Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt for indoor Pool swimming
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Hey everyone, I just bought a Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt (the newer - grey version), to use it with my Suunto 9 Baro for pool swimming. I have a few questions on how to use it properly, maybe someone can help.
- I’ve found some instructions here and here, I understand that I should open the pool swimming activity before entering the water (the screen where the rate is shown before start) and let the belt connect, but it’s not clear to me if I should also start the activity - and then enter the water, go to my tract and start swimming, or I can just open the activity screen without starting recording and just start it later when I’m in water (even though the belt is under water)?
- If I do need to start recording before entering water, is it okay to pause the activity immediately afterwards and then enter water, and unpause when I actually start swimming? Same question for when exiting water: can I finish the swim, pause activity, go out the water (connection should be restored) and then just end the activity?
- How tight should the strap be? I’ve read somewhere or should be as tight as possible…
- When not using the belt, should I keep the Bluetooth module of the belt (after washing etc.)? I’m asking because of the battery, but I understand it only works if it detects heart rate.
Thanks!
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- Yes, you need to start the activity first, then enter the water
- yes, you can pause at will
- it should be tight enough to stay in place.
And this is the only challenge: when pushing off of the wall, the belt will move or flip over from the water force. The only way I could make it work, was to wear a swim or tri suit that covers the belt. - ne need for special treatment.
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@turbogolub here’s my take on your questions base on my experience with indoor pool swimming.
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you need to make sure the watch and belt are connected before entering the water, once you’re in the water the Bluetooth connection is lost, so be sure to start the activity right before entering the water
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I haven’t done the first method, usually when I get in the water I don’t pause the activity.
So I’m not sure there but it might be just fine, others might chime in here, but you can test it.
For exiting the water, correct, pause it, get out of the water and end the activity, this is a must to ensure cached HR flows to the watch, you should see a synching HR message. Otherwise your can end without HR at all if you end activity while in the water -
tight enough so it moves as little as possible, specially after your streamline after each wall push, that’s where belt can slide off the chest if you do a hard push off of the wall, you’ll have to adjust a bit here
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I keep my HR module on all the time and haven’t seen any issues, either method works.
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Hey @Egika & @herlas I’ve used the strap a bit and I have a follow up question, maybe you’ve experienced a similar issue. I’ve had 2 swims already with the strap and everything was great, I’ve followed all the instructions you gave me, but this third time something happened at the end of the workout, last 3 minutes of heart rate got lost somehow:
not sure if i did something, I don’t remember that the strap moved or anything like that. When I finished the workout I paused the watch, got out of the pool, saw the heart rate on the paused screen, and then I ended the activity - and it all synced fine…
On that note, what would happen if I were to take the strap off mid swim? To readjust it for exaple. Would it turn itself off and lose the heart rate data?
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@turbogolub I did experience some similar situations where part of HR was lost, never really found the reason, my thought is that somehow HR sensor stopped receiving the HR data at some point and stopped recording in the internal memory, like if saying okay I’ve stopped receiving and this is the end of the workout being saved into memory.
Reasons can be many, strap moved from the right position or bug on the internal memory management on the HR module or watch itself who knows.Once it happens, it won’t record anything after, that’s what leads me to above (in) conclusion
Fortunately it happened very few counted times so I wasn’t too worried.
As for your last q, only testing will tell the result, but I’ve always followed the instruction on the smart belt user guide, which is :
“4. Complete your activity as normal, wearing the Suunto Smart Heart Rate Belt the whole
time”Hope this helps.
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@herlas thanks for the info. Yeah I can confirm that last night I had no issues during another swim - heart rate during the whole activity was properly recorded, so all good…
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Hello all. Sorry for opening the discussion again but I wanted one minor clarification although I think I can guess based on the info. The Belt does not support connectivity to multiple devices right? (so 2 simultaneously via BT).
