Suunto Race 2 General Discussion
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I too have been testing the Race 2 for months. I have the titanium version. What I think is vastly improved over other Suunto watches, this includes the Run, Race 1, Race S and Vertical.
- This is the most comfortable Suunto watch I have ever worn. I typically wear smaller watches for sleep; Race S or Run but the Race 2 is as comfortable even though much larger. It is thinner and lighter than Race 1 and the lugs are different so extremely comfortable sleeping or exercising.
- OHR on Suunto watches has never worked well for me, not the Run or the Race S. (Run is better with new firmware but still not perfect). However the new OHR on the Race 2 is finally usable for me and as good as my Apple Watch Ultra 2. I am getting excellent OHR across all exercises and during daily use. A big win for me.
- The screen is amazing. I am not a fan of AMOLED and have long complained in the bright Colorado sun at altitude the screens are hard to see. The LTPO is great in the sun and now I am conflicted:) Comparing with the Vertical I prefer the Race 2 overall, it is as good in the sun and much, much better in shade and cloudy weather.
- The CPU is fast and raise to wake is great as is panning maps on the watch.
Battery life is great, I recently tested Ultra Mode on a 4 day fastpack trip and my estimates ranged from 80h to 133h during the trip.
I am using with a textile band that sold with the Suunto Run, the watch is extremely light and comfortable.
Vector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
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Now that the heart rate monitor has been significantly improved, it looks quite promising. That said, it’s really too much for me, and fortunately Run suits all my activities perfectly. Now I’m even more curious to see what Vertical has to offer…
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@Brad_Olwin Thanks Brad, really valuable feedback as I know you are a huge vertical fan, to be honnest I had always considered the sharp lugs on suunto a design flaw that I have to cope with and I was glad they change it on the race S that my wife use, nice to read.
Hope one day we will see a red shift for night mode appear, on my side I’m really use to the torch on my watch and I can’t considered a watch without this feature but reading how you feel conviced by amoled and the watch make it appealing anyway
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@v.sacre said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
No waouw effect for me with this new Suunto Race 2.
Hope that Vertical 2 will impress me much more.I would call it Race 1.5
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@Tami999 The hardware in the Race 2 is more future-proof and after a few major updates (e.g. in a year) it could be a completely different watch, just like the 9PP or Vertical were at launch and today.
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@sky-runner I have not seen any issues with GPS accuracy but most of my testing is in Colorado and not typically GPS challenging.
Vector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
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The Race 2 is a sort of exasperated “fine” but when compared to the Run really feels like two different companies made each watch. Having MP3 music playback on the Run and not back porting it to Race / Race S might have made sense if there were technical limitations of the older hardware, but now with a refresh with Race 2 it’s like they forgot they had the feature on the cheaper watch. Perhaps that will come in an update to Race 2.
Possibly more troubling is the charger, which yet again is a different design. They changed it for the Run, and now changing it again for the Race 2. While likely not a real issue for most people who will only ever have one or the other watch, it still seems like Suunto isn’t well optimized to make a design that can last more than three months or so. Compare with the Apple Watch which still uses the same overall charger design since the original; new cables can charge faster, but I believe an original charging cable would still work with today’s models.
At least now those choosing between sizes of Race and Race S should be less concerned about the optical sensor differences, although really my guess is for ambient walking around 24/7 the optical was ok for the original, and for actual workouts people should have a chest strap anyway, especially as it’s a requirement for ZoneSense.
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@raven The old charging cable was just a piece of crap, so really there is nothing to miss.
The same, but less bluntly, can be written about OHR in older watches.
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I think Suunto really nails it for the SR2. The biggest issue right now is because at launch, the new processor and sensor does not give additional value yet. Thus, this seems to be an incremental update. I think if we have previous Suunto watches, we should wait for the full upgrade on the software front to leverage the new hardware.
But, the screen itself looks amazing. It seems, from what I saw from videos and photos, the distance between the glass and the screen seems closer. It seems it’s also 120hz as well which makes it very fluid.
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@maszop said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
@raven The old charging cable was just a piece of crap, so really there is nothing to miss.
