Race 3S & Race 3 rumours
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People are not able to judge watches on feature quality, so they judge watches on feature quantity. And then buy a Garmin.
TBF I never had a Garmin crashing mid-activity, rebooting during my sleep or getting crazy because I plugged it into the wrong charger…
And don’t get me starting about Body Battery / Resources and Sleep tracking…That said, If the new Race S does have a better HR sensor, a faster CPU and therefore feature parity with the Race 2 / Vertical 2 and a reliable charger, I’m all in…
Both of the garmins I owned did crash. The 965 only once, just like the race s I now have. Charging a garmin was a nightmare. The cable could pop out of the connector for no apparent reason. Have to say, the Suunto charger isn’t any better.
You actually look at body battery, resources and sleep tracking?HR sensor is easy. If you now have a watch with an optical that works for you then the race s will probably also work. If your current watch doesn’t work for you, neither will the race s. It’s more person dependent than sensor. I wouldn’t buy a new watch because some marketing says it’s the best sensor ever. (I never had a watch with optical sensor that works for me)
The Suunto charger isn’t any better; in reality, it is sh*t, so the magnet isn’t that powerful. A little move, and it’s gone; in the USB-C area, they are still giving us the old connector; WiFi is so poor that map downloads take hours to finish (Most of the time I put watch in router itself to no poor single issue).
HR doesn’t work properly, and SpO2 takes too long to check. Multiple warnings are needed to fix the watch on the wrist. The reading comes up at 80-85 most of the time, while a regular machine shows 95-98 easily in a few seconds.
The main issue is not that the hardware is still good enough to work, but that too many features add unnecessary load on it, and it finally crashes. Let it be a modular software system; I download what I want rather than loading everything onto the watch.
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Both of the garmins I owned did crash.
I didn’t say my Garmin did not crash. But it was more predictable. Actually my Fenix 6S Pro never crashed, neither my Vivoactive 4 that I had before. The Epix Pro did crash on some versions, creating a 10km loop from the current starting point.
But never did it restart out of the blue…The cable could pop out of the connector for no apparent reason. Have to say, the Suunto charger isn’t any better.
Never had this cable problem, but I read about it a lot.
You actually look at body battery, resources and sleep tracking?
In fact, I do. Not really as an actionable item, but I like to look at it. And if only to make sure I get enough night sleep in. Despite the fact the my Race S struggles to get awake phases like the toilet break, I have several occations where It detects a nap in the evening before going to bed - usually as I’m watching something - and adds the same time slot as night sleep. As we cannot edit anything about this in Suunto App, I now have double the time added to my sleep, that has been falsely detected in the first place…
HR sensor is easy. If you now have a watch with an optical that works for you then the race s will probably also work. If your current watch doesn’t work for you, neither will the race s.
It’s more person dependent than sensor.My Fenix 6S Pro has been spot on. The Epix Pro as well, unless the firmware decided to do something different. (Long ongoing issue that HR is detected way too low for 10-20 minutes until it finally detects it correctly.)
The Race S can be very accurate, even more so after the algorithm change, but it can be way off. Usually I war a chest strap during “real” activities. But I don’t want to have to wear something during a commute ride or a hike. And there it should just be reliable.So, yeah, if the newer sensor eliminates those misdetections I’m a happy camper…
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@2b2bff Wrist sensors are unreliable during cycling activities anyway so I wouldn’t trust anything but an arm or chest strap.
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too many features add unnecessary load on it, and it finally crashes. Let it be a modular software system; I download what I want rather than loading everything onto the watch.
Features that are not immediately used don’t really add any load. I am a software engineer with 30+ years of experience and the above doesn’t make much sense to me. The reasons for the crash are likely way more nuanced and difficult to reproduce; otherwise they would have been fixed long time ago. My strong suspicion is that that the root cause is in fact due to an attempt to make the software more modular with parts of the software running as independent apps. The mechanism to make it modular uses a web app like execution environment with Javascript and garbage collection (Duktape Engine), which I imagine is hard to make work 100% reliably on a watch hardware with such limited resources - both CPU and memory. The reliability issues likely arise at where this engine is stitched to the rest of the operating system.
