Title: Long-time Suunto user — bitterly disappointed with the Vertical

zapatista

I’ve owned Suunto watches on and off for over 25 years, most recently upgrading from the Suunto 9 Peak (non-Pro). I’ve always had a soft spot for Suunto, but what I’ve found with the Vertical has left me more disappointed than with any Suunto I’ve owned before.

Here’s what I’ve run into in less than 24 hours of ownership:

Watch face limitations: Only seven faces can be installed at once. Try to add more and the app just silently fails — no warning, no error, nothing. How hard would it be to display “You’ve reached the limit of 7 watch faces”?

Complications and essentials: Why do some faces not even show the date unless I waste a complication slot? Time and date are the bare minimum I expect without sacrificing a slot that should be for actual extras.

Pinned widgets: Only one allowed. Again, no message, no option. Just “one and done.” Why not give users freedom? One person’s “essentials” aren’t the same as another’s.

Missing tap-to-cycle watch faces: On the Suunto 9 Peak I loved being able to tap the watch face to cycle through different data. That was elegant, minimal, and powerful. The fact that Suunto removed such a stellar feature in the Vertical strikes me as absolute madness. Why take away functionality that worked so well?

Raise to wake / tap to wake: Raise to wake is flaky at best, and tap to wake isn’t even officially a feature — yet sometimes it half-works. Neither are consistent enough to rely on.

Button behaviour: Because raise and tap were so unreliable, I turned to the buttons expecting them to be a consistent fallback. But there is no button on this watch that will reliably wake it to the time screen with backlight. Sometimes a press does what I want. Other times it dumps me into the pinned widget, the Activity menu, or other widgets, and I have to swipe back just to see the time. This appears to be due to a two-stage sleep state: if the watch has been idle for “long enough,” a press wakes cleanly. If it hasn’t, the exact same press overshoots. From the outside, the screen looks the same (off!), so you never know what you’re going to get. Absolutely ridiculous.

Standby: “Standby on” burns more battery but at least makes wake behaviour less infuriating. “Standby off” saves battery but guarantees overshoot headaches. Why should I have to make that trade-off in a premium watch?

General UX: Poor communication everywhere. Features silently failing, limits undocumented, no feedback to the user. It gives the impression of half-finished software design layered over excellent hardware.

To top it all off — forum registration nonsense: Why on earth do I need to create another account just to post here? My Suunto App account isn’t good enough? That’s a ridiculous, user-hostile choice — and to make it worse, I was forced to consent to email notifications during signup.

The hardware is outstanding — the battery life, the GPS, the maps — but none of that matters if I can’t depend on the basics. For me, the most fundamental requirement is simple: press a button, see the time. Every time. The Vertical can’t even deliver that without workarounds, quirks, or luck.

Has anyone else experienced these problems? And if so, have you found any reliable ways to get around them?

… because I’m on the point of packaging this watch up to return it!

isazi

@zapatista maybe it is not the watch for you, I think it is the absolutely best watch ever released by Suunto

isazi

@zapatista said in Title: Long-time Suunto user — bitterly disappointed with the Vertical:

To top it all off — forum registration nonsense: Why on earth do I need to create another account just to post here? My Suunto App account isn’t good enough? That’s a ridiculous, user-hostile choice — and to make it worse, I was forced to consent to email notifications during signup.

About this, why not? If we allow everyone to post without registration, we will be getting flooded by spam and AI bots (something that we have even now, but with less impact). If you want to participate in this community, you make an account.

sartoric

… and just to remind that this is a community forum that’s not connected directly to Suunto HO (except for the hosting domain) and Suunto App

Ecki D.

Miss the circling complications too but gave up in between to wait for it.

The limits of watch faces don’t bother me but the limitation to 2 S+ apps for each activity and 15 S+ apps on the watch but it got better now since ZoneSense ist integrated and there are more fields now that can be added in custom sport modes.

Navigation is another field that needs further improvements, the turnpoints notifications meanwhile appear exactly at the turnpoint. So they are only usful for hiking.

Updates are super weird sometimes especially on loosing data that is only configured on the watch. My 9PP was factory reset on last update, others lost their HR and Pacezones.

I don’t know how big G is doing or others, at least I am always lost when I take my wifes Venue3s.
Suunto for me is much more intuitive on using it on a daily basis even with it’s known software bugs. Its just 3 times pressing the top button to start a training most of the time.

