Suunto 7: Love and Hate

@Chan-Wai-Kit I suggest you check all updates have been downloaded and installed, offline maps are downloaded, the watch battery settings are per Suunto suggestions (no always on display, power saving tilt to wake on, regular tilt to wake off, no gestures), one of Suunto’s own watch faces is running, with no crazy complications. Reboot the watch, charge up to 100%, then see if it helps.

The reason I’m bringing this all up is because several supposedly Qaulcomm 3100 compatible watch faces have been mentioned here in this forum, and the battery drain with them is quite severe when compared to Suunto’s own. Likewise, I have a nagging suspicion some complications that use sensors in the background may also contribute to battery drain.

I did a gym workout yesterday, no GPS or music, but OHR for 70 minutes. Checked my watch many-many times throughout to compare heart rates. I think the battery dropped by 5-7% at most. Had the watch on my wrist for almost 12 hours now – standard notifications, alarms, swiping in a few quick replies to friends over text and Telegram – usual smartwatch stuff, the battery is at 81%. Granted, about 6-7 of those hours were during sleep (DND, Theater Mode), but still… 19% in 12 hours means 2.5 days battery life.

Luís Pinto

@NickK That’s i didn’t find feature in manual. More than read things here i like to see in official suunto’s specs page and manual to take my own conclusions.

One thing that i learned is to buy a watch with what we get at begining and not expect nothing more. The only exeption is trust in a timeline if there is.

@Luís-Pinto I knew when DCR first run the news of the watch and mentioned there were no external sensors, this watch wouldn’t be my training watch. I could hope I’d be able to do something with it for training though, like a recovery jog, spin bike, or stretching, but that was the full amount of my ambitions. When it came up in these forums there were no sports mode customization, no ad-hoc intervals, it only cemented my initial hunch.

This is a Wear OS smart watch, backed up by Suunto’s expertise in building robust hardware with up to the point sports tracking features. It is geared toward a recreational and occasional fitness user who has some money to drop. Somebody who’d go for an Apple Watch or Fitbit Versa or perhaps even cheaper side of Garmin Fenix, but wants better, more distinct hardware. Or better sports capabilities compared to Fitbit and not as complicated as Garmin.

You are probably not this person. Neither am I. We can both hope Suunto realizes they can have their cake (mass user) and eat it too (hardcore athletes) with this hardware. But whether they go this road, or whether they even have resources for that, is a big question.

Will know in coming months when and if updates begin rolling…

Chan Wai Kit

@NickK Thank you very much, I will do more testing in the coming days.

Luís Pinto

@NickK said in Suunto 7: Love and Hate:

I knew when DCR first run the news of the watch and mentioned there were no external sensors, this watch wouldn’t be my training watch. I could hope I’d be able to do something with it for training though, like a recovery jog, spin bike, or stretching, but that was the full amount of my ambitions. When it came up in these forums there were no sports mode customization, no ad-hoc intervals, it only cemented my initial hunch.
This is a Wear OS smart watch, backed up by Suunto’s expertise in building robust hardware with up to the point sports tracking features. It is geared toward a recreational and occasional fitness user who has some money to drop. Somebody who’d go for an Apple Watch or Fitbit Versa or perhaps even cheaper side of Garmin Fenix, but wants better, more distinct hardware. Or better sports capabilities compared to Fitbit and not as complicated as Garmin.
You are probably not this person. Neither am I. We can both hope Suunto realizes they can have their cake (mass user) and eat it too (hardcore athletes) with this hardware. But whether they go this road, or whether they even have resources for that, is a big question.
Will know in coming months when and if updates begin rolling…

Agree with all that you said. This type of watch is a new Suunto’s bet and have a target. It’s a new type of device. And i think they made a nice job with Google OS Wear and Suunto app/hardware.

But my advice for people that have Spartans, S5 and S9 that are familiarize with features already present and consider buy S7, is study manual. If reach your expectations, buy it.

Should not expect things that nobody announced. Just that.

Luís Pinto

And i’m sure with graphene batteries, in next future (~2 years) every sportwatch will incorporate amoled screens with large autonomy. This will be much even better with lower power processors.

