Vertical 2 feedback from using it during Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc race
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I bought Vertical 2 specifically for UTMB because I needed 40+ hours of battery life and navigation with maps, and specifically ability to have advanced navigation features such as climb guidance and tracking distances to aid stations. Has it met these expectations? Yes and No - see the details below.
Ability to track the entire race.
The battery life was more than adequate. The next morning after finishing the race the battery indicator is at 31%. This is after over 40 hours of runtime with the best accuracy, maps and navigation the entire time. From this standpoint the watch performed great.
However, the watch had crashed twice during the race, which is completely unacceptable! The first time - after 5 hours as I was entering Les Contamines aid station. I suspect the crash was triggered by waypoint notification. The second time - after another 22 hours as I was approaching Champex-Lac aid station but still had a few hundred meters to go. This time I suspect the crash was triggered by receiving a phone text message notification as a family member texted me.
If the watch can’t be dependable, nothing else matters - no matter what great features it has. There have been numerous reports of crashes on this forum since 2026 Q1 software update and so far Suunto team has been unable or unwilling to fix them. I myself had 3 other crashes since April when I bought the watch. I was dreading it would crash during the race, and it happened! I took precautions like not using any S+ apps, but that wasn’t enough to stop it from crashing. Should I depend on Suunto in another major race in the feature? What do you think the answer should be?
Map and navigation features
For the most part the watch worked well. However there were a number of occasions it falsely declared I was off route. This is a known issue that must be addressed. Off-route detection is way too sensitive and prone to false positives.
The map was responsive. The amount of details to stay on course was good and I had never had an issue to know what’s coming even though I didn’t use turn notifications.
The ability to zoom the elevation profile on the climb guidance screen was invaluable to track distance remaining to next aid station as well as remaining amounts of climb and descent. By zooming out I could also see these numbers for a few upcoming aid stations and for the entire remaining part of the race course. This is a very useful feature that I use a lot! However it should be further improved by including the waypoint name at the bottom which corresponds to the numbers and the rightmost waypoint.
Furthermore, the single climb (most zoomed in) view of climb guidance should be improved to be more consistent with other views. As it is implemented now, the climb / descent numbers are obscured by the configurable blue data field. Also the remaining distance is shown in a tiny font, so I can’t see it well. Also, the usability of this feature would be improved is several colors were used to indicate the slope grade similarly to how Garmin does it. It is difficult to perceive the slope shape from the graph itself because the graph is compressed vertically. Instead, imagine having a few colors ranging from yellow to dark red filling different parts of the graph - that would significantly improve the perception.
With the color coding I mentioned above there would no longer be a need to have mild climbs (ascent) segments vs. steep climbs. It would be fewer larger climb and descent segments with color coding showing the steepness.
Other race specific features
During the race I used Leki poles with Leki Shark attachment system which means I was wearing fairly stiff gloves. Most race runners had similar Leki poles with similar gloves. With Vertical 2 start/pause button sticking out it comes dangerously close to touching the glove and being accidentally pushed down, which is extremely undesirable during the race. Furthermore, if someone leans on their poles with wrists being bent, the glove pushing on the button for 12 seconds restarts the watch. It would be better, for Vertical 2 specifically, to move the restart function from the top button to the middle button which is much less likely to be pushed accidentally.
The feature that I think it’s greatly missing is “race lock” - a soft lock where most non-destructive functions of the watch still work, including zooming of map and elevation profile and triggering a lap, however accidental stop or pause are prevented. The current implementation of lock is inadequate and I don’t use it because I would have to lock and unlock the watch too frequently and that would be error prone.
Also, I’d really like to have a rest timer feature with an ability to track time spent at an aid station or other stops without pausing the watch. The goal is to be aware of the time spent at the stop but without losing any of the metrics. I know that most people would simply pause their watch in a similar situation and that would display the paused time. However pausing during a race is not an acceptable solution because the elapsed time must continue going the entire time.
Suunto: Ambit, Ambit 3 Peak, 9 Baro, Race S, Race Ti, Vertical 2 Ti
Garmin: Forerunner 210, Forerunner 610, Fenix 6X, Fenix 7X Ti -
Also, I’d really like to have a rest timer feature with an ability to track time spent at an aid station or other stops without pausing the watch.
Is using laps an option? That would mean you cannot have autolap for every 1k (or so), but every lap is either a run from aid station to aid station or time spend at a aid station. (garmin implemented a feature on their connect website that autodetect if a lap is running or resting. That was useful for my interval training, although they didn’t show the minimal heartrate for rest laps, and that’s just the most important data to see)
There are platforms (at least strava) that do a 1k splitup anyway, regardless of laps.
