S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?

@Brad_Olwin Yes, but… AW has HR support baked in, which makes strength training and many forms of exercise not suitable for OHR, perfectly possible. No third party apps needed. No add-on purchases of $2.99 BLE packages either.

Same goes for footpods. I’m quite impressed with S7 outdoor accuracy, but when I tried to run on treadmill, I had to stop after 2 miles. It was way behind both treadmill reported distance and Stryd-connected Suunto 9, with pace a good minute and a half per mile slower.

Then there’s an issue of perception. AW is hugely successful not because of its sports features but almost despite their shortcomings. Wear OS doesn’t get the benefit of the same well established platform and apps. Runkeeper dropped their app. So did Adidas. Endomondo and Strava haven’t updated in years. Anyone looking for apps can see general stagnation and lack of new development.

For S7 to succeed, it has to overcome the current anemic state of Wear OS. And to do so, it has to really, truly nail one aspect of watch use. Seeing Suunto is a sports company, I’d say it would be natural to assume we are talking sports…

Brad_Olwin

@NickK I have an AW4 and the S7 and tested both side by side for some time. My thoughts:

AW HR is good but I have had better results with S7. I have had AW lose HR
Agreed with apps, the Stryd app for AW can download structured workouts from TP! Wear OS needs to up the game seriously
The GPS battery life on AW and S7 are about dead even for me, I can get 7-10h of trail running on both if I limit the function to tracking my runs.
I am an iOS user so as a smartwatch there is no comparison.
Sports on S7 hands down better than AW4, there really is no comparison, that includes maps, recording, etc.
The display, hard to believe but S7 is better than AW or equivalent, as AW is smaller.

jthomi

Would love to see them both live for comparison, sounds really interesting.

@Brad_Olwin said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

@NickK I have an AW4 and the S7 and tested both side by side for some time. My thoughts:

AW HR is good but I have had better results with S7. I have had AW lose HR

Agreed with apps, the Stryd app for AW can download structured workouts from TP! Wear OS needs to up the game seriously

The GPS battery life on AW and S7 are about dead even for me, I can get 7-10h of trail running on both if I limit the function to tracking my runs.

I am an iOS user so as a smartwatch there is no comparison.

Sports on S7 hands down better than AW4, there really is no comparison, that includes maps, recording, etc.

The display, hard to believe but S7 is better than AW or equivalent, as AW is smaller.

Manuel Silvestri

@NickK It’s a good list of improvements that are needed in a sportwatch like S7. I switched from Fenix 5 to S7 just a few days ago, but some features not already present in S7 should become a standard for Suunto watches. The major I miss are customizable trainings with interval training, for which I would like to have the possibility to create them in the app (setting different distances and recovery time) and then send to the watch; the other is the count reps in the weightlifting training with the load for each exercise. Without this last feature the watch records only the heart rate…and what about the recovery time between each sets? I don’t understand why Suunto is still missing the basics, despite the watch has great potentialities!

@Manuel-Silvestri said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

the other is the count reps in the weightlifting training with the load for each exercise. Without this last feature the watch records only the heart rate…and what about the recovery time between each sets?

Interesting. I think you are the first person for whom Garmin’s rep count works I tried it multiple times, across different watches, and it always ended up being more of a miss than a hit to me. Keeping track of work vs rest though was cool. Unfortunately, I doubt we gonna see anything like this in Suunto universe. Maybe some dev would build an app for Wear OS to do something like that.

@Brad_Olwin said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

the Stryd app for AW can download structured workouts from TP!

I reached out to the guy who built Sporty Go app to ask if he would consider adding intervals support. He was non-committed but did mention he was looking into using more Training Peaks data, which to me suggests TP structured workouts.

Brad_Olwin

@jthomi I can do that but the ones I have are with old firmware for S7, the GPS tracks have improved quite a bit. I will do a couple of new comparisons too. PM me if you want a link to QS, below are a couple of screenshots for longer runs. I sure like the smartwatch features of the AW but the S7 is on my wrist more.

This was a 41 km run with no pauses. The pauses for AW4 HR are clear.
Event Details - Quantified Self 2.png

Mff73

@Brad_Olwin
I dream reading all of you with your S7s, waiting to … buy one or the next one.
Btw, what is Kyoto on your graph ? The S7 nickname ?

Brad_Olwin

@Mff73 yes the early name for it. Good question about purchase. If you have the disposable $ it is a nice watch. Are you Android or iOS?

