Battery capacity significantly dropped after 1.5 years
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I bought a Suunto Race S 1.5 years ago and I’ve loved it. But, since a couple a months back the battery capacity has significantly dropped compared to out of the box capacity. Then, I could go 5-7 days without charging with 1-2 activities recorded. Now, I can’t do 2 days without a single activity recorded.
I contacted Suunto support and they said it was an abnormal drop, probably due to a corrupted battery and asked me to send it to their service center. If they would repair the watch, they would then charge me.
I informed them that according to EU legislation, the right to complain is 2 years if the product is defective, but Suunto support claimed that their battery warranty only allows for 1 year. I said that their policy do not overrule European legislation but the support would not agree with this.
Anyone else had the same situation?
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There is quite some complaining about battery usage/drains.
For me, it seems frequent reboots and sometimes completely drain the battery (until your watch turns itself off) and charging it to 100% again (which may take longer than usual) mitigates the problem.
There is clearly something wrong in the firmware but I don’t expect any fixes from suunto (given how suunto support reacted on this problem and several others I reported)
Oh, and eu regulation forbids excluding things from warranty. So battery is also 2 years warranty. Although having the right and getting the right are 2 different things.
One thing: this applies to the shop you bought the watch. If you didn’t buy directly from suunto they don’t have to give you 2 years warranty but the shop you bought the watch from does. If you bought from suunto they are the once who are obliged to give you warranty. -
@elbee according to EU rule, after 12 months the consumer has to prove that the battery was defective from the beginning. Unfortunately. So you have warranty but…
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Yeh. There is also the excessive wear and to be expected wear of a battery.
Still, I suggest the OP first depletes the battery and charge it again to force a battery management reset. For me it helped (probably temporarily)
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My situation is very similar to yours.
I bought my Suunto Race S in September 2024. For more than a year, the battery life was basically normal. With 24/7 heart rate monitoring enabled, I usually only needed to charge it once every 4–5 days.
Since the beginning of this year, however, the battery performance has deteriorated dramatically. At first, I had to charge it every 1–2 days. Recently, it has become so bad that I now have to charge it every single day.
The overnight battery drain is now at least 25%. For example, if I charge the watch to 100% at night, by the next evening it may already be down to around 30%, even with very light use.
I have tried almost everything I could think of: restarting the watch, factory resetting it, turning off 24/7 heart rate monitoring, and even keeping it in airplane mode all the time. None of these made any noticeable difference.
At this point, I really do not believe this can be explained as normal battery aging. The degradation has been too fast, too severe, and too consistent. A watch that originally lasted 4–5 days becoming a device that must be charged every day after about 1.5 years is simply unacceptable to me.
What makes this even more frustrating is that I have contacted Suunto customer support multiple times and still have not received any meaningful response or solution.
I hope more people can see how this watch may perform after 1.5–2 years of use and take that into consideration before buying. I am extremely disappointed with both the product and the way this issue has been handled.
Personally, I have lost confidence in Suunto. I will not buy another Suunto product, and based on my own experience, I would also actively discourage friends and other people from buying one.
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Last month, I did a not so long hike (7 hours) stating with 48% battery left. That should be enough but wasn’t. Just before the end the watch went into low battery mode (not recording a thing and only showing the time) and just after I finished the hike the watch shutdown because of a completely empty battery.
Charging again till 100% took a really long time.
But since then, battery life is back to being okay (charge every 4, 5 days with almost 10 hours gps usage per week). Overnight it uses 5% batteries instead of 15%.
There seems to be a problem in the battery management system that pops up after months of use. I don’t expect any fix from suunto (given their reaction I got from suunto support).
In the meantime, I do regularly reboots and when needed I will deplete the battery again. That helps me to mitigate my 2 big race s problems: bluetooth disconnects and battery drains. (or more general suunto problems, since more models are plagued by it).
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