Suunto: Ambit, Ambit 3 Peak, 9 Baro, Race S, Race Ti, Vertical 2 Ti
Garmin: Forerunner 210, Forerunner 610, Fenix 6X, Fenix 7X Ti -
I presume those are all assumptions (pun intended
)I only have 29 years IT experience but I do know that ther are quite some OSes that become more unstable if storage space is limited. So, even if a user don’t use added features it might add to crashes or reboots. (notice the might)
And yes, a watch has limited resources… compared to modern computers. But javascript and garbage collection (which you don’t approve) are quite old and run on computers with even less resources.But making software work 100% bug free is next to impossible. It’s also a human resource and marketing priority issue if bugs will be fixed.
Suunto t3c | Suunto Ambit 3 sport | Tomtom runner 2 | Garmin forerunner 935 | Garmin forerunner 965 | Suunto race s
Stryd | Bryton Gardia R300L | Polar H9 | Polar oh1+ | Wahoo bolt v2 | 4iiii precision 3 -
For what I’ve read, Race 3S (aka OW261) will be RUN 2.0
Wait and see !
Interesting. Perhaps Suunto is killing the Race S and mantaining the Run with everything (navigation and S+) and the new plattform. That will make sense.
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@dreamer_ Contrary I hope they will keep one watch model away from S+. As an additional plus would be it does not crash due to buggy or too many S+
Suunto Race 2 (Titanium Trail)
Suunto Vertical (Titanium Solar Forest) -
For what I’ve read, Race 3S (aka OW261) will be RUN 2.0
Wait and see !
Interesting. Perhaps Suunto is killing the Race S and mantaining the Run with everything (navigation and S+) and the new plattform. That will make sense.
I don’t have any information on that, but my feeling is that the platform created for the Suunto Run has been stalled since they created OpenSuunto+ for the rest of the devices. The latest updates for that device don’t include any functionality, so my opinion is that the new Suunto Run 2.0 will use the platform for the rest of the line…
We won’t have to wait long to see where things are headed…
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@dreamer_ this is my speculation: Suunto Run 2 will be something more similar to Garmin Venue/Vivoactive. A watch for people that occasionally do sports, but also want (many) smartwatch function.
And therefore I think Suunto Run 2 will keep the same software platform of Run 1, which is built and will be developed for a different scope (more smartwatch-oriented)
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@dreamer_ Contrary I hope they will keep one watch model away from S+. As an additional plus would be it does not crash due to buggy or too many S+
I completely agree. When I mentioned S+, I was referring to features that the Run lacks and not how the OS is designed. It is clear that the S+ redesign is urgently needed—one free from the ridiculously small app limits (like in other brands), and free from the crashes. I understand that resolving things like these issues is central to the Run’s operating system.
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too many features add unnecessary load on it, and it finally crashes. Let it be a modular software system; I download what I want rather than loading everything onto the watch.
Features that are not immediately used don’t really add any load. I am a software engineer with 30+ years of experience and the above doesn’t make much sense to me. The reasons for the crash are likely way more nuanced and difficult to reproduce; otherwise they would have been fixed long time ago. My strong suspicion is that that the root cause is in fact due to an attempt to make the software more modular with parts of the software running as independent apps. The mechanism to make it modular uses a web app like execution environment with Javascript and garbage collection (Duktape Engine), which I imagine is hard to make work 100% reliably on a watch hardware with such limited resources - both CPU and memory. The reliability issues likely arise at where this engine is stitched to the rest of the operating system.
I am also coming from the IT field; I understand what you are talking about, but the issue is I don’t see any intention to focus on core issues and give solutions, rather carry forward as it is with new system as well.
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Perhaps Suunto is killing the Race S and mantaining the Run with everything (navigation and S+) and the new plattform.
I heard there is a successor to the Race S coming AND a Run 2.
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And yes, a watch has limited resources… compared to modern computers. But javascript and garbage collection (which you don’t approve) are quite old and run on computers with even less resources.
Garbage collection is problematic because of single thread execution environment of Duktape and the requirement to “stop the world” when it runs. Since Suunto embedded operating system is a real time system, “stopping the world” may have real consequences. That’s why many users reported the watch becoming sluggish shortly before it crashed.
Anyway, there is a lot of speculation on my part (aside from Javascript Duktape engine that has been confirmed based on fragments of the log output shared in the forum posts, for example here).
