Suunto 7

sartoric

@Brad_Olwin
Out of curiosity, there is no barometer, correct ?

A Former User

At a great risk of starting a flame war…

Boy, was I excited until I started looking into the details The overall design and materials are fantastic, as all things Suunto are! The screen is gorgeous. New OHR package is at least intriguing. I’d be grabbing this in a heartbeat on pre-order, but the current spec as priced simply doesn’t compute:

No sensors, really? Apple Watch supports heart rate sensors natively and third party apps like Stryd can connect their own. Polar M600 supported heart rate sensors too and for a little while, there were even rumors of bringing footpod support in until M600 crashed and burned along with the rest of WearOS bandwagon. That was 4 years ago. Surely, in the meantime things improved?
No FirstBeat metrics? Even S9 got them following popular outcry. Other competitors in pure smartwatch space, be it Huawei or Xiaomi have it. Why not S7?
All activity tracking – from steps to 24x7 heart rate – flowing into Google Fit as opposed to Suunto’s own app?
Being WearOS effectively means Android only. iOS side of things from Google has been extremely weak to the point of unusable. As in your watch can either connect to your phone, or your heart rate belt, but not both… But more often than not, the watch simply won’t connect to the phone, period. Just look at the reviews for WearOS app in the iTunes app store.

It seems that sports and activity tracking wise, S7 is a step back even when compared to S3. Sure, it can be a fantastic package if what you do is running outside. Perhaps, do some swimming and stretching. But I seriously doubt wrist OHR will pull off HIIT bout with a pair of kettlebells, or a heavy lifting session, not to mention impact sports where watch simply cannot be worn.

My feeling S7 is really just a WearOS smartwatch, in Suunto skin, sprinkled with a bit of Suunto magic dust like those heatmaps. You still require your trusty S9 or S5 to do the actual training. Perhaps, the updates will change that. But currently there’s no roadmap saying hey, we will bring sensors in February, FirstBeat stuff in May, and activity tracking fully integrated by the end of August.

And without that, why would I want to have S7 on my wrist as opposed to Apple Watch or Huawei Watch 2 or even Fitbit Versa? Why Suunto, why?

Egika

@sartoric said in Suunto 7:

@Brad_Olwin
Out of curiosity, there is no barometer, correct ?

there is a barometer. And there is FusedAlti.
Specs are online on the Suunto website.

dulko79

@Brad_Olwin that would be great to know, I am ios user too. I look forward to reviews.

Brad_Olwin

@sartoric There IS a barometer, the watch uses FusedAlti. My experience has been quite good and on par with the S9.

Brad_Olwin

@NickK I get it, I am an iOS user. That said, I have had few if any issues with connections, etc. The S7 cannot compete with the Apple Watch as a smartwatch on iOS. But the integration is not bad, Wear OS reads my Apple calendar information, my contacts and controls my music on the iPhone. The OHR is great, I don’t know about Kettlebell workouts but biking, running and general strength I don’t need the belt, even for interval running. As far as comparisons to an Apple Watch for exercise, I could discuss that.

sartoric

@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto 7:

@sartoric There IS a barometer, the watch uses FusedAlti. My experience has been quite good and on par with the S9.

Yep
I’ve found the spec page now, couldn’t find it this night (hours ago)

A Former User

@Brad_Olwin Perhaps, things got better in the past 12-18 months, or Suunto knows something about connectivity others don’t. I had Polar M600 back in 2016-2017 as well as a number of Android smartwatches until 2018. My mileage on iOS was bad, real bad. The watch would disconnect if you leave your phone on a desk and walk away for a few minutes and never re-connect. Pandora streaming app, though totally independent of the watch while in offline mode, would continuously crash. Google Music would fail to download even a quarter of my songs… And I don’t mean songs for offline use. I mean a song list from my music library. And on and on…

I understand Suunto strategy here and would even buy into it. A smartwatch from Suunto, with legitimate fitness bits. S5 or S9 still required for serious training. Sure!

