New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings
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@geolerigolo I think in recent years Suunto has marketed their watches more as outdoor adventure watches than as training watches. Does an outdoor adventure watch even need intervals? When hiking for three days, no. When doing ultras, no. And I would say that a lot of people (amateurs) don’t do intervals when training for ultras. I think that’s the reason why the structured intervals are half baked.
And generally speaking, Suunto is for sure doing market research. I think they want to be appealing for those adventurous ultra runners and alike, respectively people who want to be like this. Just look at the recent ads with “Some people choose to…”. And if their research is telling them, this market segment doesn’t need/want structured intervals with all the bells and whistles, they don’t implement it. Or they do it as it is currently implemented: half baked to tick a box. But I think this will change with the SR, since it is marketed as a performance/training watch.
And still I think the Vertical and Race are great watches (build quality, GNSS accuracy, battery, great displays, generally a very good UI on the watch, good color and font selection, good readability). And the Suunto App is very well designed (although lacking some long term analysis functions) and keeps getting better and better. That’s an area where Polar is lacking. Polar Flow has been the same since years. This app/website could be so much better…
In your situation I would return the Race and buy a Polar. And then wait and see with what Suunto comes up next year. Or keep the Race, buy Polar and decide next year, which watch you sell, based on future firmware development.
I am still debating with myself, If I should return the SR and go for the V3. My main problems are the half baked structured intervals. When I had Polar, this was the number 1 feature I used on a daily basis. And the second problem is, that I have a pronounced wrist bone and wearing the SR 24/7 is 50% of the time simply painful, because the watch presses against the bone.
As others have pointed out, everyone has different expectations about basic functions. There is simply no perfect watch that suits everyone. First world problems.
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Just a short update to inform you guys that I’m really impressed with the sleep and nap recognition of the Race. Dead accurate so far and the “Resource” management widget for the first time seems to actually match how I feel in different moments of the day.
In the photo a really short and light nap, that I was unsure the watch would have caught.
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@General_Witt I second that. Nap detection is spot on, resources are for me also “correct” for the first time, although they still get reset, whenever I put the watch off for longer than a couple of minutes.
Unfortunately sleep tracking during the night doesn’t work so good for me. According to the watch I am awake half of the nights, which is wrong (yes, my resting HR is set up correctly). If I would only sleep 4 hours four 7 days (like the SR tells me), I would feel dead. Lucky me: I feel good
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Nap detection is spot on, but it is however a double edged sword when you have to listen to how was someone’s day and such, it will give you away in the nap log.
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@wmichi I have the same wrist bone. I didn’t even feel it for the first couple days but when I took it off my wrist bone had a deep red imprint. I’m assuming wearing it more would lead to damage. It’s really unfortunate because I really like the look of the Race. I’m sending it back due to construction issues, but will see what Suunto brings out next. I really like their app.
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@wmichi I don’t deny the good sides of Suunto, be it the team, the app and the watch, but still I do think implementing true alerts would attract more people and more importantly they would stay with Suunto and not change because of half-baked intervals or other. Moreover in the case of the alerts it is a thing they could do once and implement on all of their watches going forward. One little effort and then it’s all good.
I’m sure they do some research to know what people want and they choose accordingly.
I totally agree, I don’t really like the Polar app, as well as the Garmin app. Suunto is clearly ahead in this department, and both of these apps and websites would benefit from a revamp because they could be at least more modern and less old style.That’s what I’m stuggling with, I think I will wait till the end of the year to see if there is the firmware update I’m looking and hoping for, and then choose accordingly. Because the V3 would be a choice by default to be able to do my power workouts, but I don’t really like the watch itself or the app, even if that’s not the most important thing to me. And it has an AMOLED screen so it will still be nice. I also don’t really like Polar’s standby time which are half less than Suunto’s (8 days for Polar vs 12+ for Suunto). As I said above, I really love the Race as a watch and prefer it to the V3.
If the watch is painful, I think the choice of reason would be to take another watch, be it a Suunto, or Polar or other that doesn’t hurt your wrist.
Couldn’t agree more with your last sentence…
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@geolerigolo I absolutely agree with you. The funny thing is, for Suunto Guides and Suunto Apps no firmware update should be needed to update them. So if a Suunto Guide can trigger vibration and make the watch beeping, it should be rather simple to add this feature. Of course I have no insight into Suunto Guide development. Hopefully one day every “adventurous” Suunto owner can play around with this
But I could bet, If Suunto added this, there would be other people complaining about those alarms. “Simple” fix: make it configurable in the watch or guide settings. And then others would complain, because there is another setting to make, and settings make watches complicated and oh my god my Suunto is like a Garmin feature creep watch from hell.