(and kudos for running UTMB)
Suunto t3c | Suunto Ambit 3 sport | Tomtom runner 2 | Garmin forerunner 935 | Garmin forerunner 965 | Suunto race s
Stryd | Bryton Gardia R300L | Polar H9 | Polar oh1+ | Wahoo bolt v2 | 4iiii precision 3 -
This is very helpful feedback, and I hope the folks at Suunto will read it. Thanks.
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However, the watch had crashed twice during the race, which is completely unacceptable! The first time - after 5 hours as I was entering Les Contamines aid station. I suspect the crash was triggered by waypoint notification. The second time - after another 22 hours as I was approaching Champex-Lac aid station but still had a few hundred meters to go. This time I suspect the crash was triggered by receiving a phone text message notification as a family member texted me.
This is very serious, especially considering that Suunto is the main sponsor of UTMB and so many elite athletes are using Suunto watches during the race.
Having a watch crash during an event like UTMB, particularly after many hours of racing, is probably one of the best ways to damage the brand’s reputation on a very large stage. -
However, the watch had crashed twice during the race, which is completely unacceptable! The first time - after 5 hours as I was entering Les Contamines aid station. I suspect the crash was triggered by waypoint notification. The second time - after another 22 hours as I was approaching Champex-Lac aid station but still had a few hundred meters to go. This time I suspect the crash was triggered by receiving a phone text message notification as a family member texted me.
So sad. My Vertical 2 is in repair servise because of restarts. Unfortunately, I don’t trust it right now. I took out my old Garmin.
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I never experienced (or noticed) a crash with my Race S. Does the watch automatically restart and continue the activity after the crash?
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@Gunnar I’ve also never experienced any crashes on my 2023 Vertical 1. I’m actually happy with how stable they are, and I’m not even sure if I want any more updates… The Enduro 3, on the other hand, crashed a lot while saving activities and mapping. These technologies in general are just black magic.
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Also, I’d really like to have a rest timer feature with an ability to track time spent at an aid station or other stops without pausing the watch. The goal is to be aware of the time spent at the stop but without losing any of the metrics. I know that most people would simply pause their watch in a similar situation and that would display the paused time. However pausing during a race is not an acceptable solution because the elapsed time must continue going the entire time.
Are you using a custom sport mode? Usually what I do is create a custom sport mode and I add the “total time” data field. This keeps going even if the activity is paused.
On the general topic, it looks like a similar situation to when the Vertical 1 was launched - lots of crashes and issues. I got mine almost 2 years later and it works properly, with just one crash a long time ago. Even though there are lots of embarrassing bugs, it doesn’t crash any more.
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Is using laps an option? That would mean you cannot have autolap for every 1k (or so), but every lap is either a run from aid station to aid station or time spend at a aid station.
Yes, I turned auto-lap off and used one of the data screens to track manual laps, including time spent at aid stations.
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Are you using a custom sport mode? Usually what I do is create a custom sport mode and I add the “total time” data field. This keeps going even if the activity is paused.
I don’t think 3rd part platforms like Strava would understand that, would they? More likely then not there will be gaps in the exported FIT file. Also, with pausing, the main risk is to forget to unpause when leaving aid station. Essentially, what I want is an ability to track rest time while continuing to collect all other metrics and tracking GPS positions. Ideally this would be engaged by pressing the lap button as Garmin does it and recorded in activity as a lap. Furthermore, the rest timer could automatically disengage when users starts moving again. Garmin has this feature - essentially what I described - in their “Ultra Run” activity. In Garmin you can see rests as laps, and they are even maked in the app UI as rest intervals.
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I never experienced (or noticed) a crash with my Race S. Does the watch automatically restart and continue the activity after the crash?
The watch automatically restarts and saves the data collected prior to the crash. However the previous activity isn’t continued. I ended up having 3 separate activities recorded from the race. Furthermore, all of them got auto-uploaded to Strava before I could do anything (such as stitch them together in a 3rd part tool), and my Strava followers have already gave me kudos and commented on separate activities. So now I am sort of stuck with not having a single complete 170 km race record on Strava, which makes me a bit sad.
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@sky-runner I always put my Strava activities on private at first to let me the time to accept or reject in those case of issues (activities splitted, gps errors, etc)… Because as you said, it is sad to remove an activity that has already some comments on it from your friends.
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@sky-runner Hotfix 2.56.28
Suunto has just released a FW hotfix - Vertical 2 and Race 2.
This update mainly improves firmware stability and fixes several crash issues. It also fixes an issue where pool swimming distance and duration could be displayed incorrectly in certain scenarios.
This is a staged update - so maybe not everyone will get it on the first day.
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