Suunto 7 Marathon

Gareth Stockdale

Suunto 7 is my first sports watch which I bought for a couple of reasons:

London marathon
Ability to use my android phone and text when required

I took it for its first long run test 10 miles / 1hr 40. I enabled media control (Google play) from the phone. I used Google assistant to try and disable my phone alarm I forgot to disable, but that failed to work so gave up. By the end of the run I had 35% battery left. Bit worried as I am looking at >4 hours for the marathon!

I went back to manuals and read further about battery life which I perhaps neglected to realise before. Any way I then when fully charged, performed another test this time with the lock screen on the suunto app locked which as per docs should avoid my jacket sleeve activating the screen. I linked up Google play media app and had that running on my phone for the duration. I managed to just squeeze out 6 hours.

I noticed I could disable tilt wake up, but that appears to not work. The idea being I have to press a button to wake screen.

I can put airplane mode in and enable Bluetooth leaving WiFi disabled, which I will run in another test.

Any other hints for improving battery life on such a long run, or should I perhaps consider another type of watch that provides phone and text integration?

Watch should be fine for standard 10k, just a bit worried for the marathon.

Thanks
Gareth

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Gareth-Stockdale Hey hi,

Just a quick question: music was from the watch or the phone?

Gareth Stockdale

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos hi, it was from the phone. Just pressing the direction icons now and then on the watch screen.

@Gareth-Stockdale Did 1.5 hours run outside yesterday (always on display, tilt/power tilt off, touch to wake off, google assistant voice BS off, GPS on, OHR on, and music from the watch via paired headphones – most of it subscription DRM-protected Google Maps stuff).

About 45 minutes in Bluetooth on the watch crashed (but that’s a separate story). During that time the battery went down from 97% to about 77%. The next 45 minutes with Suunto app alone the battery dropped to about 68%.

I’d reckon this watch should hold for 7-9 hours run without music, or 4-5 hours run with music. The battery drain has been fairly consistent with all my previous runs.

Gareth Stockdale

@NickK have you been able to make the screen only wake up to button presses? Appears even with all the gesture settings turned off, when the suunto sports timer starts, a turn of the wrist activates the screen once it hides following a normal time out. I can see this being a heavy consumer of battery.

@Gareth-Stockdale No, I don’t think it’s possible. I agree that there should be a) a way to turn off the screen completely – every time I glance it shows playback buttons and b) make it come up only on button presses and not wrist tilts. That being said, since it’s already barely 10% for 45-50 minutes of running, I’m not sure how much you gonna win.

Gareth Stockdale

@NickK thanks. I have the lock on the suunto sports app enabled as per their docs, but it seems to defeat the point the a move of the wrist activates it anyway.

@Gareth-Stockdale From what I can see, unless you really tilt your wrist and a screen all lights up and shows real time stats, the battery drain from the display in ambient mode is non-existent. I have Essential 3100 watch face running with AOD and get a comfortable day to day and a half of battery life with hours of training.

As an example: got my watch off the charger around 8:00 yesterday. Did three hours of training with Sporty Go and Timerro (HR sensor for all three hours, Timerro providing structured workout intervals for an hour, spin bike speed/cadence sensor in addition to HR for half an hour). When I dropped the watch back on the charger around 22:00, it still had about 30% left.

Gareth Stockdale

@NickK so you use Sporty Go in favour of Suunto app?

@Gareth-Stockdale I use Suunto for running outdoors. Sporty Go for everything else like strength, kettlebells, stretching, and on where wrist OHR doesn’t produce good results. Bike would have been good with Suunto too, but without bike sensors indoor sessions make no sense.

Gareth Stockdale

@NickK so just back from my 12 miler. Good news, having performed a factory reset and then configured recommended settings for battery life as per docs, I used 24% in approx 1h50m.

One funny I noticed. At the start I was using the watch icon to turn the screen off as and when I needed to view stats or change a song. However the touchscreen stopped working and I could no longer drag down the menu to choose it.

@Gareth-Stockdale Do you use iPhone or Android? Was the phone with you or you left it home? Have you used maps? From only 24% I’d imagine no music.

From you saying you tapped the icons and all, I’d imagine you have tap to wake on?

I disabled that, along with power tilt, I get about 8-10% battery per hour with Suunto app outdoor running. I don’t check the screen often though, maybe once or twice per mile, and I’m yet to navigate to that beautiful maps screen.

Brad_Olwin

@Gareth-Stockdale I am using the S7 for longer trail runs, I have only Powersave Tilt on with Gestures off, touch off and I occasionally look at the maps screen. I am getting 5-7h of run time, which the latter is about the max. That should get the majority of folks through a marathon. In my experience the Running mode is a bit better with battery than the Trail Runnning mode.

JorgeFD

@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto 7 Marathon:

@Gareth-Stockdale I am using the S7 for longer trail runs, I have only Powersave Tilt on with Gestures off, touch off and I occasionally look at the maps screen. I am getting 5-7h of run time, which the latter is about the max. That should get the majority of folks through a marathon. In my experience the Running mode is a bit better with battery than the Trail Runnning mode.

what’s the difference between run & trail mode apart the screen data?

Yak Ima

I’ve done long bike rides (3-4 hours) and came back home with plenty of juice.

Obviously if you arrive to the start line with 70% battery left and plan to use music you might be sold…

I don’t think you’ll have issues

Brad_Olwin

@jorgefd78 I think it is where you are running. On technical trails I likely activate power save tilt on the screen often due to how my hands are moving. That does not happen running on pavement where all is mundanely the same.

jw cou

For information I’ve just finished a 3h30 run, in a new location so a lot of map checking, and it consumed 40% of the battery. Quite good in my opinion!

Bulkan

@jean-william-cousin said in Suunto 7 Marathon:

For information I’ve just finished a 3h30 run, in a new location so a lot of map checking, and it consumed 40% of the battery. Quite good in my opinion!

Congratulations for the marathon. Please upload some photos of the screen with the marathon if you want

jw cou

@Bulkan it was not a marathon, just the usual trip in the woods

jw cou

GPS and OHR worked really well : https://beta.quantified-self.io/user/88tGXoxa0YOtAw07abZo8jK8mN93/event/3cPQA91MbTn2CvY9nukbwvqsE5BRQodXKmw79U2Pe41tGmy