Sleep Tracking

Patrick Löffler

@nickk Yeah! Suunto is truly on a roll! Very promising. Looking forward to the things to come.

@patrick-löffler Just peel off your S9P when on the wrist a bit and see if there’s green light. There won’t be. Currently it’s clearly turning on and tracking only periodically.

With LifQ sensor in S7 now doing continuous HR tracking however, I’m much more hopeful to see it improved in S9P as well.

But there’s a catch: S7 is 51x51x15mm and S9P is 43x43x11mm. Sure, WearOS is power hungry and all that. Still, smaller size means smaller battery. If my S9P currently lasts about 6-7 days with training, I don’t see how turning LEDs to always on isn’t gonna affect that.

Also, 1 sec or 10 minutes, it would be nice to make those HR charts in the app interactive and zoomable. @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Any plans for that? Maybe a multi-day HR trend chart somewhere too?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@nickk we had and we have tested continuous hr on the s9P. A 2 day damage it gets. Not big but also debatable as the profit one would get. In terms of both representation of data and after actions.

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos I understand the trade offs, and 2 days hit isn’t that much in itself. Perhaps, some middle ground can be accomplished? Not exactly continuous, but say once every 1-2 minutes?

Would make daily stress and Body Resources more accurate as there won’t be much lag between what’s happening and what the watch is showing.

Patrick Löffler

Following from that, does this mean the 7 is currently more precise than the S9P? Could be an idea to givve the user the opportunity to decide the measurement intervals.

@patrick-löffler Intraday tracking is definitely more precise. But that precision comes at a price of nearly daily charging, more bulk on your wrist, and some unique Wear OS usability challenges. Like an adventure of turning off a morning alarm when your screen is off in Theater mode for the night, or turning off a timer when you have heat gloves on by the grill

Also, when connected to iPhone, I can’t say Wear OS watch provides that much more smartness compared to sports watches like S9P.

So, long live S9P and the brilliant minds who designed it. Regardless of sleep algo and exact HR sampling interval.

Jamie BG

@nickk - that was the main point of the April Update - 1s continous 24/7 HR tracking, sleep tracking, body resouces.
A huge and major update that really showed everyone what the 3100 chip and Suunto could really do.

Jamie BG

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos
S7 impact was 0.5% per hour. its enough that you went from an easy 2 day battery life to a 1.5day battery life.
Its basically what forced me to change watch, cause after the usefulness of that update there was no way I was going back, and wanted AOD on, so battery life just wasn’t there anymore.

It was coming anyhow as I have steadily ramped up my activity tracking (not in the last couple of weeks - fell of bike and got a pedal in the ribs and then popped them - so am just starting to get full range of movement back - reckon will be ready to go again in 2/3 weeks) - as was starting to struggle to get 2 days with everything on and occasionally doing 2-3hrs of tracking on the odd day.

Jamie BG

@nickk you are correct on the smartness and is what me made to start to look at fitness watches and their longer battery life.
There wasn’t enough smart features I regularly used to make it worth it compared to improved fitness and training options and massive battery life.

Just wish Suunto watches had more smart features on them, like payment options, like being able to play music, and then proper maps etc. Really the S7 was perfect for me, except for the battery life.

Just wish Suunto watches had more smart features on them, like payment options, like being able to play music, and then proper maps etc. Really the S7 was perfect for me, except for the battery life.

I was getting about 2 days battery life on S7 post-April update, certainly more than a day with AOD. I think if you charge it when you shower or when you train with a different watch (I used S9B), the battery life becomes a non-issue.

That being said, I realized I’m yet to find myself in a situation when I have a watch but no wallet or phone, so contactless pay is hardly a deal breaker.

As per music, while Garmin is kicking everyone’s ass, Apple included, with their selection of services, you can have Spotify and Amazon Music in a small iPod Nano like dongle (check out Mighty Vibe). It weighs literally 20g and when combined with S9P, the overall solution is still lighter than most Fenixes, unless you go for nylon bands and expensive titanium body. It will win battery wise too, given Fenix 6 takes about 10% battery hit per hour when playing music, and with training and daily use I had to charge it every 3-4 days. 6X does last much longer, sure, but hey… it’s a beast!

Having maps on a device is nice, but then again. I can count on my right hand the number of times those maps were actually useful.

Garmin seems to be a proverbial jack of all traders, master of (almost) none. Firstbeat integration, strength training, and music are fantastic. I give them credit where credit is due. And they are very quick to respond to competition, like they did with COROS track mode, muscle heat maps, and support for indoor rowers.

Jamie BG

@nickk - Was doing around 2-3hrs of training every day, sleep tracking at night, and I insist on having AOD on. Combo of that meant battery life was around 1.5 days, however the other issue was my morning routine had changed, meaning I only had around 30mins max (often less) to charge my watch which wasn’t enough to fully top it, up which meant that around day 2/3 I didn’t have enough to make it through the night.
If I was prepared to make changes I could have made it work beter. AOD off and I probably would only have had an issue every 3/4th day. But like to see the time at all times, plus I was starting to have concerns as often would headoff before morning routine, and was worried about watch running out of battery before getting back.
Overall my requirements have changed - not the watches fault - just a natrual progression, and the reason why I got the S7 in the first place as my previous smartwatch was no longer doing the job I needed.

