Suunto Race 2 General Discussion
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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@raven Race/Vertical 2 are not a newer version of the first-generation Race/Vertical.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.
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@raven said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
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.
Apart from playing music locally, Suunto Run doesn’t offer much more than Race/Vertical.
Walls of text, and you still haven’t grasped the basic idea. The Suunto Run is a different line of budget watches that allows for such experiments with unfinished (not even a half-baked) and heavily stripped-down software. Once the software currently in the Suunto Run matures enough, it may (but doesn’t have to) make its way into the Race/Vertical 2.
I don’t know Suunto’s plans, so I’m not particularly excited about this. In fact, I’m glad that this time Suunto didn’t release a watch with poor and seriously underdeveloped software, as was sometimes the case in the past.
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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 like aspects of the run firmware and do not like other aspects. I would not want the Run firmware on the Race2
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@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto Race 2 General Discussion:
I have not seen any issues with GPS accuracy but most of my testing is in Colorado and not typically GPS challenging.
Sounds good! Let’s wait for more feedback from users. The terrain in PNW where I live tends to be challenging for GPS because mountain slopes are densely covered with tall evergreen trees such as Douglar Fir, Hemlock, Red Cedar, etc. I found Race to be clearly more accurate than the last generation of Garmin watches, such as Enduro 3, and equally accurate to the previous generation of Garmin watches such as Fenix 7 Pro.
I am tempted to buy Race 2 in REI to test it if I get it in a place with a good return policy such as REI. Maybe I should become a beta tester because I tend to report a lot of issues, but I am not sure how to apply.
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@raven I think Suunto Run is meant to target the Chinese Market where it has different needs and requirements (e.g. Suunto Run has Alipay in CN market, dunno whether SR2 has the capability or not). I presume they are using different codebase which has the ability to run offline music and the v2 OS does not yet support offline music without major overhaul.
V3 OS is targeted to more purist and beginner level where the capability of customization is limited to allow the OS to run more efficiently. It’s a cost thing. Maybe Suunto will have more smartwatch capability for the V3 and there will be 2 distinct models, who knows.
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@2b2bff it’s no surprise to me if they keep changing and with R2 it’s seems they’re find the right way. Already the Run HR performs really well. What “worries” me the most is the amount of different sw versions in circulation, something difficult to maintain (time, resources, quality of sw)…
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@Hari-Seldon DCRAINMAKER is describing it like the Race 2 has the necessary HW to support future functionality and that is what Suunto is planning.
So the release of the watch itself is just the first step, SW changes will follow. Thats why it is currently just an small update, but the HW generations will start to drift away from each other I would suppose.
That could mean that Race 2 will get a (parallel developed) version 3 when it is ready - and the others not.
At least for me that would make sense -
As main utmb sponsor, Suunto couldn’t miss this event to launch new products. Considering that most of market is no using Suunto’s, even if FW is the same for now than SV, SR, SRs, it’s not a big deal.
The SR2 is awesome and will seduce new customers, and FW updates will certainly come quickly.
And we, « old users », are pleased to see that our watches are still updated.
Perfect move IMHO.Suunto’s devices at home :
Vertical titanium solar
Suunto Race S
S9pp titanium sand
Suunto Wing
S9B titanium Ambassador edition, A3P, X6
