Suunto 7

I noticed this also while briefly checking the S9P topics where the product was shown as the greatest piece of tech in it’s class, with best accuracy and everything, and when reviews started to appear on the internet, many showed that although good, it trails behind the competition in many aspects.

It is certainly behind. In very many respects. Battery life (for form factor), GPS and OHR aren’t one of them though, neither is GPS route creation and guidance. Still, I had seriously considered pouring some cold water with the observed negatives recently, after Month with S9P and Two Months with S9P celebratory reviews started to appear.

The forum does need a bit of wheel alignment.

I know you most probably you will not agree with this but this is my opinion

Well, I do agree with your approach. Read up all the reviews, research the user forums, and ideally get a gadget from a vendor where you have 30-90 day return window This way you can see if it works for you as opposed to DCR or DesFit or ChaseTheSummit guy. Or some random @nickk on Suunto forums.

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

However, there is a small issue of physics that currently stops us having longer lasting batteries

Well, I love physics as much as… any other physics lover but when it comes to gas tanks, isn’t it how you use your gas and not just the size of said tank? Sure, we can blame that beautiful huge AMOLED screen, but before we get to it, I’d like to have a word with Qualcomm too, and even more so with Google.

My Suunto 7 cost £400 new and I have no issue with that. It is a computer on my wrist

Speaking of computers, why not consider laptops? I remember days when a laptop was a encyclopedia* sized 6 lbs+ brick with a pretty crappy 12" 800x600 LCD screen that barely lasted a couple of hours on a battery despite having a fairly underpowered CPU.

Fast forward to today, and we are swinging around ultraportables with 15" high density screens and multicore CPUs that can run circles around professional workstations from 8-10 years ago. And they do so on battery power that lasts 8-10 hours or more. Sure, battery technology improved over the past 20 years, but so did system design, screens, CPUs, storage (bye-bye mechanical drives with spinning plates!), and operating systems.

The problem with wearables is twofold, however. A hugely successful Apple Watch normalized the idea a wearable should be charged pretty much like a phone (Fitbit Ionic disagreed, but who had it?). Then we have Qualcomm lagging behind with wearable SoC and Google doing pretty much nothing when it comes to optimizing the operating system, and these two cats were all too happy to follow Apple.

Should we accept poor GPS accuracy? Most of the time this comes down to software.

Funny, but if it was just software, I doubt we’d see a transition from an insanely good SiRF chipset in Ambit3 and V800, to Sony used by everyone now to dual-frequency (whoever) leveraged by COROS for Vertix 2.

Consumer GOS is accurate to 10m, so expecting better than this is expecting the impossible.

I’d take that 10m, thank you very much! And I’m talking open road, no high buildings/tree cover situation. On a trail, I’m ready to be even more reasonable

olymay

@nickk I agree with you about Qualcomm, they have definitely dragged their heels on the silicon front. For sure we could have better battery life if they pulled their finger out. But would the watches then be packed with even more features, thus negating the battery gains?
And yes, Google also could have done much more to optimise the software.

Comparing laptops is a reasonable, but unfair comparison. The first laptops you mention (I remember them well! Monstrous devices with tiny screens, that were in no way portable!) also have very different battery tech to modern laptops (in the same way our old Nokias had different battery tech to the latest iPhone or Pixel). If we were to put a modern battery in an older device, we would see significant gains (in fact, an old Nokia may end up outliving humanity on a single charge! ).

Laptops have also been around a LOT longer than smartwatches. If we compare a laptop from say five years ago to today, the improvements in battery life will be negligable.

Do we really NEED insanely good GPS accuracy for our activities? (this is a genuine question, as personally ‘good enough’ is fine for me).
Or for that matter, for anything we do in civilian life?
I sail boats that have the latest and greatest navigation equipment costing thousands and thousands of £s and yet we still use paper charts as they are more accurate and reliable (the GPS is a very nice quick check though, I do love it and wouldn’t be without it!).

(especially don’t rely in GPS when the US decides to invade somewhere. I was out at sea when the second Iraq war started and my boat position was out by over 1NM!)

Hear, hear…

@nickk For sure we could have better battery life if they pulled their finger out. But would the watches then be packed with even more features, thus negating the battery gains?

Most likely that would be the case. That’s basically how Apple Watch kept their battery life despite all improvements Apple made elsewhere. Still… At least you’d have a choice of more features vs battery life.

If we compare a laptop from say five years ago to today, the improvements in battery life will be negligable.

Perhaps because most of the tech shift – new low powered multi-core CPU architecture, solid state drives, and better screens – all come from late 2000s and early 2010s? And what we are seeing now is mostly refinement?

Do we really NEED insanely good GPS accuracy for our activities? (this is a genuine question, as personally ‘good enough’ is fine for me).

Define good enough? For a marathon race of 26.2 miles, even 1% standard GPS error is 0.26 miles, basically more than a lap around the track, which – unless you are Kipchoge – means about couple more minutes. Kind of a difference between making your time and not. It’s worse still, if you are a slower runner or your distance is longer. Also, instant pace unless you use a footpod, would suffer if GPS is lame. Probably less of an issue in longer run races, but still…

Last but not least, good GPS performance in normal conditions should translate into something acceptable in bad ones… Like forests, canyons, or modern cities.

