Suunto 7 suggestions

Jamie BG

•The ability to pair a chest HR monitor.
is possible - just not with the Suunto Wear App - but a couple of other sport tracking apps can connect to external BT sensors
As per Egika - use a 3rd party app, or alternatively you can pair through google fit app on your watch (Go into Google Fit Goal - scroll down to settings - scroll down to Bluetooth Sensors. Never done it myself, but seems fairly easy and quick from what I have seen on youtube).

•Downloadable watch faces are often not compatible with Suunto.
Any that come up on the play store on your watch will work with your watch. If you are using your computer browser yes there will be some from watch manufacturers like Ticwatch etc that may not be compatiable (they actually are, but they have disabled the store for any other watch than a specific ticwatch) - saying that they do also have faces that are available to purchase/for free that will go on your watch.

•Date displayed on other watch faces besides the basic google fit watch face.
Most watch faces including the built in ones from Suunto allow you to change a lot of the details on the watch face, including adding/taking away or chaning what is shown in the dials (called complications - don’t ask my why cause I don’t know).
Long press on your watch face - this allows you to choose different watch faces, also if the watch face is customizable it will show a blue cog below the watch face. Click on that to customize. For example if you select the Suunto watch face called original, long press it and select the blue cog - you will find a b&w screen showing the three dials. press one of the dials and a list of options will come up (top one says empty - if selecting that no dial will be put on the face). Most of the suunto watch faces are pretty basic when it comes to customization.

For one of the ultimate customizable watch face try Marine Commander which allows virtually every facet of the watch face to be customized including the ambient screen (and there are some that allow even more customization).
Don’t forget there are more watch faces than just those provided ont the store- there are also watch face stores like facer (go on their website - the amount of available watch faces for wear os is mind boggling).
Watch face availablitiy is one of the reasons I went for wear os - it is just better implemented than any other smartwatch - one of the few times I have actually seen an apple watch user get jealous of a wear os user (and yes while they can also user Facer it is very limited for them and the face choices are very bland and do not have the same level of flexibility with complications and theming).

Brad_Olwin

@nikki_k said in Suunto 7 suggestions:

I went from a Spartan Sport to a 7 and I have a few updates I’d like to suggest. Feel free to let me know if I’m just missing something, or add to the list! I’m not a hard core fitness/training buff, I use it for mostly circuit training, hikes, and golf. But there are still some features of the Spartan I much preferred.

•The ability to pair a chest HR monitor.
•The ability to customize sport modes.
•Date displayed on other watch faces besides the basic google fit watch face.
•Downloadable watch faces are often not compatible with Suunto.

Does anyone else have anything else they want to add to?

I will answer a little differently

an hr monitor will deplete battery much faster than wrist hr, why do you want this?
you can do this now!
Use of watch faces other than Suunto will reduce battery life. Complications may reduce battery life as well but you can select date as a complication in Suunto watch faces.
See 3.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

Watchfaces can reduce the battery life that is true.

Egika

@Brad_Olwin are you sure about external HR monitors?
My knowledge has always been that the LEDs and data processing of the wrist heart rate consumes more that BT LE…?!

Brad_Olwin

@Egika This is specific for the S7, my understanding (I am not an engineer) is the co-processor on the chip runs the Suunto Wear App and has been optimized for the longest battery life. Using an external HR monitor requires continuous BT connection, engaging the main processor and using substantially more battery life. In principal I understand the comment but for this watch using an external monitor will drain the battery much faster. You can try this with SportyGo or another app that uses the external HR.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Brad_Olwin said in Suunto 7 suggestions:

@Egika This is specific for the S7, my understanding (I am not an engineer) is the co-processor on the chip runs the Suunto Wear App and has been optimized for the longest battery life. Using an external HR monitor requires continuous BT connection, engaging the main processor and using substantially more battery life. In principal I understand the comment but for this watch using an external monitor will drain the battery much faster. You can try this with SportyGo or another app that uses the external HR.

that is correct.

It’s not apparent to the user why this now but lets break it down.

