Suunto9 battery dies between 17 and 24%
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I contacted Suunto. They can’t give a quote for replacing the battery. No idea why this seems hard for a pretty standard procedure. They will charge 41 euro to examine it. Sending it with track and trace is 7 euro, plus back. So it will cost me about 55 euro to have someone diagnose my watch to tell me that I need to replace the battery. The battery then still needs to be replaced and they can charge whatever they want for it.
After 8 years of Suunto I decided to move on. I bought a Polar Grit X. Batterylife is more than twice the batterylife of a brand new Suunto 9. Plus GPS is found faster and optical heartrate is actually spot and the same as my breaststrap while my Suunto 9 is nowhere near 10% accuracy. It’s also thinner and lighter. I like the looks of the Suunto better though, but this comes close. The barometer seems to be equally as bad as Suunto or my Garmin cyclingcomputer.
All in all I once was happy with Suunto. Especially the 3S. But the 9 just didn’t cut it for me.
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@daveve The reason support doesen’t give out quotes for any repair is because it’s by no means certain that the issue is the battery, and not some other component. To be able to be sure of that, the watch needs to be looked at.
Also, the freight fee is only paid when the cost estimation made by the technician is refused - it is not on top of the repair cost. I assume you don’t leave in one of these countries => https://www.suunto.com/Support/Repair-services/Online-Service-Request/. Because if you live in one of those, shipping (out and back) is included in the freight of 41 euros, which are in turn not paid on top of the repair cost: the cost estimation is a final price, including shipping and taxes.
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@daveve said in Suunto9 battery dies between 17 and 24%:
@daveve First of all congratulations on your purchase, if one day I decide to move from Suunto I probably go to Polar or Coros.
Only to clarify some points:
I contacted Suunto. They can’t give a quote for replacing the battery. No idea why this seems hard for a pretty standard procedure. They will charge 41 euro to examine it. Sending it with track and trace is 7 euro, plus back. So it will cost me about 55 euro to have someone diagnose my watch to tell me that I need to replace the battery. The battery then still needs to be replaced and they can charge whatever they want for it.
What did you expect? I found it quite competitive. If I’m not mistaken Suunto does a complete revision of the watch, imagine that the issue is not the battery, that is some other element that discharges the battery. When you need to repair your car they also charge for the diagnostics, don’t they?
After 8 years of Suunto I decided to move on. I bought a Polar Grit X. Batterylife is more than twice the batterylife of a brand new Suunto 9.
You could have bought the S9PP
Plus GPS is found faster
My S9B gets a GPS fix witin 5 to 10 seconds inside the streets of my town, more interferences, in open sky usually within 3 seconds.
The barometer seems to be equally as bad as Suunto or my Garmin cyclingcomputer.
You had a S9, the normal one , hadn’t you? This one doesn’t has baro so is not really comparable. If you can compare it means that Suunto is quite good. Regarding Baro, my S9B is always spot on (if baro holes aren’t covered), nearly always within 5m of the map altitude of the summit. And as an example of reliability last saturday I did a race with 56 km and around +3400 m, my running partner and I, both with with a S9B (he has the Titanium version) got the same ascent: he got only 7 m more than me and regarding distance, I was only 70 m shorter than him, so really impressed here.
All in all I once was happy with Suunto. Especially the 3S. But the 9 just didn’t cut it for me.
In my opinion the S9, at least the Baro version, is a great watch and if I were in your situation I would have repaired it.
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@daveve
sorry to see you leaving.
I would expect that Suunto charges a reasonable price for repair and wouldn’t charge “anything they want”. Of course if a repair doesn’t make sense, they will let you know for sure. We’ve also discussed this topic in this forum.
Please keep us posted how you like your Polar and never say never, maybe one day you’ll be back on Suunto or maybe even on several watches?
Enjoy sports and stay healthy, that’s what matters most
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@Spree
I contacted support using the chat function, they said I’d have to pay for shipping (back and forward). I live in the Netherlands btw.@cosme-costa
You do have a point, but if I’d ask my garage to replace the battery they’ll tell me exactly what it costs. Perhaps they’d tell me it might not fix the problem, but that would be my problem in this case.The GPS sometimes litterly takes minutes to get contact. Sometimes seconds. Connecting it to the app sometimes helps not always. I have the Polar for 6 days now and every session it was connected in a couple of seconds. I am aware this might change, but I trained with both watches last week to compare.
My bad about the baro. I was convinced I had a regular one, but it’s the baro. I found the box, it says baro
@freeheeler
I never say never. I really loved my Ambit 3S The only reason I replaced it, is because it was so damn ugly. I’ll probably be back with Suunto some day. I do like their designs better than any other manufacturer. And you are totally right, health is what matters most! -
@daveve “I contacted support using the chat function, they said I’d have to pay for shipping (back and forward). I live in the Netherlands btw.”
