Sunnto 7 Sensor Support

fazel

@aeroild The takeaway should be Suunto needs to continue to develop their own OS. It is the only way to maximize efficiencies and provide as many features as possible.

brotzfrog10

@fazel I very much agree. With Suunto 5 and 9 I love what the watches offer I just wish they had some kind of long term training load feature like polar, garmin and coros do. They have a great in workout effort measurement with EPOC and TE but nothing that really measures load over time (just time working out and time in various heart rate zones). Even some kind of Trimp value for each workout would be nice.

That and allowing the sleep and stress apps on the watches to show more detail on the app side would be nice too. This latter request maybe not being possible depending on the licensing agreements with first beat whose software is responsible for these metrics

fazel

@brotzfrog10 Yes, I think we are in agreement. The making on the 7 appears pretty awesome. That would be a feature that I’d be interested in seeing ported over as well. Tight integration with Training Peaks could fill training load and structured workout gaps.

Bulkan

@pilleus This is a great post with data, I suppose that in Suunto they did their test too. Let’s see if we can all together request this and get it. Patient and data are the great tools we have to get there.

If the s7 would support stryd for me would be a game changer, I would use it almost all the weekdays.

isazi

@brotzfrog10 said in Sunnto 7 Sensor Support:

@isazi Can you give an example? If you’d like me to pull
up data on armband and chest strap heart rate sensors I’ll be happy to attach it to my reply?

No you said that that is true for everyone, and you are amused by people thinking differently.
Well keep trolling

brotzfrog10

@isazi you clearly didn’t read my other comments before and after talking about that statement. It was directly after me sharing my own experience with my heart rate data being way off after a HIIt workout with lots of wrist flexion as I stated. I didn’t reiterate that part of the topic again but it appears I should have because you assumed I was talking about all activities when I wasn’t as I was addressing workouts with wrist flexion and at higher intensities.

My point does however remain as I am amused or perhaps better said not in agreement with someone who says the heart rate data captured during a HIIT workout or a workout with lots of wrist flexion is good enough when it’s clearly not when compared to a chest or armband heart rate monitor which is something that’s clearly been proven not to be true. Now one could argue about the semantics of what good enough is, so for me it’s as accurate as possible. I’m unsure of your motivation here as a moderator and your need to be an aggressor on this subject. If you don’t agree with me that’s fine but I’m a little confused by your need to attack me personally. It’s fine debating an opinion but you’ve been going me a troll and master in a derogatory way. I’ve said nothing of the like to anyone else.

Not agreeing with an opinion is quite different from ridicule someone personally.

isazi

@brotzfrog10 I agree with you, I also want the possibility to use external sensors, and with that I would like rel 24h heart rate tracking that is synced to the app so I can skip that mess that Google Fit is (I really don’t like that). But you are here fighting a holy war against I don’t know whom, you joined just a week or so ago the forum and have been flaming non stop for your cause. And no matter people agreeing with you, you need to be totally right, you need to know that your speculation on Suunto’s pricing is the only possible explanation on current pricing, you need to convince people that you know what a company you probably have no stakes in has to do. Your total focus on your cause it’s admirable (in some weird way), except that unless you have some proofs on Suunto’s pricing, or some large scale study about ohr, it’s just your opinion. It’s not the truth, it is what you believe. Large difference there.
And now keep commenting on how right you are.

A Former User

Apparently you can count on Rainmaker to also want HR for Suunto 7
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2021/01/stages-adds-ant-bike-lights-support-suunto-7-firmware-update-and-zwift-large-event-update.html#comment-3702210

On my side, the 7 never draw me too much attention, except when people here spoke wonder about it.
But yes, no external sensors is a deal breaker for me, I don’t buy any watch without hr/candence/power meter support.
Couldn’t we just have created a poll so we could add some numbers?

brotzfrog10

@isazi I did join just recently joined hoping to see what kind of roadmap there was for the Suunto 7 and it appeared to me that sensor support wasn’t on it. Then my initial comments about the sensor support were met with criticism saying that the Suunto 7 was geared more for soccer moms from the moderators and HR sensors weren’t important. Which again was disappointing for the reasons I already mentioned.

Also to back up my information on wrist heart rate monitors

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a29801627/how-accurate-is-your-wrist-heart-rate-monitor/

https://breakingmuscle.com/fitness/chest-strap-vs-wristband-heart-rate-monitors

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6732081/

https://trailrunnermag.com/training/why-you-should-be-skeptical-about-your-wrist-based-heart-rate.html

https://mhealth.jmir.org/2020/4/e14707/

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41746-020-0226-6

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5984393/
Excerpt from the last study which used a Phillips branded wrist sensor which to my knowledge is also in the Suunto 7 so this may be even more relevant to the discussion though I have no way of knowing what generation of the sensor is being used in the watch now. Also while the study a reasonable consistency in steady state and at rest measurements between the wrist and chest strap though still around 10 beats off.

“The largest LoA (− 17.5 bpm and 19.9 bpm) were found for gym activities, which is the most diverse set of physical activities.”

Which once again goes to my point about hiit being problematic for wrist based sensors.

A couple of the other articles are referencing some of the journal studies I also posted but I thought it might be helpful if you didn’t want to read a full study abstract.

While none of these are looking at the Suunto 7 specifically they do compare wrist sensors with chest straps and discuss the mechanism by which wrist sensors can be wrong.

