Charging on the go

[peegee]

Is it possible to charge Race or any other suunto for that matter, during activity?
Later in the year I will hopefully be taking part in an ultra that might take over 40h.
I know that with the right preference the watch should be able to do the job, but I don’t want to take any chances️
I’ve done a few tests but It didn’t charge, I’m not sure if it is because of the flimsy charger contacts which sometime doesn’t charge well when static on a table, so I’m not sure what to think when the charger is on the wrist and moving on the go…. Or is it simply just not possible?
BTW is it possible to see battery charge during activity? On my customized modes I fail to see battery status

[far-blue]

I’m pretty sure you can’t charge the watch while an activity is active.

I vaguely remember that if you open the control panel while in an activity you get to see the predicted hours left in the same way you do before you start an activity but I could be wrong. I’m pretty confident you can change the battery mode though - as long as you don’t have navigation enabled.

You could, in theory, switch the battery mode to ‘tour’ when you stop at aid stations (if you are planning on stopping there for a notable period of time) then switch back to performance mode when you set off again.

I haven’t tested but you might get more battery life if you use an external HR monitor as well.

An alternative approach, given how fast the new watches charge, would be to stop the activity at one of the aid stations, let it charge for 20mins (which on my Race S takes me from 10% to about 70% charge) then start a second activity for the rest of the race. You can then combine the gpx files into a single activity later using 3rd party tools if you wanted to for upload to strava etc.

[Mauerwegler]

@peegee Interesting topic! Going back two or three watch generations, I‘m sure the Spartan Ultra and Suunto 9 can be charged during training: the magnet in the charger (size is like a 4x2 Lego brick) is very strong and won’t fall off. But the four contact pins are spring-supported (means they can be pushed down) and I doubt that the charger is robust enough to withstand sweat for long.

[The_77]

@peegee you must be able to, because Francois did during the Tor des Geants according to Suunto.

And then I assumed tried to get the compass working immediately after.

[inkognito]

@peegee I can charge my Vertical during activity. And the battery status is shown on the top of the Control panel (long press the lower button) in every sport mode (even custom).

[Danny poleg]

@peegee
I just did a short experiment
I started running training while wearing a heart rate belt.
I took the watch off my wrist and put it on charge, it showed that it was charging and after 2 seconds it went to the training screen so I continue to see the data

[isazi]

As other said, you can definitely charge during activity. With older generation watches, it wasn’t really useful, because the watches could not record activities longer than the max battery life (without losing data), but with current generation watches is totally fine.

[far-blue]

ooh, cool feature

[Ecki D.]

Tested it this morning - now we would need a bike mount with charger

[Stefano M64]

@Ecki-D said in Charging on the go:

a bike mount with charger

there are several 3D print holders on the web people made for different Suunto watches, they could be adapted to include the charger