New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings

David l

@Shuhite possibly due to my ‘extra padding’

Jonathan C

This seems like a good place to put this: with the launch of the SR (I wasn’t active on the forum when SV launched) there’s an observable influx of new Suunto users here, and, at the risk of being too pedantic, I can see this phenomenon go both ways.

A flood of complaints, some valid, directed at Suunto’s shortcomings, usually from the perspective of a more feature-rich brand. Forum moderators and insiders (to their credit) defend the work and philosophy of the company by citing past record, and may at times create an atmosphere that feels like you have to learn and accept a certain etiquette to voice your opinions here. New users are discouraged, frustrated, or in the extreme case resort to trolling.
Some of those same complaints, suggestions, etc. actually make it to Suunto R&D and push them harder. Suunto’s appeal broadens; everyone benefits.

I sure hope it’s the latter but that is predicated on keeping this forum open and civilized for discussions concerning the sports and gear we’re passionate about.

@David-Lown Haha, I am quite skinny yea. My wrist size is 18cm, but yea I’m lean. Guess I should do some more strength training on my non existent non-running days…

@Jonathan-C Agreed, I come from Garmin, tried the Race, but yea. I would like it to be polished some more. The one I got is defective though, I’m still on the fence about reordering or just waiting to see what Suunto does next. As I made clear in my first post on this forum, I really like Suunto, and want to see them succeed. It all started when I worked with a bunch of awesome Fins in the desert in Eritrea back in 2014. Made me fall in love with all things Finnish.

craigeggleton

@wmichi I also received the Garmin nylon ultra fit today. Feels really good a touch better than the Coros. Alright I’m through purchasing straps…I’ve got a solid rotation…for now!

@leafs93 incorrect… S9PP, SV and SR all use the same charger

General_Witt

Battery report for you guys.
This is after 6 days from the last charge:

6 hours of activity (4 outdoor with maps and 2 indoor gym)
Phone notifications on
24/7 heart rate monitoring, sleep spO2 off
DnD mode set from 21 in the evening to 8 in the morning
Always on display off, tilt of the wrist to see the time

My conclusion is that the watch with an average use lasts 12 days, maybe 13

ChrisA

@General_Witt after 15 days with AoD on and about 7h of Performance GPS activities per week, this is my second time charging, so I get about 7-8 days from one charge, which is better than any other AMOLED watch I used recently

Brad_Olwin

@FoleyRose I would argue no watch has good enough OHR to use for training, but will agree that Suunto OHR is highly susceptible to cold. I agree about alerts for intervals and Suunto guides, however, I do think if you have your phone present and have headphones you will get audible alerts if selected on the watch. Not an ideal solution as I would prefer vibration as well and prefer not to wear headphones.

General_Witt

@ChrisA I find the tilt the wrist to see the time very comfortable. May I ask you why would you prefer the AoD option? The impact on the battery is very noticeable.

ChrisA

@General_Witt I am used to glance down to my watch quite often to check the time, mainly while teaching classes (here in Germany all principals are teachers and actually teach in classes) to see how much time is left in the lesson. And I just like a sportswatch to be a watch and show the time . I can live with charging for an hour or two once a week.

David l

@ChrisA said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:

@General_Witt I am used to glance down to my watch quite often to check the time, mainly while teaching classes (here in Germany all principals are teachers and actually teach in classes) to see how much time is left in the lesson. And I just like a sportswatch to be a watch and show the time . I can live with charging for an hour or two once a week.

I find having a clock at the back of the classroom is better than looking at a watch - the kids notice and start to fidget as they think the lesson is ending soon.

ChrisA

@David-l that’s right and that’s why I love to just “glance” . Unfortunately for me the clocks in my school are all on the front side, besides the blackboard and you can’t easily detach them, because they’re integrated in the walls.

Dušan Ković

I finally got SR this weekend. I did only one walk, no running or anything similar, but will test it further. First impressions:

pros:

Display is amazing. I really needed this, it looks and feels light years ahead of watches before it. Touch screen is finally usable.
Battery life estimates that suunto gave are on conservative side. I got 46h estimate on 97% battery in Performance mode
SR is much more comfortable than any other suunto watch before it in the last 6-7 years. (I didn’t used SV and S7), it sits really nice on hand, and default strap is really good.
Daily health tracking - HR, Resources, sleep, etc is much better than before. On previous suunto watches all of this was more or less useless (S9PP was showing HR 120bpm while I was sitting on my PC).
UI and software side upgrade is really good. Lag is really brought to minimum and if we compare it with previous watches it is noticeable improvement. I really like this, not mobile phone like, but really good.
Maps are really nice, I usually don’t need them, only gpx track. But maps will be usable when there are multiple ways to go on the route, finding alternate ways and similar. Watch has 11GB free from start (missing 5GB), but that is more than enough for map storage, at least for my needs.