Mff73

@Brad_Olwin
I am android (with rooted phones ), and when I see some wear OS master here, playing with many tweak, i bite myself not to buy it.
I bought Ambit1 (it is still alive, but soon after, A2 and A3 came ).
I bought SSU at launch (it is still running with me ), but no more updates, and , and S9 came.
And now, S7, with wear OS. I will try to let this one and see next one (maybe when new battery techno will arrive).

isazi

@NickK never worked for me. Or better, it’s hit or miss, and in one hour strength session is right a few times. And most of the times it just says 0 reps.

Jonathan Newby

@Mff73 I too are wishing I’d bought an S7 but waiting for the follow on for the S9.

ursoos

When I’ve seen announcement of new Suunto 7 I got so excited that finally I’ll be able to get great WearOS watch with decent enough sport features.

And then Suunto releases watch without even ability to add define intervals and complex workouts.

Baffled why company positioning targeting sport enthusiasts would do something like that.

Well, I’ll stick with my Fenix 5 (overkill for my use case) and wait for Google to hopefully eat Suunto’s lunch after recent aqusition.

@ursoos said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

And then Suunto releases watch without even ability to add define intervals and complex workouts.

You can easily combine Suunto’s own app or Sporty Go, if you require sensors, with a third party timer like Timerro – they all can run in parallel. The latter lets you define intervals and structured workouts of any complexity, with any number of steps. It has ambient display (i.e. low-power one not eating the battery much yet giving you all info, runs and buzzes in the background, with an ability to define intervals both on the watch app and a phone companion). Sure, it’s not perfect, but it works just fine.

Had an hour long session this morning, with Sporty Go paired to Polar OH1 sensor and Timerro running through a fairly complex workout, the battery drain was less than 20%. Drop the watch on the charger while showering, and you are set to go afterwards as if nothing happened.

wait for Google to hopefully eat Suunto’s lunch after recent aqusition.

If you mean Fitbit I suggest you don’t hold your breath. Their offering, even in the high end Ionic, is so behind what Suunto has put out right from the gate, it’s not even funny. And no decent third party alternatives like Sporty Go or Timerro exist.

ursoos

@NickK said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

@ursoos said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

And then Suunto releases watch without even ability to add define intervals and complex workouts.

You can easily combine Suunto’s own app or Sporty Go, […] Sure, it’s not perfect, but it works just fine.
I will rather buy another Garmin instead of trying to work with third parties and trying to bridge the obvious basic missing feature in $500 “sports” watch.

I’m just frustrated - had such high hopes

@NickK said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

@ursoos said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

wait for Google to hopefully eat Suunto’s lunch after recent acquisition.

If you mean Fitbit I suggest you don’t hold your breath. Their offering, even in the high end Ionic, is so behind what Suunto has put out right from the gate, it’s not even funny. And no decent third party alternatives like Sporty Go or Timerro exist.

Oh, I’m sure Fitbit sucks, but I hope Google will improve it. This acquisition looks like Google’s desperate move to finally build decent WearOS competition for Apple Watch.

It’s funny how Garmin producing crazy overpriced watches can still have so few alternatives if you have an Android phone.

@ursoos said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

This acquisition looks like Google’s desperate move to finally build decent WearOS competition for Apple Watch.

I’m a bit baffled by that purchase simply because I don’t see any way Wear OS can run on the range of devices Fitbit is producing, nor Fitbit OS scale up to the current Wear OS hardware. There are some aspects of Fitbit platform that are gems like coaching, social, and sleep analysis, but even absorbing this is going to be hard

Whatever strategy they have in mind is unlikely to produce anything any time soon.

ursoos

@NickK said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

@ursoos said in S7 roadmap: what are Suunto plans here?:

This acquisition looks like Google’s desperate move to finally build decent WearOS competition for Apple Watch.

I’m a bit baffled by that purchase simply because I don’t see any way Wear OS can run on the range of devices Fitbit is producing, nor Fitbit OS scale up to the current Wear OS hardware. There are some aspects of Fitbit platform that are gems like coaching, social, and sleep analysis, but even absorbing this is going to be hard

Whatever strategy they have in mind is unlikely to produce anything any time soon.

Fair point man!
I hope they will axe most of the lineup and come up with one killer device like Google Pixel phone which is weird, but at the same time brilliant. In the meantime, we should stick with what’s on the market.

Manuel Silvestri

Any idea if the item #10 in the list of @NickK will be implemented soon (I really really hope…I won’t sell again a Suunto after two months)?? I mean…even the S3 has these features and it is half the price!

@Manuel-Silvestri Public road map from Suunto would be appreciated. Even Microsoft is public today.

Manuel Silvestri

@Urban-Olofsson I was meaning about VO2 max and other related features…but ok, also your suggestion would be usefull