Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance
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Backstory- had a Garmin forerunner and loved it. Got a fantastic deal on Epix pro gen 2 51mm and really loved it at first. I think my biggest issue was I run, walk, hike, play some sports but I feel like I use 10% of what the Epix can do. I also just fell out of love with Garmin. I tried a couple different watches and they were all similar.
I have been wanting to try a Suunto and when I saw reviews for the Race S I decided to try it. I really liked it but it was honestly too small for my wrists. I saw the Race and liked the larger size and Sapphire face. I saw HR was getting some negative reviews but I have a chest strap so I decided to give it a shot. First impressions were it looked much sleeker, the display was better, and I really like the app more than Garmin’s. I have been wearing it for four days and I have no complaints. I actually did some runs and activities with both on and the results were pretty much identical.
I guess I have already made up my mind as far as I think it looks better, for what I do it has similar results and features, looking for something new, and the app just is more “me”. Most importantly, it makes me want to workout. Kinda like a fresh start. I know this might sound weird but I think I just need someone in this community to tell me I’m making the right move. Also, any insights about features that might be under the radar for someone new to Suunto. I appreciate any feedback.
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@Gravity27407 Funny, but I know how you are feeling. So some things Suunto is doing good, maybe even better than Garmin:
- TSS based training in the App, so no Training Peaks needed anymore
- Zonesense
- Mermaid Mode
Have fun trying it!
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@Gravity27407 said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
tell me I’m making the right move
You are making the right move
It does one good to break things up now and then. To alter the mind numbing routines. I’ve also come from a, mostly, Garmin world. When asked in this forum about what I missed in the (now 4 weeks old) Race S that is in the FR955, I couldn’t come up with much. Though, I began with the ease with which you can copy over the .fit training files from watch to computer through USB.
Explaining that I have every single .fit file from the last 11 years and that I used to run them through a local copy of Runalyze and later MyTourbook - that writing made me ponder the sanity of this obsessive behaviour. Nowadays I only collected the files because of… collecting…
Three days ago I took the decision to leave the FR955 in the closet (unless doing Structured Workouts; where Suunto suck) and only use the Race S. No .fit files gathered since then! I also resisted the siren call to hook Suunto up with Runalyze; been using their Web-version the last six years.
From now on I’ll only use the Suunto App and my normal pen and paper for the training diary.
And I feel so, so liberated!
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Hey,
I was in the same spot as you, as I recently jumped from fr965 to Suunto. Few years back I was already a Suunto user (Suunto spartan ultra), then I jumped to Garmin (fenix 5) and had a fenix 6 pro for the last 3 years. This year, about 6 months ago, I bought fr965, a flagship watch, but I have struggled with it for 5 months. It just didn’t feel good on my hand.
There was too much data to work around, all that data was poorly interpreted, app was horrible and just a feel on the wrist was off. And I kind of always wanted to go back to Suunto to see how it is after all those years that I was at Garmin and I guess this was the right moment. Found Race titanium, traded my fr965 for it, and I have never been happier. Feel on the hand is awesome, simplicity of menus, data, interpretation, app, design, all of it, is simply better. I’ve never had problems with optical hr, it’s as accurate as it was on forerunner. I don’t miss any feature, all the data is served back so that I understand it and can use it (that was not how it was before). And probably the best one is ZoneSense. Superior to everything that Garmin has. -
@Gravity27407
Garmin user: Follow exactly what the watch tells them to do, “please give me more numbers to tell me if I am trained or not and how hard to exercise”Suunto user: Wakes up sees a beautiful day. I slept well and feel great. Briefly checks TSB…going for a long fun exercise today!
A bit of sarcasm there but I owned and tested an Epix 2 when released for 8 months and found the experience frustrating. The most telling was PacePro, which uses pace and altitude for setting pacing for a race. I thought this would be the most helpful for my next ultra. What I found were the constant alerts and reminders to speed up and slow down took the fun and joy out of the Race. You really don’t need much to train and most importantly need to prevent overtraining. To be honest I would prefer a very light, long, long battery life Suunto without OHR and I would be perfectly happy.
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@Brad_Olwin said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
To be honest I would prefer a very light, long, long battery life Suunto without OHR and I would be perfectly happy.
A3P:
- light - I don’t think it’s heavy
- long, long battery life - check!
- without OHR - check check!
If only a run with the A3P (and the appropriate chest strap) returned zone sense data…
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@wakarimasen A3P is not light and the battery life is woefully inadequate!
I want:
MicroLED screen (2 sizes 33.5mm and 36.3mm)
No OHR! 11-12mm watch height max
High grade titanium and sapphire glass
Ultra lightweight nylon strap
Solar charging
Battery life of 150h dual band large screen and 100h smaller screen
Software for recovery tests using HR belt
Zonesense integrated into HR/Pace/Power Ring
Don’t care about sleep tracking or steps.
This watch would be called the Race Ultra or Ultra RaceVector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
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@Brad_Olwin is that what you’re currently testing but can’t speak about
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@jw-cou I wish!
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@Brad_Olwin said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
@wakarimasen A3P is not light and the battery life is woefully inadequate!
I want:
MicroLED screen (2 sizes 33.5mm and 36.3mm)
No OHR! 11-12mm watch height max
High grade titanium and sapphire glass
Ultra lightweight nylon strap
Solar charging
Battery life of 150h dual band large screen and 100h smaller screen
Software for recovery tests using HR belt
Zonesense integrated into HR/Pace/Power Ring
Don’t care about sleep tracking or steps.
This watch would be called the Race Ultra or Ultra Race…and I thought I was picky!