Suunto: Ambit, Ambit 3 Peak, 9 Baro, Race S, Race Ti, Vertical 2 Ti
Garmin: Forerunner 210, Forerunner 610, Fenix 6X, Fenix 7X Ti -
Perhaps Suunto is killing the Race S and mantaining the Run with everything (navigation and S+) and the new plattform.
I heard there is a successor to the Race S coming AND a Run 2.
Both could be true at the same time. It could mean that the Run 2 is coming—as a successor to the Race S. From what I’ve read the Run OS seems far more stable compared to what the flagships are running.
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I have a hypothetical question since there seems to be a lot of se in here.
IF (big IF) Suunto moves away from the old OS running in V1/V2/R1/R1S/R2 and instead Run future watches on the Run OS. What does that mean for the current line of watches? Can they be flushed with the new OS or are they relics (albeit working still, but still abandoned in a sense).
Wondering if I should return my V2 and just wait this out as my Run is working just as well as the day I bought it.
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I have a hypothetical question since there seems to be a lot of se in here.
IF (big IF) Suunto moves away from the old OS running in V1/V2/R1/R1S/R2 and instead Run future watches on the Run OS. What does that mean for the current line of watches? Can they be flushed with the new OS or are they relics (albeit working still, but still abandoned in a sense).
Wondering if I should return my V2 and just wait this out as my Run is working just as well as the day I bought it.
I have zero technical knowledge but I think it can be similar to what happens with garmin on their platform (fenix 7/965) vs (fenix 8/970) , the old gets bug fixes and some features but most features don’t come to it.
I belive it is a bit like it as always be…ambits vs spartans vs suunto 5/9/9 peak vs 9 peak pro vertical 1 vs race/race s (anyone correct if wrong).
There is the latest and greatest…and yeah slowly less features… -
I have a hypothetical question since there seems to be a lot of se in here.
IF (big IF) Suunto moves away from the old OS running in V1/V2/R1/R1S/R2 and instead Run future watches on the Run OS. What does that mean for the current line of watches? Can they be flushed with the new OS or are they relics (albeit working still, but still abandoned in a sense).
Wondering if I should return my V2 and just wait this out as my Run is working just as well as the day I bought it.
Not 100% sure about that anymore.
But I think it was said that Race 2 and also Vertical 2 should be able to run the RUN OS, as they are using the latest hardware. -
@sky-runner, only a 21-year background in IT across various Big Tech companies. Coincidentally, back before the cloud era—and before we used JVMs with native compilation like GraalVM—my work was heavily focused on fine-tuning and customizing Garbage Collector strategies but specially hunting down memory leaks. I used to spend entire days analyzing heap and thread dumps… but I’m talking specifically about Java here (not JavaScript). The idea was always to aim for a throughput of over 95% and maintain it at a stable level for as long as possible.
Garbage collection is problematic because of single thread execution environment of Duktape and the requirement to “stop the world” when it runs. Since Suunto embedded operating system is a real time system, “stopping the world” may have real consequences. That’s why many users reported the watch becoming sluggish shortly before it crashed.
Anyway, there is a lot of speculation on my part (aside from Javascript Duktape engine that has been confirmed based on fragments of the log output shared in the forum posts, for example here).
CPUs in embedded environments aren’t what they used to be years ago. How is this situation still possible in 2026? It would certainly explain the highly restrictive limits on the maximum number of applications, as well as the “stop-the-world” / Full GC events and/or crashes due to memory exhaustion.
Not to mention the impact of memory leaks in any of the applications—in fact, such degradation (even if slow) is a common occurrence in this type of development. What you’re referring to would also explain the urgent need to migrate to the new OS; it is very likely the primary reason behind the new OS found in the Suunto Run.
(but this is a lot of speculation on my part too)
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I have a hypothetical question since there seems to be a lot of se in here.
IF (big IF) Suunto moves away from the old OS running in V1/V2/R1/R1S/R2 and instead Run future watches on the Run OS. What does that mean for the current line of watches? Can they be flushed with the new OS or are they relics (albeit working still, but still abandoned in a sense).
Wondering if I should return my V2 and just wait this out as my Run is working just as well as the day I bought it.
Why not? Considering the upgraded resources and what we are seeing in Q1/Q2 (and if the new OS is coming), I think Suunto will flash the R2/V2 with the new OS but not the previous watches (this is speculation, of course)
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