The S7 has 2 lets say processors (regardless the screen setting).
The one is like a “very realtime but low power (aka slow)” and the other is a “mobile” like one.
Suunto app uses only the low power one, unless the screen is on (Currently by wrist gesture etc). Then the whole circus wakes up and starts a play. It costs battery tacos.

As a a solution you could imagine that keeping the screen on, and not waking up the circus, would work better and need less battery tacos.

I ate all my tacos

Ps. Sorry guys for the abstraction but i found it funny trying to eat

Bulkan

I don’t use the S7 for running for the lack of support of stryd (I like and use that data ) Why use a third party app for that, and why not with the Suunto wearOS app knowing that your battery will drain faster. It is a choice, I can charge my watch and go for run. The users of the s7 don’t need 40h of battery in performance.

I can understand the choices made before the users but as a user I miss that choice, I want to use my stryd with suunto wearOS, and have all my data in suunto app like all my other Suunto’s watches do. I don’t use/like/bother google fit.

Brad_Olwin

@Bulkan I get that, but I think @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos is talking a lot of tacos Having a Stryd connected for the entire run with constant BT will use a lot of battery, so much so that your watch may not last the entire day. So, while it might be possible to make a choice, imagine all of the upset S7 users that have a watch that has to be charged 2x per day.

It is also not that much work to merge the S7 and Stryd data together, it happens automatically on the Stryd PowerCenter. If you have a TrainingPeaks premium account they are easily merged there too. Yes, extra steps but at least it works.

Bulkan

@Brad_Olwin The users who have stryd are using sporty and I don’t think it is better than Suunto WearOS managing the battery.

About “a lot” I don’t know how much more 10% per hour versus 15% per hour is not too much.

As suunto user I want to use the suunto wearOs app.

I get about how the complaints would be… so is not an easy choice.

nikki_k

@Jamie-BG thanks for the info! I have looked online and no where did I see the ability to add the date to the watch faces. I was able to easily add the date onto my current watch face.

I don’t really care about downloadable watch faces, I only wanted something that would show a date.

nikki_k

@Brad_Olwin I want to wear my chest HR when working out. I don’t trust the wrist ones to be as accurate. But the s7 does not allow pairing with it. And yes I could download another app, but it’s already more tedious having to use google fit and the Suunto app. I don’t want to add a 3rd. The 2 already don’t communicate the way they claim they do.

Egika

@nikki_k said in Suunto 7 suggestions:

@Jamie-BG thanks for the info! I have looked online and no where did I see the ability to add the date to the watch faces. I was able to easily add the date onto my current watch face.

I don’t really care about downloadable watch faces, I only wanted something that would show a date.

You can choose date as one of the complications easily.
If you for example use the heat map watch face, long tap it to edit, choose the gear icon for options, tap one of the two complications and choose to show the date.
Could not be easier.

@nikki_k said in Suunto 7 suggestions:

@Brad_Olwin I want to wear my chest HR when working out. I don’t trust the wrist ones to be as accurate. But the s7 does not allow pairing with it. And yes I could download another app, but it’s already more tedious having to use google fit and the Suunto app. I don’t want to add a 3rd. The 2 already don’t communicate the way they claim they do.

I am with you on this. S7 HR is completely wrong for almost any exercise/training in the gym. It’s working fine for running, walking and bicycle, but that’s it.

aeroild

@Brad_Olwin In some ways Suunto already gives users a choice that consumes a lot of battery during training, i.e. to keep the display always on. I don’t see why adding a similar choice to connect to an external sensor would be much different.

Egika

@aeroild nothing wrong with the choice. Especially for putting the watch on a bicycle handlebar oder hangig it to some equipment etc.
It’s definitely a valid suggestion (as has been mentioned since the launch of S7 )

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

Agreed on the choice for the users Sometimes you also don’t need the big battery life.

There are also other things to consider. For example the Suunto belts have memory, that could help, so that the watch doesn’t all the time need a BT connection etc

Egika

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos true!
Just if you want the live data. That would be another choice - maybe too much for the devs