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@Brad_Olwin said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
I want:
MicroLED screen(2 sizes 33.5mm and 36.3mm)
No OHR! 11-12mm watch height max
High grade titanium and sapphire glass
Ultra lightweight nylon strap
Solar charging
Battery life of 150h dual band large screen and 100h smaller screen
Software for recovery tests using HR belt
Zonesense integrated into HR/Pace/Power Ring
Don’t care about sleep tracking or steps.
This watch would be called theRace Ultra or Ultra RaceYes! Except MIP, please! A Vertical S Ultra would be amazing. But I know I’m dreaming…
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@duffman19 micro LED should have AMOLED resolution and brightness with MIP battery life. Why use old tech?
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@Brad_Olwin It’s not the battery life, but the quality of light and everyday interaction that’s important to me. LED displays only work when they emit light. Micro LED or AMOLED, they’re a bit too harsh for something I’d wear all day. I prefer my watches to look and work like watches and the reflectivity of an always-on MIP display provides a softer, more pleasing quality to my eye. Even in dark environments I prefer the gentle backlight of MIPs over the intense output of LEDs.
Sure, the resolution of an LED display is great, but I’m not editing photos on my wrist. I know I’m in the minority, but I’m hopeful Suunto will continue to make MIP based watches. New tech isn’t always better tech.
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@Gravity27407 I’ve never been a fan of garmin so obviously I’m going to be a bit biased - but as you are asking in a Suunto forum I figure you know this
For me, Suunto and Garmin simply have different ethos’s to how they interact with their customers’ data
Garmin handles your data like an instagram filter - it gives you a few ways to see ‘prettified’ interpretations which look nice and make you feel good about yourself. But they are all Garmin’s way of viewing your data so if you want more control / understanding so you can grow beyond this walled garden it’s a sudden big change. Personally I feel this results in a lot of people never growing beyond the garmin world view.
Suunto is more like photoshop in that what you get is raw data and you need to learn the tools that work for you to help you achieve your goals. Suunto follows the “de-facto” TSB approach to training load as invented by Training Peaks which takes a little time to understand but it also has links to a vast open community of services that help you get the best from your training data. So you aren’t wrapped in a warm, fuzzy feeling about your training but you get to learn how to best use your data pretty quickly.
You may find you are happy with the Suunto App itself, or Strava. You may find Training Peaks or Runalyze or some other platform. But, unlike Garmin, Suunto will be your honest sidekick supporting what works best for you and not having “opinions” or hiding stuff from you
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@Gravity27407 said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
I know this might sound weird but I think I just need someone in this community to tell me I’m making the right move.
I’ve been through your predicament as well. Actually, I still switch back and forth between brands and often run with two watches (because I like to compare devices (and because I use GPS traces for mapping purposes - the more traces the better (usually))).
The brand that always ends up back on my wrist is Suunto. Sometimes I think I miss a certain feature from brand X, like the overly-detailed mapping features of Garmin or the connectivity of an Apple Watch. But I always find myself missing the simplicity of a Suunto.
I’ll give you two analogies that you’ll often hear around here. The first is that Suuntos really feel like a tool where other brands feel like gadgets. Suuntos are reliable (*discounting software update hiccups), well-buit devices that do less, but do it well. Other brands do more (often much, much more), but don’t add positively to the user experience or the intended purpose of enjoying your preferred outdoor activities.
The second is that Suunto is like a Mac where Garmin is a PC. Everything on a Suunto is there for a reason and presented in a simple, easy to understand way. Everything that is excluded from a Suunto is, presumably, excluded for a reason. You get what you get in a nice package. Meanwhile, Garmin includes every little thing they can think up. This is overwhelming and unnecessary for most users. However, it can be a plus if you know what you’re doing. The ability to dial in each and every feature exactly how you want it can be great. Also, having full access to files on the watch through a cable connection to a computer is great. I love being able to edit OSM maps one day and upload the updates to my Garmin the next.
All this is to say that, yes, you probably made the right decision. But, also, don’t worry if you decide to slip a Garmin on your wrist every once in a while. Or any other brand for that matter. As you noted, the fresh start of a new device can be motivational.
The only other thing I’d add is that the Suunto App is a pretty good place to dump your activity data. The TSB formulas are pretty universal and can be applied and edited to imported activities. This gives you the freedom to use whatever device you want. With Garmin Connect, only activities from a Garmin device count towards all of their fitness tracking mumbo jumbo.
(Also, what @far-blue ↑ said!)
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Also, if you sync your workouts with https://intervals.icu or https://trainingpeaks.com, you can easily move between devices. So even if you later change your mind, you have clear continuity.
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@Brad_Olwin said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
@wakarimasen A3P is not light and the battery life is woefully inadequate!
I want:
MicroLED screen (2 sizes 33.5mm and 36.3mm)
No OHR! 11-12mm watch height max
High grade titanium and sapphire glass
Ultra lightweight nylon strap
Solar charging
Battery life of 150h dual band large screen and 100h smaller screen
Software for recovery tests using HR belt
Zonesense integrated into HR/Pace/Power Ring
Don’t care about sleep tracking or steps.
This watch would be called the Race Ultra or Ultra Racejust let me know your venmo so I can buy two of these
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@far-blue said in Former Garmin user, looking for reassurance:
But they are all Garmin’s way of viewing your data
And besides that: If just one piece of Garmin‘s data collection does not work (e.g. sleep tracking) the whole ‚system‘ won’t tell you anything useful. While using a Garmin it almost always told me, that I should rest (mainly because my sleep was tracked completely wrong) - sometimes for days