Bulkan

@brotzfrog10 said in Sunnto 7 Sensor Support:

@isazi I did join just recently joined hoping to see what kind of roadmap there was for the Suunto 7 and it appeared to me that sensor support wasn’t on it. Then my initial comments about the sensor support were met with criticism saying that the Suunto 7 was geared more for soccer moms from the moderators and HR sensors weren’t important. Which again was disappointing for the reasons I already mentioned.

Correction: Some moderators, which are people which opinion. I always defended the support of exrternal HR and stryd.

But you only answer @isazi.

isazi

@Bulkan said in Sunnto 7 Sensor Support:

Correction: Some moderators, which are people which opinion. I always defended the support of exrternal HR and stryd.

But you only answer @isazi.

And I already said in the past sensors support is the reason why I keep using my S9

brotzfrog10

@Bulkan that’s a completely valid point, but That moderator for whatever reason continued to question the validity of Bluetooth connected hr sensors being more effective then the built in wrist based sensors, especially in certain use cases. For whatever reason. Yet he himself uses the S9 because it allows sensor support so go figure.

MavRaven

@brotzfrog10 said in Sunnto 7 Sensor Support:

Then my initial comments about the sensor support were met with criticism saying that the Suunto 7 was geared more for soccer moms from the moderators and HR sensors weren’t important. Which again was disappointing for the reasons I already mentioned.

Why hate on people that dont care about the chest strap by taking the example of soccer moms, maybe just accept that there are people who use it for running/walking/hiking who focus on having a smartwatch with good fitness features which fits the Suunto 7 perfectly.

Even if there was a 100% proven 10% difference with the heartbeat readings from the OHR Sensor most of the more “casual” users probably don’t care.

It’s not completly black and white, some people have different requirements and different expectations and thats fine. I can understand that its a must have feature for you and thats fine but that is not true for everyone.

There are different marketing strategies, and the extreme fitness enthusiast is not the unit mover you make them out to be, the suunto 9 for example beeing a great device with good sales in its niche is still not a mass market device, if suunto orientied the 7 to more mass market then i can understand that they have different priorities than pleasing the hardcore crowd.

I would rather have sleep tracking first then strap support for example.

If they do release strap support in the future as an option then that will be nice for anyone who wants to use it, but it would be insane if they had to change anything big in the design of the watch for example, if it increases the battery drain by 50% for example then i would probably never use it.

pilleus

Test 2, S7 on the wrist, Ghostracer running with wrist heart rate measuring, setup the same as yesterday.

Battery usage with wrist heart rate: 96 - 66 percent in 2:27 h = 12,25 percent per hour
Battery usage with external Polar OH1: 16,65 percent per hour

From previous tests I know, that wearing the watch on the wrist in very cold conditions (today -3 °C) is less battery using than mounted on the handle bar.

I think that the battery usage when using an external sensors (BLE) is less than the measured 4 percent per hour.

aeroild

I just did a test with my Suunto 7 running Ghostracer in stand alone mode connected to my Polar OH1 to track HR when I went cross country skiing. In Ghostrace I selected running (running and cycling are the only choices), enabled barometer and external sensor. Screen turned off after a few secs and I activated the screen only 5-6 times during my 1.5 hour exercise. Outside temperature was -10 degrees celsius. Battery usage was around 30 percent, which would mean about 20 percent per hour. In other words, Ghostracer could have recorded about 5 hours of activity before going out of battery. The tests done by @pilleus indicated that it could go even longer. In my opinion, Suunto has no reason not to add support for external sensors!

isazi

@brotzfrog10 said in Sunnto 7 Sensor Support:

@Bulkan that’s a completely valid point, but That moderator for whatever reason continued to question the validity of Bluetooth connected hr sensors being more effective then the built in wrist based sensors, especially in certain use cases. For whatever reason. Yet he himself uses the S9 because it allows sensor support so go figure.

My goodness, you either can’t read, or you are a top tier troll. And because I now believe you are a total troll, I’ll avoid wasting my time replying to you.

brotzfrog10

@isazi That is fine with me. All you’ve done is be insulting anyway.

brotzfrog10

@MavRaven I respect your opinion. As I mentioned in a previous post I feel Suunto missed a huge opportunity by not adding their full Suunto app experience into WearOs. I’m far from the only person to think that. I also get some don’t care if Bluetooth sensor support exists on the watch. That’s fine and I get it. My earlier point was I don’t see adding it putting anyone off from buying it but not having it certainly stops some people from buying it. Now if the architecture of the watch or how Suunto loaded their software on the watch prevents it then so be it. It’s still a big missed opportunity in my opinion (again being clear my opinion).

I agree with you also in regards to sleep tracking. It’s something that google hasn’t developed anything in that vain but with the Fitbit acquisition being finally official maybe they will finally be able to add some of those features into WearOs.

Brad_Olwin

@MavRaven I think you nailed it. The target user for the S7 I think will care much more about sleep tracking and 24/7 HR than a belt. I know I do. For what I would want a belt for the battery would not least long enough anyway. Belt support in the current iteration I am not interested in. If Suunto could leverage the smartsensor to sync less often and not reduce battery life anymore than OHR I’d be for it.

Jamie BG

@aeroild I think a lot depends on person and activity. Lots of reviewers have noted that when it comes to running/cycling the S7 sensor can do a good job for most people, however same and different people/reviewers have all pretty much noted that strength training, HIIT etc (sharp movements, where HR may elevate/descend dramatically) it isn’t great - but then other than the Apple Watch sensor, most aren’t that good either.

This is why most fitness watches cater for external sensors and the S7 should too.