Suunto 7

jw cou

@pilleus can you confirm that the 10% battery usage for 75 min of GPS activity is made possible because you have your phone with you, and the S7 is then using the GPS of the phone by bluetooth which is less battery consumption than using the GPS of the watch itself?

I am very happy with the S7 too, and for my needs I can now charge every 3 days. But I don;t take my phone with me when running / cycling, and I see a higher battery consumption that the one your report per activity - still very much ok, but not as “light” as yours. So I just want to understand if the phone thing explains it, or if there’s another setup I can do to improve battery consumption (without phone)

pilleus

@jean-william-cousin said in Suunto 7:

can you confirm that the 10% battery usage for 75 min of GPS activity is made possible because you have your phone with you, and the S7 is then using the GPS of the phone by bluetooth which is less battery consumption than using the GPS of the watch itself?

The S7 doesn’t use the gps of the phone in Suunto App while recording an activity. It needs up to 30 seconds to have a fix when starting a new activity. This is the gps of the watch. The gps of the phone would give a fix immediately after opening S7 app.

I did half of my rides without connecting the S7 to WearOS or Suunto app on the phone. Battery life is identical. No doubt about it!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

One thing to keep in mind. From my tests Running/Walking consumes ~30% more than cycling.

Apparently antenna position , cadence and other thingies.

Fenr1r

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Suunto 7:

thingies

Damn your technical jargon, man: we don’t all have advanced science degrees!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Fenr1r ahahaha

jw cou

@pilleus alright, thanks. I misread some other posts then, but it’s clear now!

@pilleus said in Suunto 7:

To be honest, this can be done on any other Gen 5 Fossil or Skagen watch for half the price of the S7. 🧐

This can be done for free by using Polar Beat on the phone! Hey, I just saved you another half of the price! You are welcome.

pilleus

@NickK said in Suunto 7:

Hey, I just saved you another half of the price!

Wait a moment, I will send you my bank details to transfer the money. ️

@pilleus I’m afraid that transfer cancels out the half you saved me by suggesting to use Fossil

Also, when sending bank wire info, beware of Nigerian royalty!

pilleus

Today I recorded a short walk with my Skagen Falster 3 and Ghostracer in standalone gps mode. Used sensors were heart rate (OHR), barometer and running cadence.

Walking time: 1 hour
GPS track: terrible, wobbling around
Heart rate: precise
Elevation (gain): precise
Battery usage: 28 %

Okay, no alternative to S7!

@pilleus said in Suunto 7:

Okay, no alternative to S7!

No indeed. Went for a recovery jog with S9 and S7 yesterday, 55 minutes. Google Play subscription music playing all the time (though some songs were purchased, so I’d imagine not all of the playlist was DRM-protected). Still, 55 minutes of GPS, OHR, and music came to about 20% battery use.

Would have probably a bit more if I was checking S7 as opposed to relying on running power zone target in S9

Oh, GPS is really good, less than 0.03 mi difference from S9 with Stryd. OHR is way better than S9: no spikes, no cadence locks.

Brad_Olwin

@NickK The subscription service will burn through the battery much faster than if you download your own mp3 files. I certainly found this to be true.

@Brad_Olwin I’d say about half the songs in the playlist were mine. But no more than that. I’d imagine Google Play would pull DRM-free versions of them, but hard to say. Will do another run on Sunday. Maybe I’ll remove my songs and leave only subscription stuff or vice versa.

I did a tempo run the night before, using S7 and Pandora offline station. 40 minute got me down by about 28%. I did check S7 screen a lot. And Pandora is a total piece of garbage as an app and a terrible battery guzzler. I don’t think they updated it since 2016 or so. Same bugs I remember seeing on M600 were still present.

So far I’m looking at 0.4% to 0.7% per minute of GPS, OHR, and music. This would come to roughly 2-5 hours of running on a fully charged watch. I think with Google Play and purchased playlist, you should be able to comfortably do marathon with this thing.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@NickK said in Suunto 7:

I’d imagine Google Play would pull DRM-free versions of them, but hard to say.

I dont know that as well. On the phone it downloads the normal mp3.

However, on the s7 with a filemanager did not find any mp3 for my own music (purchased / uploaded)

Should I say this? Music mate app buddy. Downloads 320kbps mp3 (non-DRM) from your Gplay music (not purchased)

I download the mp3s with this app and reupload them to GooglePlayMusic and thus I have always non-drm mp3s. If it makes any sense

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Suunto 7:

Should I say this? Music mate app buddy. Downloads 320kbps mp3 (non-DRM) from your Gplay music (not purchased)
If it makes any sense

Oh, it makes all sense in the world! Let me give it a whirl!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@NickK with this app, I have non $$ clear quality mp3 from whatever. Like wow!

JorgeFD

The last test i did was a total disaster and this what it makes me to return S7

62’ minutes playing my own music in play music. No connection to phone. I didn’t check much the watch and didn’t use maps. Total battery drain was 35%

@jorgefd78 Did you check where the drain came from?

JorgeFD

@NickK the day before I did the same test but without music. Same track. Same time. Same checks. (maybe a little bit more) and the battery drain was 20%.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@jorgefd78 do you have screen always on?