My initial reaction when looking at the S1 Foot Pod was, “No Way”. I mean, it looks like some type of fancy pedometer. And I use one, the Omron HJ-112 Digital Premium Pedometer, and I know it’s not totally accurate when it comes to distance because it’s based on your pre-set stride.

To my surprise, this S1 Foot Pod is very accurate, right out of the box, and without calibration! How do I know? I went for a walk today with the Foot Pod and my Magellan eXplorist 210 Handheld GPS, which has the accurate WAAS system. The discrepancy between the two devices was 0.025 miles. That’s very small! And with no calibration? It’s even more unbelivable! For me and distance logging, tenths of a mile are all I’m concerned about anyway.

As far as weight, I didn’t even notice it. It’s very light and I put it on my left foot, which is not my dominant foot. Size-wise, I initially felt a little embarassed because the S1 is just a little bit smaller than a Twinkie, but now it doesn’t bother me. It’s so light that I don’t even notice that it’s there.

Battery life is rated at 20 hours.

One word of caution: Just make sure to verify that the unit is off when you’re done. Press the red button and hold it down until the green light goes off. And double check it with your Polar watch, just to be sure.

Highly recommended for walkers, joggers, and runners!

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Update: It’s one year later and I’ve got this now calibrated to about 0.015 miles. Just make sure to do your initial calibration on a flat surface with no hills. And it’s best to calibrate it every time you switch shoes as well. Overall I’m still very impressed!

I’ve had the S1 foot pod for about a month and used it for about 120 miles or so of running. I’ve found it to be very accurate out of the box and easy to use. I am not-sensitive enough to notice the weight differential between my feet and I forget it’s there. I’ve ran in a few rain showers (not downpours, but definitely some rain) and not had any issues with the S1. While the S1 is over 0, it’s a great investment in terms of the wealth of data and the flexibility it offers. It’s helping me “learn” pace in terms of cadence and effort into actual min/mile numbers and it offers the flexibility of performing a speed workout anywere. I highly recommend the S1 if you are someone who is training for specific time goals in races. If not, then you may not need such a device – but then you probably wouldn’t be here reading reviews would you?

This thing keeps me motivated to run since I want to see those miles pile up week after week! While calibrating it on an indoor track, I found that it was very accurate as is. Only complaint is that it is somewhat pricey.