Suunto 7

oeagleo

For those who can remember, Polar tried a WearOS watch in the (I think it was called the M630, or something like that). I “pre-ordered” one, thought it would be pretty cool, and at least something more than that “toy” Apple Watch. I owned it for about a week, and decided no. Now, Suunto is coming out with essentially a crippled version of that watch, no external sensors, not even an external HR monitor, even Apple will let you pair external HR monitors!. New, and unproven optical HR, that has been tried before, and abandoned, for whatever reason… I can only ask, “What were they thinking”? You’re not even going to pull Apple watch users with this one, at least with FitIV Pulse, and “WorkOutDoors”, the Apple watch approaches the Fenix in abilities. I have to wonder about this offering… Just my 2c worth, but I think they’re making a mistake with this one…

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

btw since now its out… Did you remember that actually the s7 was leaked here and everyone thought it was a joke ?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@oeagleo read above @NickK said clearly.

That said the m600 is nothing compared to the s7 how did you make that conclusion ?

oeagleo

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Aren’t they both using WearOS? That was my point, the WearOS on the Polar was a disaster in my opinion, that’s why it went back so quickly. I honestly think that perhaps Suunto should build on the S9, make the baro standard, and further develop a good working “apps” environment, and keep on tweaking. I don’t think there’s any other Suunto product that can compete with the S9, and the S7 really doesn’t have a place among a “Suunto” crowd. Just my opinion, and actually, having owned an Apple Series 4 watch, with the above mentioned apps, the Apple would really put down the S7 in a heartbeat. Right now, because of the disaster I had with the Spartans I had, and the “idiosyncrasies”, I’m using a Fenix 6 Pro Sapphire, and like it. That’s not to say I couldn’t be swayed, but the internal maps, reduced size, and other features like SpO2, Respiration, and Body Battery, really impress me with their accuracy.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@oeagleo ah in that sense… Yes still kinda but yes. At that point (I bought the m600 and I also had the moto360sport my very first watch, after I went to m400) the wear OS did’t even have the playstore. Was really really bad. Agreed on this, its a bit better atm but still Google needs to spend more love, more than it spent with Suunto

Luís Pinto

@oeagleo Curious thing is polar adopt in M600 WearOS, but nevermore put that. Not in Vantage and not in Ignite that have probably amoled screen ou equivalent.

oeagleo

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Seems we have crawled along the same paths, I too initially started with a Garmin 910? The old square watch that would quit on it’s own, graduated to the Polar M600, then to the M400, then to the V800, Suunto Ambit 2, 3, Garmin Fenix 3, 3HR, Suunto Spartan series, Sport, Sport HR, Wrist HR Baro, back to Fenix 5, 5+, and now the 6… WIth a few Apple watches thrown in there too, Series 2, 2 Stainless, 3 Stainless, and Series 4. It’s been a lot of money but it’s also been a lot of fun… Being a data junkie at heart, it’s been a lot of fun comparing the different data…

A Former User

@oeagleo I used M600 from when it was released in September 2016 through most of 2017. The battery life was solid for a smartwatch. I typically charged it once every couple of days. Maybe once per day if I had heavy training or outdoor runs. The OHR was great (it’s the same sensor array that’s packaged in OH1, by the way). The structured workouts implementation was the best among all Polar watches: not only did you get the full support for them, but you could also easily skip one or more steps with just a few taps. The bright screen that could be configured to be always on made training in any environments so much better. Then of course, you had music. Google Music, third party players, Pandora offline. Way before Garmin. Way before Fitbit.

Yes, M600 was no design award winner (they wanted it to be reminiscent of the veritable V800, and that trend was clearly on its way out). Yes, M600 was limited by its SoC and Android Wear. No sensors had been supported except for heart rate. But it was a legit training tool, especially for a gym rat. And it was a decent daily companion.