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@wmichi I don’t know if Suunto apps and guides have access to every watch settings, they seem to be separate pieces. Yes, honestly alerts are the major reason why I may switch company if it is not fixed soon.
I have a Garmin and I’m happy to have the choice to be able to select the alerts I want and to disable them if/when I don’t need them and on the go.
But you’re probably right, there are always people complaining about something just like we are doing right now lol -
@Shuhite said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:
@wmichi I have the same wrist bone. I didn’t even feel it for the first couple days but when I took it off my wrist bone had a deep red imprint. I’m assuming wearing it more would lead to damage. It’s really unfortunate because I really like the look of the Race. I’m sending it back due to construction issues, but will see what Suunto brings out next. I really like their app.
You’ll get this same imprint from Garmin - certainly the epix pro. Tbf, the SR is less obvious that the Epix.
I’ve literally just said to my wife, ‘sod it, I’m going to try the SR for 6 months and if I don’t like it then, I’ll go back to Garmin.’
The price is its selling point and the screen is lovely. Just not sure why you need so much info on one screen when 2 sets of digits without the what it’s showing part would be much better as a race watch. Average lap pace and total distance/time are all I want to see when racing…
Even the large numbers widget on Suunto plus is very poor - can’t change the data and the largest the current time!
But I love the feel of the SR, the sleeves of my shirt don’t catch on it and it looks good.
Would love the interval alerts, ie a countdown to next interval start, and alert to when going too fast/too slow
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@Shuhite Couple of things I have done to alleviate this issue. Switch to velcro straps and I have positioned the watch 1 finger width from the wristbone. Vertical and Race are the only watches I’ve ever owned that cause the imprint.
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@David-Lown Which size epix are you referring to? I own the 51mm and had the 47mm and never experienced the imprint issue like I have with Vertical and Race.
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@craigeggleton said in New owner of Suunto Race - first feelings:
@David-Lown Which size epix are you referring to? I own the 51mm and had the 47mm and never experienced the imprint issue like I have with Vertical and Race.
47mm
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@craigeggleton So far I have only tried silicon straps. I tried the same as you, but I need a very snug fit that the watch doesn’t slide in the direction of the wrist bone. So snug, that it’s uncomfortable. It’s not only an imprint, it’s red/blue and the skin looks “unhealthy”. It seems my anatomy is not compatible
I never had this issue with any other watch. Once I have borrowed an Epix Gen 2 for about a week. No problems in this regard with this watch.
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@wmichi Sounds weird but try to Coros Apex 2 Pro nylon bands. That was the fix for me as I was able to position it correctly without having to overtighten and cut off circulation. Worth a shot if you have the patience!!
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@craigeggleton Thanks, I will try that. I already had an eye on the black pace 3 nylon band.
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@wmichi I just ordered one of those too.
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@David-Lown Actually, I had the 47mm Fenix for 3 years, and now the Epix 51mm for about 3 months, and none of those have ever caused an imprint due to lugs digging into my arm like the Race, the lugs simply don’t point down as much.
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@Shuhite possibly due to my ‘extra padding’
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This seems like a good place to put this: with the launch of the SR (I wasn’t active on the forum when SV launched) there’s an observable influx of new Suunto users here, and, at the risk of being too pedantic, I can see this phenomenon go both ways.
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A flood of complaints, some valid, directed at Suunto’s shortcomings, usually from the perspective of a more feature-rich brand. Forum moderators and insiders (to their credit) defend the work and philosophy of the company by citing past record, and may at times create an atmosphere that feels like you have to learn and accept a certain etiquette to voice your opinions here. New users are discouraged, frustrated, or in the extreme case resort to trolling.
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Some of those same complaints, suggestions, etc. actually make it to Suunto R&D and push them harder. Suunto’s appeal broadens; everyone benefits.
I sure hope it’s the latter but that is predicated on keeping this forum open and civilized for discussions concerning the sports and gear we’re passionate about.
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@David-Lown Haha, I am quite skinny yea. My wrist size is 18cm, but yea I’m lean. Guess I should do some more strength training on my non existent non-running days…
