Headphones completely died, Suunto dragging heels to repair and will not credit
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I bought a pair of black Suunto Wing headphones early 2025. I made the decision to buy them after having gone through 3 pairs of Shokz OpenRun headphones in 2 years and wanting a stronger, more durable product. I saw reddit reviews suggesting that the titanium bar in the Suunto Wings would make them more rugged. I was disappointed when about 4-5 months into owning them and having never dropped them, never exposed them to water (even though they are water-resistant), always maintained them in a clean and serviceable condition, and only using them for a few hours per day during workouts, suddenly in the middle of doing bicep curls, my music just stopped dead. I thought perhaps my phone had frozen up and needed me to restart the audio, but I found that my headphones had just completely died.
So, then I thought perhaps the battery on my headphones had died even though they were fully charged prior to starting my workout and I was only about 45 minutes into it. When I got home, I found that the headphones wouldn’t accept a charge from the charger base and would not respond to the power button at all.
I contacted Suunto who acknowledged that my unit was under warranty and asked me to ship it back to them for repair. I immediately asked for a replacement unit so that I was not without headphones for the period of time of the repair. This was denied. So I asked for a credit amounting to the period of time during which they were holding onto the unit using the formula “(total cost in $ of unit / 24 months of warranty ) * # of months Suunto has the unit = $ amount of refund”. This was denied. So then I asked for them to at least extend the warranty period by the number of months that they had the unit. 4 months later they still have my unit and have not repaired it. Horrible!
I am still waiting for the repair processes and just got an email from their customer service team saying they’re still waiting for parts to come in but that they should, finally, arrive “within the month” at which point they can finally begin my repair process. However, throughout this entire period, Suunto Wings have remained in stock (I have checked regularly) which means they’ve had the parts to make new units and, therefore, the parts to repair a broken unit. Thus, they have chosen to prioritize making new units rather than honoring their warranty commitment to a paying customer. That this is a slap in the face to someone who has paid their hard-earned cash and just wants to listen to some music during workouts goes without saying.
I have pointed out this contradiction to Suunto and am awaiting a response from them. Since they have designed to be extremely insolent and unwilling to take any steps whatsoever to address this extremely poor customer experience with their product, I am left with no alternative but to leave them a 1-star review and to go into detail about both the process thus far and the overall quality of the product relative to their competitors. I will be leaving daily reviews to this effect – they may opt to delete the multiple reviews, but it will cost them time and money to do so, and at some point hopefully that will leave such a bitter taste in their mouth that they’ll repair my damned headphones or give me a credit and we can both move on. Capitalism sucks!
As for the quality: I found that the Suunto headphones were less comfortable to wear than Shokz OpenRuns (I have no affiliation with either brand, I’m a private individual in western Massachusetts, I’m just autistic and pissed off at this company for bungling this situation so badly). I found that the battery drains so quickly with the LED on even intermittently that it’s not worth using unless you’re running on a road in pitch blackness. I found the ability to accept/reject calls or skip songs with the built in gyroscope was horribly buggy and would skip even if you just casually glanced to the side a few inches while jogging such that it was a nuisance, not a feature. I turned it off and never looked back. I also found that having to charge these headphones in a cradle rather than just directly plugging them into a USB charger was an annoyance and served as just 1 more thing I had to make sure I didn’t lose or break. I found the sound quality was alright, but the volume was substantially quieter than Shokz such that it was very difficult to hear phone calls or podcasts. I also felt the bass wasn’t as strong. I recognize these aren’t Top of the Line audio headphones and I’m not an audio-snob. I also recognize I’m biased from having a really poor experience, but I really can’t hear music as well with these as I could with Shokz. Unfortunately, like I said I went through 3 pairs of Shokz in 2 years so I can’t recommend them from a durability perspective either. And tragically, traditional over-the-head headphones fall off super easily when working out. I really dislike the feeling of earbuds (autism!) so I’m sort of out of options :(((
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@DeadStarsStillBurn Sorry to hear that, but thank you for sharing your experience. Did you try the new Openfit model from Shokz? I guess after this story you don’t want to try the new Suunto Wings 2…
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@DeadStarsStillBurn if you are in the EU you might have other options arising from the consumer protection which Suunto (or the seller) cannot refuse to provide.
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In Slovakia, customer rights force seller to handle waranty repair under 30days or if it takes longer you can request money back and seller must comply. Waranty is extended for time device was in service. And if seller refuse to repair device, it must provide evidence why it was declined. It should be similar in whole EU. But unfortunatelly you don’t have right to demand credit or replacement unit just because you want. At least in my country you must wait at max 30days.
On the other hand if you say because of bad durability you damaged already 3 shocks headphones in 2 years and now your wing are broken, it is hard to believe that you handle your devices with care. But that doesn’t doesn’t excuse suunto from holding it for 4 months. They must say why they don’t repair it or they must give you replacement unit. NOT make you wait for 4 months.
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The service does sound appalling.
I have a pair of Shokz, they are around 4 years old and never had an issue. I also used to work in an online bike shop that sold Shokz. I can only remember one pair of Shokz being returned which was after twelve months and the buttons stopped working. Shokz are pretty solid in my experience.
As mentioned above you should have consumer rights, if you are in the EU at least.
But as mentioned above you are either very unlucky or very hard on your equipment
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