I’m only saying all this because S7 really improves on M600 in almost every aspect. The design and materials are orders of magnitude better as is waterproofing. Multiple buttons and screen lock mean legit operation in gloves or in water. Much bigger, much brighter, higher resolution screen. Better SoC and improved WearOS.

If Suunto were to add a workout calendar, structured workouts, and sensors, S7 would own M600 in every respect. By a wide margin.

A Former User

@Luís-Pinto said in Suunto 7:

@oeagleo Curious thing is polar adopt in M600 WearOS, but nevermore put that. Not in Vantage and not in Ignite that have probably amoled screen ou equivalent.

Vantage series is equivalent to S5 and S9. Ignite is really a round watch form factor continuation of A370 band, kind of S3. As for M600 being seemingly dropped… Who knows? I wouldn’t be surprised if Polar announces a WearOS watch of their own in coming months, the new and improved Polar Explode. Regardless, just because M600 didn’t succeed in combining smartwatch with legitimate sports tracking, doesn’t mean it’s impossible. These will converge one day. And most likely, it will be either Garmin, or Polar and Suunto who accomplishes that as Apple is clearly not interested in pursuing serious athletic angle and Google isn’t really a player (and no, Fitbit acquisition won’t help them much).

Brad_Olwin

@Prenj That is not my experience. I can easily get 2.5h running and a full day/night from the watch. However, if you leave screen always on while running and listen to music from the watch it will eat into the battery life. My last run of 5.5h started fully charged and ended with 18%, which lasted until I went to bed.

Luís Pinto

@NickK Always SI. Nowadays, I would be delighted to see this in SuuntoPlus: “Automatic intervals ie identify automatically intervals, sprints based on running pace and cycling power”

A Former User

@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto 7:

My last run of 5.5h started fully charged and ended with 18%, which lasted until I went to bed.

By the way, some reviews mention sleep tracking, but I can’t find anything about it in the manuals. Is it something that exists? And how sleep tracking works for a charge every one or two days?

Brad_Olwin

@Luís-Pinto said in Suunto 7:

@Brad_Olwin Any tester with .fit or .json with NAV+BDS tracks?

I will post as soon as the watch is delivered and I have a production firmware. NDA prevents me from posting ATM. I can say the GPS still needs work but my altitude readings are very good. OHR is great.

Brad_Olwin

@NickK No decent sleep tracking apps at least from what I have tested. Don’t know if Suunto will implement this.

Luís Pinto

@Brad_Olwin Rejoice!

A Former User

@Luís-Pinto said in Suunto 7:

@NickK Always SI. Nowadays, I would be delighted to see this in SuuntoPlus: “Automatic intervals ie identify automatically intervals, sprints based on running pace and cycling power”

Anyone still remembers SuuntoPlus? I thought that was just a distraction to make people wait for S7 and not switch to other brands over holidays.

DmitryKo

@silentvoyager AMOLED uses active LED pixels, so power consumption depends on the total brightness of all pixels, as opposed to LC shutters with full-on backlight in LCD panels. If you use dark backround with white or coloured fonts, power consumption will be significantly lower in comparison to a white backround with dark font.

freeheeler

@silentvoyager
then they can remove it with the next FW update… I don’t need Strava effort

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@silentvoyager S9 is still the flagship and Suunto Plus is underdev 100%

Suunto Plus (the marketing term) one could call just apps. I can via a toolkit atm send apps to my S9 but but but that toolkit is very far away from being public / decent API / Documentation stage.

DmitryKo

@NickK I get your point that Suunto 7 is targeted at billions of casual users and not a small group of ‘ultra runners’. Then again, there are a handful of similar SnapDragon Wear 2100/3100 devices already on the market - are these potential buyers willing to pay twice the price for the Suunto brand and analysis features they don’t really need?

I simply see it as the continued abandonment of their core user base, which started with the winding down of MovesCount and changeover to Sports Tracker which resulted in a loss of some features - and now what’s left of the former functionality is abandoned yet again, to be reimplemented on yet another platform with a different round of simplifications? Well, good luck with that attitude.