And I think it is real cool to see how things evolve like Zone Sense, the new app features, the AI Training Plan, S+ Apps from outside like the Livetracking, for almost free where other fire app premium abo servces.

zapatista

@sartoric @isazi
Thanks for your replies. I get that this is a community forum and needs its own account system, but my frustration was more about why I can’t just use my existing Suunto App login here. Having to register separately feels unnecessary.

Same with the emails — I don’t mind being notified about replies to my posts (that’s obvious and implicit on most forums), but being forced to tick a consent box felt odd. It seems to bundle normal notifications together with possible digests/updates, and the wording (“pertinent to you”) comes across a bit like marketing. I’d rather those were optional from the start.

On the watch itself — my real issue is just trying to reliably see the time. Raise-to-wake and tap-to-wake are both very hit-or-miss, and even button presses don’t always behave consistently. Tap-to-wake isn’t even documented anywhere, yet it definitely happens sometimes! How do you personally have yours set up so you can always get the time without fuss?

Egika

@zapatista Maybe I am not getting your point, but the Suunto Vertical has a MIP display that never goes black. You can always see the time and other watch face data. No need to raise or tap.

Tomas5

@isazi he talks about using suunto app acount, not to open forum to non registered anonymouse users. For example synology has it that way that comunity forum can be used with main user account if i am not mistaken. And that is just one example.

Tomas5

@sartoric well it is on suunto domain, it is branded by suunto logo, suunto employees do announcement here about new software releases. Looks connected more than enough.

isazi

@Tomas5 Garmin does the same, it has a single sign on, but this forum is a community one, not the official Suunto one, and it is disconnected from the Suunto infrastructure.

Tieutieu

@zapatista things you’ve listed are more ux/ui irritants for you. It’s the same or close (or “worse”) for other recent watches (S9pp, Race, RaceS and Race2) that share the same FW.
SV is reliable and strongly built. Like @isazi said it’s also the best suunto has made to me (and I’ve used a few ones).

Tomas5

@Egika if you are inside MIPS is often dark enough to see. I have to press button at least on Suunto 5 to make backlight to kick in, or have raise to wake enabled. And it behave like that pressing button will take you to some screen while enabling backlight too. At least on S5 bottom left button can be used to enable backlight and has no function on watch face so it still show time after pressing.

But even MIPS go dark if you don’t move at all few minutes.

soisan

@Tomas5 Why do you write about something you don’t have experience of? The difference between the display of S5 and the one in Vertical is like night and day!

Tomas5

@soisan isn’t it MIPS technology too?

soisan

@Tomas5 You can understand that two displays of the same type can show images of a very different quality, can’t you?

Tomas5

@soisan by the way, do you own Suunto 5 or you are talking about something you don’t have any idea? There is no MIPS technology that is readable in dark without backlight. I didn’t saw Vertical but i saw multiple MIPS watches even flagship one. Every of them required backlight because of MIPS.

Audaxjoe

Raise to rake works perfectly well on my Vertical. I never struggle to read the time. Maybe asking for advice more and ranting less would get better responses‍️

I think the Vertical is a fantastic watch for everyday wear and sport.

kriskus

@zapatista You actually do get a warning about watchfaces limit when you install the last one and when you attempt to install another one:

And as mentioned by others - raise-to-wake works perfectly. Is your watch brand new?

pavel.samokha

@zapatista said in Title: Long-time Suunto user — bitterly disappointed with the Vertical:

Pinned widgets: Only one allowed. Again, no message, no option. Just “one and done.” Why not give users freedom? One person’s “essentials” aren’t the same as another’s.

All such whys almost always have technical reasons.

You also have:

Drop down list with quick widgets. You can order that list and hide unnecessary widgets
Configure top and down button long-press as a shortcut to do an action or open widget you like.

safari

@zapatista
I read your comments.
While I respect your comments, they’re harsh for a 25-year Suunto user. I disagree with most of them.
If I’m not moving my arm, I don’t need to look at the watch. The watch is ready the moment I turn my arm.
Of course, it has some shortcomings, but every brand has its own style of operation.
For example, Garmin has invested in navigation for years. Then they released a smartwatch. Naturally, their mapping system is very good. They even got involved with satellite in their latest models, but the price is over $1,000.
I use Veritcal. I have 5-6 different bands that go with every environment—at work, in the mountains, camping. I choose bands and interfaces accordingly.
By the way, it warns you when you exceed the 9+1 interface.
It wouldn’t make sense for a deo forum or ecosystem to be open to everyone.
These are my personal opinions and experiences.
Best regards