Updates for V1

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

Okay, everyone. I wanted to share a bit of perspective on the perceived “abandonment” of older watches, based on my experience developing SuuntoPlus apps over the past few months, since the platform was opened to external developers.

Building something that is both visually polished and computationally useful on an embedded device such as a sports watch is remarkably difficult.

The available RAM and processing power are very limited, largely because the device also needs to deliver long battery life. There is a reason why general-purpose smartwatches, particularly those running systems such as Wear OS, have very different battery characteristics from dedicated sports watches.

Working with the SuuntoPlus platform has given me a lot of respect for Suunto’s engineers. They are doing low-level optimisation to fit more features into hardware that is already operating within very tight limits.

It is also worth looking at how much the platform has evolved. The Suunto 9 Peak Pro launched with a new interface that, to be honest, was extremely slow at first. Since then, the same platform family has gained offline maps on the Vertical, support for two SuuntoPlus apps running at the same time, navigation, and a large number of data streams being collected and processed in the background: pace, GPS, accelerometer data, barometric data, heart-rate data, NGP, and many others.

Even values that appear simple on the screen are not always available in a ready-to-display form. Heart rate must be derived from sensor signals and filtered before it becomes a stable value. Other data may be represented internally in standardised units, such as speed in metres per second or temperature in Kelvin, and then converted for presentation.

On top of all this, we expect the interface to be clear, responsive and visually polished.

I have learned the hard way that even seemingly minor graphical choices can have a measurable cost. For example, drawing a straight line with rounded ends can be considerably simpler than drawing a curved arc with rounded ends that follows the shape of the display correctly.

This does not mean that owners of older watches should not feel disappointed when their devices stop receiving major features. That frustration is understandable, especially when the hardware still works well. I only think it is worth recognising that supporting older devices is not simply a matter of enabling an existing feature. Every new function competes for memory, processing time, battery life and engineering resources on hardware with fixed limits.

[smopi]

@Łukasz-Szmigiel I don’t expect endless new features. What I do expect from a premium watch that launched at nearly €800 is that long-standing, well-known bugs are fixed.

For example, the recovery value still isn’t synchronized correctly—the watch and the app often show different values. That is not a new feature request; it’s a basic consistency issue that has been reported for a long time.

Yes, developing software for embedded devices is challenging, but that’s precisely what customers pay for when they buy a premium product. Price and product positioning create expectations, and regular maintenance and bug fixing are part of that commitment.

[Egika]

folks, noone ever said, that firmware is not actively developed anymore.
V1 has just not got the 07/26 update that V2 and R2 have received.
Simple as this.

[thanasis]

@Egika said:

folks, noone ever said, that firmware is not actively developed anymore.
V1 has just not got the 07/26 update that V2 and R2 have received.
Simple as this.

Just to indicate that it’s not just the 07/2026 but also the 04/2026 update

[Łukasz Szmigiel]

@smopi, I understand where you are coming from. I would also like to see the phantom vibrations and overly strong vibration alerts fixed on the S9PP.

My guess is that addressing issues on older devices is no longer commercially viable for Suunto, even when those issues remain frustrating for users. Perhaps one day the company will consider opening parts of the firmware for discontinued devices, although I realise that this is probably unlikely.

Personally, I treat the watch as a tool that supports my training. As long as it does not interfere with it, and the benefits still outweigh the limitations, I am comfortable continuing to use it.

[cosme.costa]

As it has been said in the Spanish Telegram forum:

SV1, SR1 and SRS are still supported and currently they are evaluating the next update.
At the end of August Suunto will comunicate more about this.

[isazi]

@cosme.costa said:
At the end of August Suunto will comunicate more about this.

The date is not confirmed and should have not been shared

The only official information is that Vertical, Race, and Race S are still supported and will get updates in the future.

[cosme.costa]

@isazi Well, I only have witten down what have been shared in another forum and stated as official.
I was about to share the screen capture but the post has been edited

Well I can keep my mouth shut if Suunto makes me beta tester and I sign a NDA

[isazi]

@cosme.costa said:

I was about to share the screen capture but the post has been edited

Yes, the date was an initial mistake

[Tieutieu]

The only major issue for me is that climb guidance as not been updated like it has been on SRs, SR and SV2 SR2
It’s still almost unusable on SV1 because extra zoom level on current segment is not there when POI are on the route.
This has been adressed very nicely on my SRs, but it’s a big miss on my SV1.
For all other new potential new features (tide app and so…) i perfectly understand that SV1 comes to it’s limits, so minor/bugs corrections will be fine now.
It’s still my favorite and I have not decided to go for a SV2 (will wait for a further generation)

[GiPFELKiND]

@Tieutieu said:

.
It’s still my favorite and I have not decided to go for a SV2 (will wait for a further generation)

The UTMB in Chamonix comes in August perhaps we can see more new products from suunto there

[plopes73]

@Brad_Olwin Hi, does your solar harvest work as before? Mine just keep on minimum even when exposed to direct sunlight at noon for some minutes… I don’t want any big features updates also for Vertical 1 but I would appreciate that exclusive features from V1 were not deprecated just because V2 doesn’t have it, and right now this is my feelings regarding solar harvest. That stop working as before after the last update (launch at the same time as V2).
Cheers.

[isazi]

@plopes73 nothing happened to solar, still works on Vertical 1 as before, there is not CONSPIRACY to disable features on your watch

[cosme.costa]

@plopes73 I have read somewhere, I do not remember where, that there is a bug in the widget that do not shows the real solar harvesting, but it works correctly. This bug has not been adressed yet, could be this?

[sartoric]

@cosme.costa
there is a refresh bug in the history widget, but the real time view shows the current state correctly
Mine goes from idle to maximum… depending on the sun ofc
in these days, almost always at maximum

[plopes73]

@cosme.costa Could be, I’ve not notice differences in battery, but then again, solar harvesting do not charges battery, only helps a bit. However my widget only show idle and minimum (a very small colored dot in the middle of the scale). Also the 15min bars are always on minimum, on these clear days they were at least half way after some runs. Hope that is true, only a bug in widget Cheers

[plopes73]

@isazi On mine, the wiget doesn’t work as before and as far as I read, in the last firmware update solar harvesting was not in scope, but in my watch it’s not the same, at least what’s visible on the widget. I have never had an issue with any update, not even some reported issues with battery and all that That’s why I found this strange ;). Cheers

[plopes73]

@sartoric On my watch not even the live widget (on the watch face) shows more than minimum, just idle and minimum, even on direct sunlight. Maybe I need to do a hard reset (the one with 60 seconds on the charger), soft resets didn’t work. Thank you for sharing that info. Cheers.

[isazi]

@plopes73 unfortunately you would not be the first to have some hardware issues with the solar harvesting module. If your watch is still under warranty, contact support to have it checked and possibly repaired.

[babychai]

@plopes73 do you using screen protector?