Brad_Olwin

@nickk said in Sleep Tracking:

As per music, while Garmin is kicking everyone’s ass, Apple included, with their selection of services,

I completely disagree, all of my music is in Apple Music. Getting my Apple Music into a Garmin watch is as bad as the S7 and no DRM music will work. I do not use any other music services. So Apple wins this hands down for me.

@brad_olwin Well, maybe for you Apple works because you are invested into Apple’s walled garden. I’m talking in general…

Even in the US, iPhones are used by about half the population. The rest are happy with Androids. Worldwide it’s mostly Android. While Apple Music app exists there too, it’s far more natural to just go with Spotify. Why buy into Apple services if you aren’t using Apple devices? You can also pick Amazon Music, for example. Or other smaller services like Deezer.

All of these are available even on a cheap plastic Venu Sq or much older Vivoactive 3 Music, but you can’t get them on an Apple Watch!

And that’s the crux of my argument: Garmin offers a wider variety of streaming services on their watches, the integration is pretty much seamless from the point of view of sync or playback, and the services offered, like Spotify, is what majority of people around the world actually want to use. Better still, you can easily get 8-10 hours of music playback with GPS and OHR tracking on devices like Fenix 6.

Brad_Olwin

@nickk said in Sleep Tracking:

@brad_olwin Well, maybe for you Apple works because you are invested into Apple’s walled garden. I’m talking in general…

There are a lot of folks using Apple Music so I think it is ok to call that in general too.

While Apple Music app exists there too, it’s far more natural to just go with Spotify.

I don’t want to pay for another music service so it is not more natural to go with Spotify.

And that’s the crux of my argument: Garmin offers a wider variety of streaming services on their watches, the integration is pretty much seamless from the point of view of sync or playback, and the services offered, like Spotify, is what majority of people around the world actually want to use.

Well, I know lots of people that are not in the majority and there are a lot of complaints about Apple Music and Garmin and that is the crux of my argument. I’ve used an Apple Watch and the implementation with Apple Music is so far beyond what Garmin does, it’s ridiculous. I am merely making a point here that perhaps what is “far more natural” and once you have used an Apple Watch with Apple Music you will realize why Apple is kicking Garmins Ass. Anyway, I won’t hijack this thread anymore.
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@brad_olwin I did use Apple Music and Apple Watch since the very first release back in 2015 (aka Series 0) and up until about a year or two ago. I personally didn’t like how syncing was done in the beginning, nor the interface changes after that. Worse still, often playlist sync would get stuck or it would show synchronized but half the songs would be missing during playback. Apple Music stations also left a lot to be desired compared to, say, Pandora or Spotify.

So between these and occasional need to use Google and Samsung phones, I decided I’d be better off bidding a fond farewell to Apple’s garden.

I’m not arguing the fact that AW is the most popular wearable out there. And needless to say, as a smartwatch it’s years ahead of everything else on the market.

However, this doesn’t change the fact Garmin provides a much wider selection of music services on its wearables. Or that Spotify, one of the services provided, for example, has twice the premium subscribers Apple Music has (about 158M vs 72M). All the while Amazon is quickly catching up with its 55M subscribers and growing. That is, even now for every Apple Music user there are at least 3 users of other services…

Off-topic ends. Sorry to OP for high-jacking the thread.

Jamie BG

@brad_olwin
interesting stats, but the Garmin stats look really out compared to what they actually sell. I suspect that very few of their models are being included in these details.

From your perspective yes Apple looks best, but from an overall perspective its Garmin as it does offer the most options - media controller for phone; offline playlists for Spotify, Amazon & Deezer (plus a host of others that are very country specific); and or you can use your own music.

So from that perspective it is more full featured than what the apple watch currently provides.

I start thinking my unit should have some kind of defect.
Sleeping schedule on the watch: 22:00 to 06:00
Recorded sleep: 20:48 to 6:01
I went to bed at 22 or more. At 20:48 I was having dinner and definitely moving , tidying up things etc.
It is curious, the wake up time is mostly right everytime.

DMytro

@andré-faria tbh I find it strange that a defect you might have only influences the sleep tracking accuracy. To me it seems more probable to be a software issue, don’t you agree?

@dmytro said in Sleep Tracking:

@andré-faria tbh I find it strange that a defect you might have only influences the sleep tracking accuracy. To me it seems more probable to be a software issue, don’t you agree?

Don’t know. A lot of people here have positive results, I believe the testers also…

ChrisA

@andré-faria same here some days ago ! Recorded sleep from 20:39 on, when I was walking around and driving in my car etc. The S9P even recorded steps, and a quite steady HR but saw me asleep….

HR data clearly shows no significant drop and also movement (me walking around)

As my son isn’t using his Apple Watch atm, I wear it during nights to compare it to the S9P and it was spot on:

On other nights both are very close and everything is fine, so I don’t assume the Hardware is faulty and also in any sportsmode the S9P really shines, but concerning the “health” aspect, the S9P for me is not (yet) really “trustworthy “ at the moment (other than the S7 which was great in sleep and Resources).