SUUNTO RACE. Real battery life as sports watch.
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Hi everyone,
After 16 days with my race, I wanted to give you a different view on battery life, when used only as sports watch.My config:
- 24/7 OHR: Off
- Sleep track: Off (the watch lies on the table when I am sleeping)
- Turn to activate: display only
- Brightness: low
- Mobile Notifications: off
My Stats as of now:
- Days since last charge: 16
- Remaining Batt: 43%
- GPS use: 10h45m
- Activity without GPS: 1h
Those are, to me, amazing stats for my use case. I will probably have 3 weeks of battery life.
So as a sports watch the race seems a very good choice. For me the battery life will be very similar to my previous F7x Pro.
Just a different use case….
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@Luis-Andés-Olmedo thank you for sharing! Exactly the post I was looking for. Was contemplating on turning off my 24/7 ohr and sleep monitoring as I already know I have bad sleep (cause of kids) so the results aren’t that shocking at all. Amazing to see the result you’re pulling off and your usage seems very similar to mine when it comes to the usage of gps. I’ll probably only track ohr during activities anyways.
Suunto Race
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@Arju-Ambin I’m the same, OHR and sleep tracking is turned off.
I really don’t need a watch to tell me if I have slept well or what my heart rate is through the day!
I also don’t like wearing a watch 24/7.
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Exactly my use case as well, only that I have the Vertical instead. Currently at day 25 since last charge, 33% battery left, with 15 hours of performance GPS activities during this time.
I would even venture that I would prefer a Vertical without OHR. Either way, for me is the perfect sports watch. -
I am even more frugal with sport watch usage. They lie in a closet between sessions. Compared battery drain between FR955 and RaceS they other day:
FR955 (MIP screen) in “Battery Saver” mode - WIFI, Bluetooth etc off:
3% drain/day.
Race S (Amoled) in “Airplane” mode, AOD off, Raise to wake off and all else off:
2% drain/day.Powering both devices off between workout sessions drain them fractions of a percentage, even with the boot-up, so that is how I maximise battery now.
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Nice to hear people’s experiences here. Been very unsure of what to turn off and what to keep on according to my usage and fear of missing out by turning stuff off, but realizing now that certain things is ok in return for longer battery life and still have it track during activities. You people who have responded here seems like my type of people
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@Arju-Ambin Use a belt for activities and that will save more battery and allow ZoneSense.
Vector/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 Didn’t think of that although it should be obvious. Was actually looking into suuntos belt or Polar h10. Will need to do some research. Thank you very much for the suggestion! 🤩
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@Arju-Ambin said in SUUNTO RACE. Real battery life as sports watch.:
@Brad_Olwin Didn’t think of that although it should be obvious. Was actually looking into suuntos belt or Polar h10. Will need to do some research. Thank you very much for the suggestion! 🤩
It cannot be an optical belt or it will not work for ZoneSense. Suunto SmartSensor belt has a built in memory so if you do an exercise without the watch (weights, circuit training, swimming, etc) it will still record HR and sync back to the watch.
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@Brad_Olwin nice! I didn’t know that. Sounds like the Suunto belt would be a great option, considering that I always remove my watch when I do weightlifting so that it doesn’t get knocked or dinged up by the weights. Thank you very much for the great advice, will definitely look into getting a belt, I’m sure that combination will impact battery life positively on the watch too.
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@Arju-Ambin When using the Race S as a solo watch, I’ve now switched to the smaller (and more rounded) Suunto ‘Smart Heart Rate Belt’. Using two watches I strap on the Polar H10 with its Ant+ and two BLE channels - it also has memory capability, but only with Polar devices, just like some Garmin belts only can dump their memory to Garmins…
The Polar H10, as so many other belts, (for some people) chafe and rub the skin raw during longer runs. The friction happens at the lower edge where pod touches skin, or possibly it is a combination of pod and belt friction there. To remedy this I made a sleeve of old bicycle tubing (the wide black sort) with cut outs for the two ‘snap in’ pod holes. This has worked very well over the years with only a slight reddening of the skin after a couple of hours.