cons:

Custom battery mode is gone (or I did not find it, or there is other way to customize battery) - PLEASE bring it back. I always set screen to turn off for hiking, walking and all activities that I don’t need real time data.
Different values between watch and SA on multiple stats. I saw that some users already reported that and I hope it will be fixed in the next update. Which ones are correct watch or SA values?
First update and map downloads are incredibly slow. I know this is something that user doesn’t do so often, but it was REALLY slow.
for the love of whatever you believe in BACKUP CUSTOM SPORT MODES. I had to recreate those too many times.

questions:

Is watch wifi on only when watch is on charger? Does it impact battery in any way while not on charger?
Only SR fancy watch face has that movable always on display to avoid burn in, will other watch faces get movable always on versions?
Some elements of the data screen during exercises are always on the same position on the screen - eg. HR bar on the edge, bottom white field, etc. How to avoid burn in of these areas?
Are resources tracked during exercises? I have gaps in the resources graph when I had activity (I use Verity sense for HR). Are activity resource drop included in the main resources
HR bar on the map screen? Ever? Not related to the SR, but there are so many requests for this since I have suunto watch.

As you can see I am really satisfied. After S9B, S9P and S9PP did not felt as an upgrades, just incremental pushes… Race now feels like an upgrade. I hope Suunto gets on its feet financially from new generation watches (SV and SR).

Egika

@Dušan-Ković said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:

questions:

Is watch wifi on only when watch is on charger? Does it impact battery in any way while not on charger?

Currently yes. Don’t know if this might change some time. I have asked for emergency map download, when on the road and no charger with me…

Only SR fancy watch face has that movable always on display to avoid burn in, will other watch faces get movable always on versions?

yes

Are resources tracked during exercises? I have gaps in the resources graph when I had activity (I use Verity sense for HR). Are activity resource drop included in the main resources

I don’t have any gaps. And resources drop for me during activity as they should. So don’t exactly know the reason for this difference you are seeing. Let’s check again after FW update.

HR bar on the map screen? Ever? Not related to the SR, but there are so many requests for this since I have suunto watch.

No idea. Other data on the map screen would be welcome too. Like TBT information or other data field of choice…

wmichi

@Dušan-Ković The stats in SA seem correct. As far as I can tell, training stats seem to be off by one day on the watch. Should be fixed in next update. Resources during exercise are tracked (the resource value after workout is lower), but still sometimes there are those gaps in the graph. I did multiple runs and roller skiing sessions since I have the SR. For roller skiing I always have gaps, but not for the runs.

macdav

@Egika

@Egika said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:

    Are resources tracked during exercises? I have gaps in the resources graph when I had activity (I use Verity sense for HR). Are activity resource drop included in the main resources
I don’t have any gaps. And resources drop for me during activity as they should. So don’t exactly know the reason for this difference you are seeing. Let’s check again after FW update.

I have the same problem i some activities, like golf, somebody wrote the same for rollerscating, I think…

Dušan Ković

@Egika I got gaps in the resources when I turned on Walking as exercise, first thing, just to test watch. Last night I did mobility training (Stretching as exercise) and it did not have a gap. Maybe a bug, I have no idea.

Any ways to turn off screen completely during exercise?

For sleep tracking, I’ve noticed that it gives me a lot of Awake parts of the night. I usually go to a toilet/drink water once or twice during the night, but Race is giving me some random Awake events. It gives correct started/ended sleep times, I usually don’t care about rem, deep, etc. But I would like to have correct awake portions.

Also Race doesn’t track steps during the night. I woke up and I had 0 steps and 0 active calories spent. But I should have some steps, because I went to the toilet. Not a major problem, but previous watches tracked those.

Anyone has any advices on setting the resources correctly? I know that resting HR setting influences resources, but if I put my measured resting HR (45bpm) resources never go up, only deplete, even if I’m laying on the bed and watching TV.

Egika

@Dušan-Ković said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:

Resting HR seems to be key for sleep and resources detection working properly.
When set too low, the watch will assume you woke up in the middle of the night and also that you are active all the time.
When lying on the couch, what is your actual average HR?
Try setting resting HR like 5 bpm higher and see if it works better.

Dušan Ković

@Egika I measured my resting HR in the morning, after I woke up, and used polar Verity sense. I know it is optical, but it should work very good. I used polar fitness test in their app, it lasts 5 mins and it gave me 45bpm as average. While i sit on PC or watch TV my HR is around 50-55. I changed my resting HR to 50bpm now, so I will see how it handels resources and sleep today.

Is there better way to do this? This is too much guess work if algorithms don’t work with measured values correctly.

Suunto should do some adaptive resting HR, watch itself should define what is resting HR so all other features work correctly.