The same, but less bluntly, can be written about OHR in older watches.
The charging cable from the Run is a piece of crap? That’s the last revision they just did a few months ago, and the Race 2 differs from that. My point is the Run and Race 2 should have the same charger, given they have been released near each other and likely one design is superior to the other.
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@raven Race/Vertical 2 are not a newer version of the first-generation Race/Vertical.
The Suunto Run is a completely different tool.
Different hardware, different software, different features, different customer group, etc. -
I’m clearly failing to communicate.
From a practical point of view, it makes more sense for a company to have one standard charger that can be used on all their devices. If one goes out and buys an Apple Watch SE, Apple Watch Series 10, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 (imagine a family (two parents and a teenager) where three people all want different devices from the same company), then my understanding is they would all get chargers compatible with each other.
Now imagine if two people in the same family went and got a Suunto Run and a Suunto Race 2. They get two different chargers incompatible with one another. If they go on vacation together, they need to bring both cables and not just one. Is there a good reason for this from a consumer’s point of view? I don’t think so.
Suunto could simplify their inventory if they had the same charger on both devices. Given they were released a few months apart, this should have been simple to coordinate. Instead, it’s as if the Run was made by Polar or Coros, despite having Suunto branding. They clearly didn’t talk to the Race 2 team.
For another comparison, look at watch bands. I haven’t checked, but I imagine if there were two people in a family with a Run and Race they could exchange watch bands if they desired. Now imagine every watch Suunto released had a separate line of watch bands, and one could never use a watch band from a Run on a Race 2, etc. Now if I’m wrong and Run bands are not compatible with Race 2 then that emphasizes my “people aren’t talking to each other” point.
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@raven Yes, but it took Suunto many years (since the 9Baro) to produce a reasonably good charging cable. Better late than never.
Apparently, the Suunto Run solution wasn’t as good as it seemed. A similar situation arose earlier – changing the cable in the 9 Peak and 9 Peak Pro. -
@maszop said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
@raven Yes, but it took Suunto many years (since the 9Baro) to produce a reasonably good charging cable. Better late than never.
Apparently, the Suunto Run solution wasn’t as good as it seemed. A similar situation arose earlier – changing the cable in the 9 Peak and 9 Peak Pro.It’s not like they have years of feedback of the Run, seeing problems in the charger they fixed with the Race 2.
My assumption is both the Run and Race 2 were developed concurrently. They didn’t release the Run, then started work on the Race 2, and “fixed” problems from the Run. Therefore, the charger designs of both watches, if I’m right and the development being concurrent, suggests it was two distinct teams that did not coordinate with each other.
I don’t think it takes much imagination to consider an alternative world, where one charging system that works for both watches was developed, and the hope would be this would be the design going forward. Of course, once the Run and Race 2 had been out for some time, if there was issues, then those should be fixed. This is why I’m not complaining the Race 2 does not match the Race — enough time has passed that improvements make sense.
Extend this to other areas: why was it important for the Run to make its own OS and not iterate on the previous Race / Race S? And assuming there is compelling reasons for that, why is the Race 2 not using the OS of the Run, if it’s superior to the previous Race line.
For context, one reason I don’t consider Garmin is I get the feeling it’s a ton of “separate teams”. The Forerunner people don’t know what the Venu people are doing, and neither know what the Fenix people are doing. It’s all a hodgepodge mess. Looking at the Race 2 as a successor to the Race, it’s some nice improvements and makes sense. Looking at the Race 2 as a device made concurrently with the Run, it feels like they are adopting a Garmin “every device has a team that doesn’t talk to the others” approach. I mislike that.
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@raven The software in the Suunto Run is definitely not superior to the Suunto Race/Race 2. It’s quite the opposite. It’s currently unsuitable for any more advanced watches.
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@maszop said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
@raven The software in the Suunto Run is definitely not superior to the Suunto Race/Race 2. It’s quite the opposite. It’s currently unsuitable for any more advanced watches.
