Suunto Race S general discussion

isazi

@Hari-Seldon I would say, results are kind inconclusive, because it all depends on how you wear your watch. The new position is better in some cases, and worse in others. There is no one placement that solves all cases.

zebulon

i made an account just to say,
32GB of storage without music feature is a bit confusing right?

I get that not all 32 will be made available the user and I completely understand that it is a small team working passionately on this.
I’ll even readily acknowledge the target audience of this device don’t particularly care for music storage

BUT, tossing in a rudimentary music player would be nice. I don’t care about spotify, youtube music, deezer, pandora, tidal or whatever is new. I’ll do the legwork of compiling the music files myself; just let me dump them on the watch and connect my headphones to listen to them.
the lack of this feature is single-handedly stopping me from rocking a suunto. I like the design language, I like materials, I need music storage, I can’t go back to holding something, I won’t do it.

I’m in no rush and I’ll happily wait for this feature. I want a Suunto and I want a music player on a Suunto. I missed the boat with wearos + suunto 7 hopefully it comes back.

thanks for coming to my TED talk

far-blue

@zebulon I think you will be waiting a while for mp3 on a suunto watch. Maybe a separate, dedicated bluetooth mp3 player might be a better option? There are loads of tiny players around and, for those who do care about Spotify and Amazon Music playing there’s options like the Mighty 3 player. Or you could always opt for headphones with music storage

Bexs2247

Is there any update on a release date?

I’m toying with this or the normal race in amethyst but I’m worried the normal race may be too big!

As it’s on the website with price and colour options I was hoping it wouldn’t be too far away!

isazi

@Bexs2247 depends on availability, it is already shipping in the US, some retailers may already have them also in Europe, the Suunto store should have them available soon.

raceaddict

@isazi seems 9 July is the date in Europe

Antoine

@taziden is it foreseen ?

Niclas Brundell

@Hari-Seldon that’s easily my biggest issue with the vertical. The Baro hole is so easily reachable for wind. If I’m on a windy ridge I have to wear a long sleeve shirt. Otherwise I get hundreds of meters extra elevation gain compared to reality. Other watches don’t have that issue. Though in wind free conditions I find the verticals elevation more accurate than others

zebulon

@far-blue I haven’t had much luck with the dedicated players.

I’m on my third standalone mp3 player. The quality control is abysmal on amazon and sweat eventually breaks them. The market for tiny waterproof mp3 players is almost non existent - I’ve checked. I think it’s because smartwatches and sport watches with music storage and actual ingress protection and IP rating have all but dominated the market.

Your best bet is the bone conducting players like you mentioned because they offer ambient awareness but at the cost penalty of losing mids and lows. After you’ve been spoiled by some nice in ear drivers, bone conduction just pales in comparison no matter how good they are.
The deficit is just built into their construction and design

This time I’m going with the Sony Walkman WS410 series. It’s designed to be swam with even in saltwater. The sound quality is B-. At higher volumes some of my tracks may as well just be noise. I know it’s playing aac at 98 Kbps(~995 tracks on 4GB) but this is a driver limitation that I’m forced to live with because I need the other feature set it offers. It’s also just plain uncomfortable to wear but I’m hoping it gets better as the rubber gels and contorts to my head

The mighty play 3 looked promising right until the IPX4 rating, if you intend to keep it for a long time you need IP65/IP68. Sweat is salty and I’ve found no matter how much dry cleaning you do, eventually one day it’ll just die. the sweat will erode the glue and get into the circuitry

If Suunto could give us mp3 player functionality then I can pick up a JBL Endurance Peak 3 or a Jabra Elite Active IP57 and up rated earbuds and I can be golden. Both buds have better drivers and the Jabra has multi point so I can connect to my watch and another device at the same time. Not to mention I wouldn’t have to worry about the standalone player, it’s already built into the Suunto on my wrist

I’ll admit, it’s a niche need but a need nonetheless

colinmacdon

@Niclas-Brundell I have had a Race and Vertical. Now I am using a Garmin Epix. It has the same problem during intense wind–massive amounts of elevation gain.

isazi

@raceaddict should be official now, and announced on the European store too.

Brad_Olwin

far-blue

@zebulon Have you considered putting the music player in a plastic bag? Low tech, sure, but it would help against sweat.

Regarding the music quality I’m personally not sure I notice when running. I mean, I often don’t realise the track has changed…

Do remember, however, that bluetooth is incapable of carrying high quality audio (even when using the so-called high-quality codecs) so wired headphones are the only option if you really want CD quality or higher. Or you buy headphones with built-in music storage (whether bone conducting or not). So, if you want high quality music you wouldn’t get it from a watch no matter the brand because of the core limits of bluetooth.