As an amateur runner, I was an enthusiastic user of the Stryd running power meter (that’s it above, it clips to your running shoe), but I recently fell out of love with it, and ditched it completely. To be clear, I love the idea of running to power, just I think Stryd doesn’t offer enough to keep me there. Here is my thinking:
- As an Apple Watch user, I’ve figured out that the Power metric on the watch is very good. Looking at the DC Rainmaker chart showing Apple Watch power vs Stryd power, they track each other very closely indeed. Therefore, my watch can now more or less give me the same information as my Stryd did
- Stryd gives more accurate distance and pace than GPS. But ironically, since I’ve got into running to power and not to pace, I don’t really care about that! I just set off and stick to my power range
- Stryd has a wind detector to compensate for wind, but I don’t think it makes much difference – except when wet, when mine goes wrong totally, messing up my run stats (this is a known thing). Basically the hole blocks with water, I think, causing the power reading to be useless for that run
- Stryd has a good, slick app, that wants to be your “running HQ”. It has an easy workout builder, calendar, good stats/metrics etc. But it is not as good as the best-in-class running apps, and having tried it, I’m happier using Apple Fitness for basic data, Strava for sharing my results with friends, and Runalyze as my master “geeky” dashboard
- Stryd has an optional subscription, which you get 6 months of for free when you buy one, but to me it seems they are struggling to add much value to justify a subscription service (“Vote for your working of the month! Here are the results of your workout of the month vote!” etc), and the things it does offer – auto race calculation, auto workout building, for instance – aren’t that great (oh, and the workout building feature is buggy)
- I’m wary of companies selling hardware then selling subscriptions to use it, as the non-subscribers by definition become a second tier of users
- Stryd’s customer service can take a while, and they seemed a bit standoffish and rude to me for a subscription service on the couple of occasions I had need to speak to them
- Finally, and pretty importantly really, I like not having to remember to charge and clip on an extra running device – always good to keep things simple!
So – Stryd taught me of the usefulness of power metrics in running, but I think if you own an Apple Watch at least, you don’t really need it. (I don’t know how accurate Garmin and Coros etc are or how easy to use, but the DC Rainmaker chart linked above is a good source of info.)
I’d say if you’re interested in using a power metric in your running, read up on what power can do for you, build some workouts that include a power range on Fitness on your Apple Watch (it’s easy), and get the benefits without the expense of an extra piece of hardware, or the potential cost of another subscription.
By the way, this is only my opinion. My wife, who is a better runner than me but who has an older – now unreliable – Stryd, has snapped my not-so-old one off me eagerly!