The longest I’ve used the Suunto belt is ca 70 minutes and during that time has not experienced any rubbing. I even use it while swimming, and the syncing between watch and pod is near instantaneous while both are above water. I wrote about this at the garmin forums (and about ZoneSense in general) a couple of weeks ago - as requested by another user. It is a posting split up in several sections since the forum has a severely restricted word limit. Perhaps it can entertain readers here as well:
“Let’s hope for something as good as ZoneSense??”
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@Inge-Nallsson Thanks for the link, that was interesting! You might be amused with this quote from the Garmin post "At the Suunto forum (in the almost 500 posts thread concerning ZS) one Moderator, who had betatested the app, described how he had ‘run’ “3 4300 m peaks one day after another for 3 consecutive days” where the post analysis measured AeT, from day one to day three, had dropped 22 beats (!) due to fatigue. " That was me.
For you and @Arju-Ambin my longest wearing of the Suunto belt is 40h, the longest ultra I have done. I have zero chafing with the Suunto belt because the puck is so small. However, I bought an HRM Pro on sale because I wanted two HR channels at times when testing. I cannot wear this for more than a couple of hours running as @Inge-Nallsson states, the rectangular sensor is very close the the skin and large causing chafing. So, I stick with the Suunto belt. Over the last few years I am exercising about 600-700h, most with the belt and find that the belt itself lasts about 1.5y to a max of 2y before it breaks down from sweat and washing. That is not too bad as they are about $30 US to replace. I am using the same sensor I purchased with my Ambit3Peak so those last forever as far as I am concerned. +1 for the Suunto belt from me.Vector/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 Woaw, that’s a great testimony towards the Suunto belt. I’m preparing towards my first half and also a full marathon. Your usage is positively insane!!! Hope to get those kind of levels at some point. Comfort will be importance in the longer runs so I’m leaning toward the Suunto belt.
@Inge-Nallsson Tack så mycket! (Thank you very much!). Your posts in the Garmin forum was an interesting read and very useful so thank you. Great to hear from a fellow Swede.
Nice to hear about both of your experiences and that you’ve also tested other brands. Will get my hands on a Suunto belt at some point in a hopefully near future.
Suunto Race
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@Brad_Olwin A testimonial of 40 hours without chafing is hard to gainsay! I suspected it was a winner in the chafing department when it after 70 minutes only had left weak indentations in the skin, like any elastic band does. As for Garmin HRMs, I’ve been forced to use the bicycle tubing modification with them all, even the ones with the built-in pod, where instead the belt itself has been ridgid and sharpish at the front. In expensive Sweden the Suunto belt (including pod) was a mere ca 70 $US. That’s about half a pair of running shoes, of which I grind down two per year. So not a large expense, considering.
@Arju-Ambin Throw me a PM with date and time of your HM, and I’ll then do a 21.1 km ‘sympathy’ training run with you. I’ve only raced once in my running life, and that was a HM. Very interesting experience effort-wise.
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@Arju-Ambin Good luck with your training and racing!
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@Brad_Olwin Do you now how much longer a Race or Race S battery will run if you use a belt instead of OHR?
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@VoiGAS No, my battery life estimates using the belt on longer activities show typically at the stated spec or greater. So for me using a belt and on maps some of the time I know I will get at least the stated spec. On some longer trail runs with the Vertical Solar my battery estimates have been 85-92h.
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@Inge-Nallsson said in SUUNTO RACE. Real battery life as sports watch.:
In expensive Sweden the Suunto belt (including pod) was a mere ca 70 $US.
I think that is similar to the price in Germany, 80 € with pod (and 40 € for a replacement belt without pod). Recently, it was 60 € and 30 € on suunto.com – just before belts regained popularity because of ZoneSense.
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Update
Days since last charge: 21 (3 weeks)
Remaining Batt: 27%
GPS use: 12h45m
Activity without GPS: 2hAwesome
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@Luis-Andés-Olmedo out of curiosity, how long did you manage to get it run?
I’ve had ohr and sleep tracking turned on and I needed to charge it today. It’s been 8 days and 20h.
Today after the watch has charged to 100% I’m turning ohr and sleep tracking off.
