryd estimated power output is remarkably effective at giving me real-time feedback of my exercise intensity on level ground and uphill. Though this is still a modeled, estimated power intensity, for uphill and level ground, it's far better than anything else available to us and is good enough for real world usage.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
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|[[File:StrydEvenUp.jpg|none|thumb|500px700px|Trying to maintain an even effort up the hill. Power data from Stryd, Heart Rate from [[Wahoo TICKR Run]], elevation/distance/pace from GPS using [[Suunto Spartan Ultra]]]]
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|[[File:StrydEvenUp-Stryd.jpg|none|thumb|500px700px|The same hill repeat with data from Stryd.]]
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Sadly, things are not quite so rosy on the downhill sections. The graph below shows a hill repeat where I took it easy on the way up, and then pushed the pace hard on the way down. You can see that during the downhill section, my heart rate has risen a little, but the estimated power output has dropped massively. You can see my pace a little more accurately on the lower chart that uses the Stryd data, and my pace is hitting 6:30 min/mile. This matches up with my overall experience of Stryd, which consistently underestimates my exercise intensity for downhill sections of my run. This is a little limiting, as it means I come to use Stryd to pace myself when running downhill. I'm reasonably confident that Stryd will update their model to improve this, but it is currently a noteworthy shortcoming.
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; border: none;"
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|[[File:StrydEasyUpHardDown.jpg| center |thumb|500px700px|Easy up the hill, and high intensity fast downhill running. Power data from Stryd, Heart Rate from [[Wahoo TICKR Run]], elevation/distance/pace from GPS using [[Suunto Spartan Ultra]].]]
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|[[File:StrydEasyUpHardDown-stryd.jpg|none|thumb|500px700px|The same hill repeat with data from Stryd.]]
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=Stryd Power Estimate or Heart Rate?=
