Offline Map Download Speed

withManish

A quick question about the download speed of a map on the Suunto S.
I have a 100 Mbps connection (up/download speed). How much time does it take to download a typical 1 GB map?

I found the download speed on the watch is super slow compared to regular downloads on my computer.

Can you share your experience?

Most of the time, I keep the watch next to the router for the fastest and strongest signal possible and also keep it on charge.

Mff73

@withManish
speed is more linked to the data writing into the watch (and potentially any unpacking process) rather than router speed.

Squirrel

@withManish said:

How much time does it take to download a typical 1 GB map?

~1 hour

withManish

@Mff73 yeah, you are right, and I am sure they have a very slow-write-speed chip in the watches.

elbee

Downloading of maps is so slow on my race s that I’m really wondering whether wifi is used or bluetooth via my phone. Maybe the next time I update the maps I should monitor my network to be sure.

Slow writing speed doesn’t explain it for me. Even writing a gig to an old usb stick is much faster than downloading a gig of mapdata to my watch.

maszop

Who says it’s just downloading? There’s unpacking, indexing, and all that.

And all of that on very energy-efficient (slow) hardware.

Maps are downloaded only once.
Looks like a classic first world problem

withManish

@elbee, of course, the slowest possible WiFi too; in reality, you don’t need such WiFi, which takes more time than Bluetooth or wired …

withManish

@maszop, there are updates to the maps too, and they take the same amount of time. Once, a support engineer told me it should not take more than 10-15 minutes, and since then I have been waiting for that good day

elbee

@maszop said:

Who says it’s just downloading? There’s unpacking, indexing, and all that.

Unpacking? Maybe. Indexing? What’s indexing? But I doubt the downloaded maps are raw osm data that need heavy processing before it can be used on a watch.

And all of that on very energy-efficient (slow) hardware.

Maps are downloaded only once.
Looks like a classic first world problem

Sure. First world problem. At most inconvenient when you are abroad and forgot to download the region you are in.

It comes down to this for me. Maps downloading on my suunto is slow. Much slower than on my previous watch. Would I want it to be faster? Yes. Is this the most important “problem” to fix? Nope. Makes this my watch less than my previous watch? Nope.

maszop

@withManish You don’t have to wait.
Maps download in the background. Plenty of time for those thousand ‘urgent’ things

withManish

@maszop sometimes you realise at the moment to download maps and … Yeah, otherwise this is just a discussion.

Ldm Public

@maszop said:

Maps are downloaded only once.

Hi,

Can someone confirm if maps are downloaded “once” or if they are automatically updated?

I personally own a Race S for more than two years and I have never seen any maps update, despite Suunto maps for Race S are based on openStreetMap datas which are regularly updated.

elbee

@Ldm-Public

They are updated. Not very frequent. Last time was a couple of months ago when more labels were added to the maps. It, again, took ages before they were downloaded on my race s. I think they are automatically downloaded when your watches behave different is on the charger and has a wifi connection.

Squirrel

@Ldm-Public said:

I personally own a Race S for more than two years and I have never seen any maps update

If you own Race S since before Mar 2026, and you had some map(s) downloaded, then updates are available in Suunto app, Map tab > Library > Offline maps
Open one of your downloaded regions and if there is a newer map than installed in the watch, you can update if from there.
Plus there are now offline map downloads available for the phone app itself.

Maps update seems mediocre to me. From what I see (at least North America region) the maps were released in Q2 2023 when Vertical came out, and then in Mar 2026.

https://forum.suunto.com/topic/14876/maps-update-rollout-march-2026-staged

Don’t know if other regions received any map updates in between or not, but I think even annual map update is a bit too long. At least every 6 months would be more reasonable, but who knows with Suunto’s resources. Maybe I’m just too spoiled by Organic maps and their 3-4 weeks map updates.

Ldm Public

Squirrel, thanks for your answer and for the forum link, which contains a very useful screenshot clearly showing how map updates are displayed in the Suunto app .

Personally, I think Suunto watches and the smartphone app lack documentation.
I’m glad this forum exists, with so many advanced Suunto users!