But not at $499 a pop. I think even $399 DCR suggested is way too much. When M600 was released in 2016, it was just $320, in the neighborhood of other Android smartwatches of the time like LG Sport released six months later. And M600 was fully integrated into Polar platform, activity and sleep tracking including, from the day one and included at least heart rate sensors.

Fenr1r

@Brad_Olwin So it’s more in line with its stated specs than the Spartan (on the earlier watch’s launch)? Pretty much what you see advertised is what you get?

Brad_Olwin

@Fenr1r Yes, the stated specifications are accurate. The screenshots of the watch are accurate too…I know, hard to believe and not mockups.

Fenr1r

@Brad_Olwin Very pretty indeed - altho’ I’d probably still need glasses to read my wrist. And good to learn Suunto’s better at expectations management now (at least as far as a new product launch goes). Thank you.

Brad_Olwin

@NickK I have had no connectivity or syncing issues. I have run the watch out of battery and the activity up to the time the watch died is saved and synced.

Brad_Olwin

@Fenr1r I wear glasses and do not need them with this. The screen is 484x484, easy to read.

Fenr1r

@Brad_Olwin Even the maps?

jthomi

I was thinking of replacing my Spartan Sport with a new Suunto model, most likely S9, but I was also thinking there was something coming soon. This wasn’t exactly what I was thinking but a lot of the things I was hoping for.

Some specs are simply not what I want right now, and so, still more waiting time for me. What about this S10 you are all talking about?
This S7 goes in the right direction for me, just add HR belt support, get rid of all things google, enhance battery life to S9 levels and I am good to go.

Brad_Olwin

@Fenr1r yes, the maps are able to be zoomed quite a bit, here are zoom levels near me of a trail area.

Fenr1r

@Brad_Olwin Useful pix, thanks. Crucially, for assessment of the Suunto 7: does the mountain look like a rabbit? Is it particularly full of the things? Was it named after a particularly leporine local individual?

zvonejan

I had 2 android wear watches for 4 years: lg watch and mobvoi tic watch. I even had few days monster from casio f21 android designed for adventure with barometer (but not serions sport at all)

Few facts:

These watches do not use transflect screen which soak light from ambient, they use classic lcd which do not have backlight… like phones. This screens consume a lot of power and they are invisible in sun, but very good visible in dark (oposite from transreflect)
these screens are very sensitive for touch and water. It can not be forever turned on, after 5 sec they go to slip and you can wake up it with wrist turns. They are not appropriate for seriuos athletes, because screen is almost invisible under sun.
Glass material can not be saphirre or mineral.
Android watches are very difficult to pair with BT senzors. Very few apps support Heart rate senzor or bike senzor or stryd.

5 They are good for basic sports, forget custimizable screens like now, maybe few fields and very limited functionality.

Suunto 7 is not ONLY future for Suunto ( I guess and hope). Number 7 is lower than 9 so this is not flagship. Polar has midlerange android wear watch m600 for about 3 years. They released flagship last year vantage V, which is not android wear.
Android wear is 80 % smart watch and 20 % sport watch. Suunto 9 is opposite ( 20 % smart watch and 80 % sport watch.
If you want a toy with perfect support for notifications, colorfull maps, go for it. You will charge it every single day, i can bet on this. My casio f21 worked 1 day and/or 3,5 hours with GNSS max.
2 years is around and I think that in summer they will release suunto 10 WITHOUT android wear

DmitryKo

No external sensors… really? No watch screen customizations? No activity tracking to their own backend platform, besides Google Fit?

How does it differ from Fossil Q HR and other WearOS watches that sell for half the price?

Right now Suunto 7 looks like another step away from Suunto core user base - which also raises questions over the future Spartan-derived watches and the current Suunto App that works with the SportTracker back-end.

zvonejan

@DmitryKo said in Suunto 7:

How does it differ from Fossil Q HR and other WearOS watches that sell for half the price?

50 m waterproof and name - Suunto