I am using the Polar Varity sense since it is great for swim but not that good for trail run (it often locks to the cadence). So instead of going h10 I wonder if the Suunto’s connect to 2 devices? Are there any plans to release HR that connects to 2? I am willing to wait ang go full suunto if there is any feedback. Thanks and have a nice day all.Suunto watches: Ocean, Race, Vertical (Titanium Solar Sand), 9 Baro (Ambassador Edition), Spartan Ultra (Copper Edition), Ambit 2, S6
Suunto Wing -
@Hristijan-Petreski the Suunto belt only connects to one device.
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@EzioAuditore I´m at the same situation, need a HR that connect to two devices at the same time.
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@mfreire I got the Polar H10. Much more accurate (as long as belts go) for me than the Garmin HR Pro I used to have. The Garmin has this slippery plastic that once you sweat a lot especially on hot days it kinda slips on your skin and locks to hits on the skin?! The Polar has been superb.
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@EzioAuditore when you say the Verity Sense is great for swimming, can you expand on that? The last time I tried, Suunto does not use the HR caching function, which means that, post swim, all HR data is from the watch, not the VS.
I’m also interested in why it’s not good for trail running.
Wildly off-topic here…
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@Ze-Stuart Yes. I wear both the verity sense and the watch for swimming but you can also leave the watch out of the pool since the verity sense has antenna so it can reach up to 300m of connectivity (it is meant for coaches to monitor your HR - never used it this way though since you’ll have to start the activity before going to the pool).
On the trail running: I found when running downhill on quite technical terrain with a lot of swinging arms and jumping it sometimes locks to these ‘jumps’: expected since it is also optical and analyses the blood flow. -
@EzioAuditore right but that’s in air: in water, its transmission range is ~3cm, so if you strap it to your wrist next to the watch it’ll work, but nowhere else, hence my curiosity about the caching function.
Interesting to know they haven’t been able to remove cadence lock from everything, I bet of the two of us you’re much faster downhill!
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@Ze-Stuart Actually you are wearing the verity sense on your head (on the swimming goggle’s strap). They give you special plasticy thing that goes on your goggles (https://youtu.be/ReTE0AMkWlY?t=68). I’ve never had problem of loosing connectivity to the watch so far but again I do not dive with it and have used it mostly with the Flow. I have to use it in more than a year in a pool so maybe I give it a try again and have more feedback. Otherwise I think this will work for sure: https://www.reddit.com/r/AppleWatch/comments/1c1dek7/recording_hr_in_apple_swimming_workouts_with/
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@EzioAuditore interesting. So I’ve not bothered, based on how I believe Bluetooth propagates through water. Did you have wrist HR disabled? Even with 300m in air, I can’t see it working in water, so my hypothesis is that they had some connection, some of the time, and the rest was wrist.
For the record, Form goggles, v1 used the Sense for HR, and it had to be on the goggle strap, on the same side as the computer package, otherwise it wouldn’t work.
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waiting for @EzioAuditore to say either:
a) forgot to mention, I use my Polar watch for this lol
b) I don’t do underwaters at all -
@herlas I did have polar vantage v. Didn’t use it for pool swimming. Lovely watch.
Underwater in the pool is how much according to you? I did swim with the verity sense (on my head) + Suunto 9 Baro on hand without apparent problems. Swimming is not my prime sport I do practice it occasionally. Have not tried it (verity sense) with recent watches for swimming, once I do I will comment further. -
@Ze-Stuart I never disable OHR on the watches. It is my understanding that once connected to HR belt even if the connection is lost the OHR will not take over (will try this on my next run - start with belt and remove it to see if the OHR will kick in). In the reddit post there are people that didn’t have any problem swimming with the verity (or the H10) and the AW (even if not close to each other).
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@EzioAuditore Bluetooth is lost as soon as you’re in the water right, if you managed to swim and keep top of your head completely out all the way, that means you don’t streamline underwater after each wall turn for 3 or 4 secs, you don’t swim breaststroke, backstroke etc
I get what you’re saying, no worries.
On your last comment, it has been discussed before and there’s no auto switch source for HR, power when the external device stops for whatever reason.