I didn’t claim that it was? My point was “why develop a whole new OS for just one device”. The Run could have took the Race software and worked with that. They decided to do a whole new OS. Then, it seems, ignoring that work for the Race 2. It’s unclear if the new ability to have multiple sensors of a type is a cut/paste from Run OS, or if the team needed to re-develop that from scratch.
Meanwhile, you’ve ignored the other relevant points I made. I assume you’re ok with every new watch Suunto makes will have a unique charger, whether or not it actually is an improvement, for example.
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@raven These are two completely separate watch lines. Just like the Suunto 7 once was. Perhaps the software will merge in the future; currently, they’re a completely different product line, aimed at different customers.
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@maszop said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
@raven These are two completely separate watch lines. Just like the Suunto 7 once was. Perhaps the software will merge in the future; currently, they’re a completely different product line, aimed at different customers.
My point is with a company like Apple, their forthcoming WatchOS 26 will apply to all watches they currently sell. They don’t do a separate OS for their cheaper SE line. Yes, there’s features on the Ultra not on the SE, but typically those are due to hardware differences, not simple OS ones. (A notable exception is “precision start” where the watch allows you to wait for HR and GPS acquisition before beginning the workout, which I think should be backported to non-Ultra devices. Still, this difference doesn’t require the SE running a separate OS version) Watch bands and charging cables for one watch work with others, etc.So while they have “three watch lines” — SE, series, and Ultra — there’s a lot of overlap between them.
Meanwhile, Garmin seems to have teams on different planets who may or may not talk to each other. It may as well be the Forerunner team is a separate company from the Venu team from my point of view. Even there, it wouldn’t surprise me if chargers happened to work across teams.
Meanwhile, in recent years Suunto was more like Apple, but with the Run is moving more toward Garmin.
It seems we can make the start of a “modern era” for Suunto with the release of the Suunto 3 in 2018?
That watch apparently started with OS version 1.0 (appropriate) and stops at 2.19.42 in Suunto’s older UI style. It seems support was 2018-2022, four years.
The new widget based UI was introduced with 2.30.x line with the Vertical and Race.
This continued until the Run. Now they are managing two distinct OS, but they look visual similar to a high degree, so most users won’t understand the differences. If someone bought the Run a few months ago, and now, for whatever reason is temped by the Race 2 as a replacement, they will lose MP3 support they had in the Run if the switched despite the Race 2 being a more expensive device. This is silly in my opinion.
If the Run had been the start of a new “Mark 3” for a new era, with Race 2 adopting it, then things might make a bit more sense, but that would only have been possible if the Run OS could have all the supported features the Race had. As silly as it is the Run can do things the Race 2 cannot, it would be worse if the Race 2 couldn’t do things the Race could.
Let me make a final thought experiment. Pretend that each of these watches requires a new app to interface with. That is, if you had a Suunto Race and used the Suunto app, then you wanted to upgrade, you’d need to download a “Suunto Run” app or the “Suunto Race 2” app depending on which watch you got, and neither would have history of your previous sessions with the original Race. I hope one can see this would be silly and a lot of “wasted effort” — this is what I mean when I discuss the fact the Run OS differs from the Race 2 OS, and the Run charging cable differs from the Race 2 charging cable. One can say they are meant for “different groups” but can’t there be a single cable and a single watch OS that satisfies both groups, just as the Suunto app handles both and separate apps are not required?
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maybe run was developed by completely different team than race2. I’m suunto user since spartan sport wrist hr baro (with very first release of new software…). then 9baro. luckily I skipped 7. now I wait with my vertical and popcorn
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@dombo said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
maybe run was developed by completely different team than race2. I’m suunto user since spartan sport wrist hr baro (with very first release of new software…). then 9baro. luckily I skipped 7. now I wait with my vertical and popcorn
Yes, it makes sense if there’s a completely different team, but why not share info between teams and have solutions where two groups are not solving the same problem independently. It’s not that the original Race had the perfect charging cable; let’s accept that as fact. A new cable is required. Why not design one cable to be used for all watches going forward, or at least until enough time has passed a revision makes sense. As it is, the Run and Race 2 teams both “solved” the problem of the Race charging cable independently; this is wasted effort and looks amateurish to me.