With Google Wear OS i’m not convinced. But can be more easy for brands make code for features and can be a good path to do things opposite to have a property operating system.

Garmin and Polar didn’t choose that direction for now with Venu/Ignite. There are rumours that new Fenix will have a Amoled screen version also. I think is a question of few time to see this type of screens in every sport watch.

@Luís-Pinto said in Suunto 7: Love and Hate:

Garmin and Polar didn’t choose that direction for now with Venu/Ignite. There are rumours that new Fenix will have a Amoled screen version also.

I think screen isn’t the biggest Garmin issue when it comes to watches. We can joke about Wear OS, or Tizen, or WatchOS all we want but the truth is: they are full featured operating systems, with well established development toolchains, and millions of developers who can target them. So, any advance in battery technology, screens, or CPU power consumption will make these watches more and more capable.

Remember back in 2014 Adidas SmartRun? Kind of first smartwatch-like training watch, with LCD screen and music? It was fairly bulky, with small, low resolution screen, no waterproofing, custom locked down OS and no apps. Between a middling GPS, somewhat decent OHR, and DRM free music, you’d be lucky to get 3-4 hours of training on a single charge from that thing.

And look now! Barely five years later we have Suunto 7, much thinner and lighter and more robust unit, with a huge, bright, high res screen, and probably easily capable of twice the hours. And before and after the workout, you have all sorts of apps to use, and weather, and payment, and fancy watch faces with complications. Not to mention activity tracking and 24/7 heart rate.

I think what I’m trying to say… It is S9 and Fenixes and Vantages that are going the way of the dodo bird. Not next year. Not in 5 years. But probably 8-10 years from now we’ll be looking back and shrugging. How could you just have a watch for running? It’s like just having a mobile phone for calls only. Weird.

Luís Pinto

@NickK
I think you’re overreacting in time. Within two years there will be no new models to be launched with a reflective screen in brands like Garmin, Suunto and Polar. AW is a champion in sells for smartwatch category. But is very restritive. Just works with iOS devices. Stryd team made a excelent app for WatchOS. Personally, circular design is more pleasure than rectangular.

Samsung will launch a smartphone with graphene battery this year. What is announced is with these batteries of the same size will have plus 45% capacity and 15 minutes of full charge. Many experts expect this material in new batteries for electric cars too.

Now imagine the 3330 successors with dual frequency gnss capability and still consuming less. And screens with this resolution and also consuming less … Soon, soon, you will have sportwatches with autonomies of 40/50 hours.

And agree with you, we will look for present models like the prehistory of sportwatches.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Luís-Pinto dual frequency atm doesn’t offer anything. I have the one plus that supports it and meh.just commenting on this

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos (OnePlus) Did you try in static mode or moving or both?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Luís-Pinto all modes. I wanted to use it as reference but was always worse than my s9

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Serious? Every technical report says the opposite… https://www.esa.int/Applications/Navigation/Dual-frequency_smartphone_app_winners_prove_power_of_two

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Luís-Pinto we have talked about it again at your post. You missed I suppose the Ghostbusters antenna setup.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

This was posted by you

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=forums&srcid=MTI3Mjc0MjQxMzM4MDczNTkwNDABMDgxMDkwNzI5MzgwMTI5NTgwNjIBU0ROTUFoRXRCd0FKATAuMQEBdjI

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

Yeah right or am I wrong ?

Feel free to ask for tracks. Actually let me post my accuracy

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Yes i remember. Yes, antenna that these guys used is like total stations (ex: Leica systems).

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Luís-Pinto

I see l5 and e5 but no accuracy increase

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos https://www.instop.es/arbre/intro-gps-leica.php

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos maybe in small devices with internal antennas like smartphones the usefull is marginal. Curious normally every sat have different frequencies, but in your printscreen i see just one Navstar (L1 and L5), two in Gal(E1 and E5) and no one from Glonass and Beidou. BDS-3 sats have this capability and glonass K.

Luís Pinto

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Beidou signal in your printscreen is cool: two sats with > 30.