They were incorrect. From the link above, if you click on “Netherlands” you get to here https://repair.suunto.com/CustomerPortal/RepairCustomerPortal, which has all the terms and conditions and provides youj with the pre-marked shipping label.
And again, try to look at the problem from another perspective. You tell support a symptom. They can’t diagnose it via chat. What if you called your garage saying “my car doesn’t start, seems to be the battery becuse it struggles when I turn the key and then it just dies out”, and they told you “yeah, changing the battery costs 150 euros”. And once they actually check the car, well no - its’ 1000 euros to replace a different part of the engine, because the issue turns out not to be in the battery"?
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@Spree True I guess I am just a tad dissapointed. I never had any issues with any Suunto in the past and I am always carefull with my stuff. But this watch had it’s issues since the start. The battery issues now was just it for me.
For 41 bucks I’d probably send it in. I’ll let you guys know if I do and what the costs were.
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@daveve I don’t think there’s anything flawless in the world. Even the best company will make a bad piece. Unfortunately, you’ve had the bad luck.
A battery is a consumable item. That’s why it comes with a six-month warranty (at least in our country it does) -
@daveve Just as a side question, I assume it’s older than 2 years? Otherwise it should be covered by warranty of course
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Yes unfortunatelly, it’s almost 2.5 years.
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@daveve
just ordered a second hand grit x pro to have a look beyond the fence -
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@cosme-costa Too bad… we lost him
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@surfboomerang
@cosme-costa
don’t worry, you can be sure I will stick with Suunto for many reasons!!
It’s just a glimpse beyond the fence and be prepared for future surveys
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@freeheeler said in Suunto9 battery dies between 17 and 24%:
@daveve
just ordered a second hand grit x pro to have a look beyond the fenceI had one earlier this year and I have my review thread of it on here. Nice looking watch with promising features but it ain’t no 50mm! I found the data fields fields/numbers hard to read whilst I was running because of the size
Regarding the battery, my S9B lasted longer than the GXP and you can also charge the Suunto during an activity where you can’t with the Polar. Does have an all important lock button though hahahaha
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I guess I had a Monday morning model (as we call it over here, meaning that it’s a bad batch). The longest I ever did with my S9B was 6 days. This was in eco mode with about everything turned off. No continues heart rate, no connectivity with phone or other devices, low light, etc.
My Polar is still at 14% on it’s very first charge after almost 10 days. I think it will eak out 12 days. That’s double of what my Suunto ever did.But you are right about the screen. The S9 has a larger screen. It also has a better continues GPS. When doing trails, MTB or open water swimming, the S9 seems to be spot on when it comes to current speed. Hardly has any drops, while the Polar and also my Garmin 820 have a harder time to track the current speed in the woods. I also tested my friends Fenix 6 and used my phone’s GPS and the S9 beats all four devices when it comes to GPS accuracy. Still, my good old Suunto Ambit 3 sport has the best GPS on any device I tried so far.
In a nutshell, I think I’ve had a bad batch. The battery issue is one, but I also had connectivity issues and battery drain in the past. I also had issues with the watch stopping in the middle of a session out of the blue, finding satellites and rarely strange reboots.
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@daveve said in Suunto9 battery dies between 17 and 24%:
I guess I had a Monday morning model (as we call it over here, meaning that it’s a bad batch). The longest I ever did with my S9B was 6 days. This was in eco mode with about everything turned off. No continues heart rate, no connectivity with phone or other devices, low light, etc.
As you say I think your watch was faulty from the begining because this battery duration is not normal.
In my case, my S9B will be 3 years old in 3 weeks and I’m getting around 7/8 days of battery life with 7 to 9 GPS hours in performance mode and 1 hour of non GPS activity per week (No notifications, no HR tracking and no sleep tracking). -
@surfboomerang said in Suunto9 battery dies between 17 and 24%:
Too bad… we lost him
…grit x pro (! “pro” !), does not have a screen for ascent rate… the lock button can for sure not balance out the most important reason why I initially came to Suunto
some things appear to be very nice with polar at first sight. I’m especially curious about sleep tracking and will see tomorrow morning if it makes me sleep tighter
…but maybe I miss and overlooked something in the grit x pro or some mountain relevant data are missing?? I’ll figure that out -
Yeah definitely a bad battery batch. FWIW I usually charge mine on a Saturday morning, going off a fairly typical 70km week of running (best GPS selected but no HR) I normally have around 30% of battery left after a full week of usage. I don’t have any notifications enabled but I do use sleep tracking with HR on through the night
