Very important: Suunto Vertical malfunction

Ecki D.

@Manuele I did a lot of free water swimming last summer and did some snorkeling too.
Had no problems with 9PP and can remember that I did press buttons while the watch was still wet but maybe not submerged,
But the Vertical differs because it has a bezel - maybe this a weak spot.

Egika

@Manuele said in Very important: Suunto Vertical malfunction:

@Egika Yes, it is very unlucky, twice!

So you confirm that everything was working well for you, and that you may have pressed the buttons sometimes, even in contact with water?

Thank you for your response, it is a good feedback for me right now!

Yes, I regularly swim indoor, outdoor, did snorkeling with both Race and Vertical and also go whitewater kayaking. All those sports involve pushing the buttons when the watch is wet or at the water surface.
No issue ever so far.

Manuele

@Egika Thank you, very helpful!

Manuele

Hi, just an update

I have sent the watch to Suunto Support.
They have replaced in few days and said they would investigate further the matter.

I will try the watch in water again!

Simon

You may press buttons under water. This can not be the cause of these issues. The watch must be waterproof no matter if you press the buttons or not.

surfboomerang

@Simon Is this your opinion or an official Suunto statement?
In the past, Suunto strongly recommended not to press any buttons under water

kriskus

@surfboomerang It doesn’t explicility say anything like that in the user’s guide. It says however that for snorkeling/mermaiding you can press the button during the activity:
‘The default view for Snorkeling and Mermaiding is the Surface view. While recording the exercise, you can browse between the different views by pressing the middle button.’

Manuele

@Simon I tried open water swimming yesterday, everything smooth, no issues

I will try again snorkelling soon!
Thanks for the feedback

kriskus

@Manuele And if this new unit also fails at some point, now you can possibly also exchange it for the new Suunto Ocean

Manuele

@kriskus Yeah, now I cannot complain about the choices available to us, but I am not an heavy underwater user, else I would have considered it.

Great watch though.

I had tried my Vertical few more times while open water swimming, and I did not have any issues.
I am still a bit cautious about free diving/snorkelling, as I do not want to have to send it back another time.

I will update the thread when I will, then

If anyone else had tried snorkelling, and want to share their experiences with the Vertical, I would be very interested to see if I have just been very unlucky!

drunners

I use it weekly for indoor swimming pressing buttons underwater and I’ve never had any issues, but ok, that’s not salty water

Sergei Ladeishchikov

I had a similar problem after swimming in the sea. This was my first SV. After purchasing, I used it for six months without water. Six months later, I came to the sea and tried the SV in scuba diving mode. I pressed the buttons underwater and was pleased with the results. The next sail half an hour later brought me problems, my SV began to freeze. I tried various reboots, but it didn’t help. I tried resetting the settings, but it didn’t work. SV stopped turning on, it kept rebooting after the suunto logo. As a result, I sent the watch to the service center and they exchanged it for a new one. Six months later I was back at sea and testing the SV in the water. And I was pleased with the results. Not a single failure. Later I also tested the SV in the pool for a long time. No problems with water!! Conclusion - my first SV was defective, water killed it!

Manuele

@Sergei-Ladeishchikov Thank you Sergei for sharing your experience.
I can say we had pretty much the same issue, I was unlucky twice, but as you are now reporting, I can trust the watch to be well over water proof (still not considering it as a diving watch).

I will try to go openwater swimming once again and free dive a bit, so I will see.
In any case, even if that could be annoying the third time, I know that the assistance will replace the defective unit under warranty.

I am looking to have the thread updated as this can be useful to somebody else

Aquamac

@Manuele This EXACT thing has happened to me. The first time, Suunto sent me a replacement. Literally my first snorkel with the new watch and it’s happened again. Still waiting to see what happens.

Mihailo Krivokapic

@Manuele
Same thing happened. But it wasn’t with snorkeling, rather open water swimming. Even though I swam a couple hundred meters, the watch detected the distance as 0. After ending the activity, watch was unresponsive. I restarted it, went to swimming again; same thing. Only this time it wouldn’t turn on after shutting it down. I tried it all, different button combinations, placing it to charge… nothing. I’ve received a replacement watch from a retailer, and I’ll be honest, I’m afraid to turn on swimming again. I’m 100% sure that it’s a software issue, as water damage would be very obvious, in all other areas the watch is perfect. Odd that this is the case with a minority of people, as I’ve read on other threads.