(especially don’t rely in GPS when the US decides to invade somewhere. I was out at sea when the second Iraq war started and my boat position was out by over 1NM!)

Was your boat off the coast of Iraq by any chance by Lebanon or Syria? I was under impression military degrading civilian signal was region specific.

Note to self: petition the US government not to invade anywhere at the end of October when my next marathon is coming up

olymay

@nickk said in Suunto 7:

Hear, hear…

Most likely that would be the case. That’s basically how Apple Watch kept their battery life despite all improvements Apple made elsewhere. Still… At least you’d have a choice of more features vs battery life.

Yeah, agreed. As much as I would love a phone that lasts a week (and a smartwatch to match!) I cannot see it happening any time soon, unless there is a significant leap in battery tech (enough to counter the inevitable processor and features additions that would inevitably result.

Perhaps because most of the tech shift – new low powered multi-core CPU architecture, solid state drives, and better screens – all come from late 2000s and early 2010s? And what we are seeing now is mostly refinement?

Yeah, it’s pretty much been refinement for years now. But as a battery get refined to eek out an extra hour of life, the processors will get faster, and more features will be added, thus battery life stays the same

Define good enough? For a marathon race of 26.2 miles, even 1% standard GPS error is 0.26 miles, basically more than a lap around the track, which – unless you are Kipchoge – means about couple more minutes. Kind of a difference between making your time and not. It’s worse still, if you are a slower runner or your distance is longer. Also, instant pace unless you use a footpod, would suffer if GPS is lame. Probably less of an issue in longer run races, but still…

I think ‘good enough’ will vary from person to person. For me, a 1% error is fine. But I’m not elite, or looking to set personal bests etc (anyway, for proper races they use chip timing, not GPS).
GPS accuracy isn’t bad, it’s just 10m for us civvies

Last but not least, good GPS performance in normal conditions should translate into something acceptable in bad ones… Like forests, canyons, or modern cities.

But of the device cannot see enough satellites, then accuracy will always be bad.

(especially don’t rely in GPS when the US decides to invade somewhere. I was out at sea when the second Iraq war started and my boat position was out by over 1NM!)

Was your boat off the coast of Iraq by any chance by Lebanon or Syria? I was under impression military degrading civilian signal was region specific.

Note to self: petition the US government not to invade anywhere at the end of October when my next marathon is coming up

I have no idea if it is done by region etc, but I was heading into Chichester Harbour on the South coast of the UK and my GPS had me on the land

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

For me, a 1% error is fine. But I’m not elite, or looking to set personal bests etc (anyway, for proper races they use chip timing, not GPS).

Yeah, except that chip timing doesn’t tell you, the runner, anything – it’s for the race organizers and perhaps observers if timing is integrated into the event’s app (like NYC marathon).

When I run I want to know my pace, especially early on when you run on rested legs and are all excited, carried by the crowd. And if mile markers aren’t set up every um… mile, I’d like to know accurate distance too. And just in case I get slow and foggy in the head compartment, ETA and projected finish time.

Not to mention some automated pacing strategies like Garmin RacePro depend on accurate positioning.

Last but not least, good GPS performance in normal conditions should translate into something acceptable in bad ones… Like forests, canyons, or modern cities.

But of the device cannot see enough satellites, then accuracy will always be bad.

That’s why we will soon have the next generation of wearable GPS chipsets, dual-frequency and all GNSS systems. COROS got there first this time, just like Suunto was first with the Sony chip me thinks.

I have no idea if it is done by region etc, but I was heading into Chichester Harbour on the South coast of the UK and my GPS had me on the land

You could be heading into harbor while being on land. Even in a boat. You sure you are telling us the entire story?

olymay

@nickk said in Suunto 7:

Yeah, except that chip timing doesn’t tell you, the runner, anything – it’s for the race organizers and perhaps observers if timing is integrated into the event’s app (like NYC marathon).

I’ve done a races before where the chip registered over the start line and the finish line. It gave me my exact time to complete the course, which is more accurate and reliable than relying on a watch.

When I run I want to know my pace, especially early on when you run on rested legs and are all excited, carried by the crowd. And if mile markers aren’t set up every um… mile, I’d like to know accurate distance too. And just in case I get slow and foggy in the head compartment, ETA and projected finish time.

Not to mention some automated pacing strategies like Garmin RacePro depend on accurate positioning.

How on earth did we run before watches came along? I’m being silly (as I like to have all of that data too!) but it’s also a valid point. We can get too hung up on data, sometimes the best data we have is to listen to our own body.

That’s why we will soon have the next generation of wearable GPS chipsets, dual-frequency and all GNSS systems. COROS got there first this time, just like Suunto was first with the Sony chip me thinks.

I may be missing something, but surely they still work on line of sight to the satellites? The new fangled dual-whasnames surely just mean there are more satellites to see. But if the line of sight still isn’t there (trees, buildings, canyons, etc) then it will still struggle? Or am I wrong about that? (I kinda hope so, as accurate GPS without line of sight would be amazing!)

You could be heading into harbor while being on land. Even in a boat. You sure you are telling us the entire story?

HA HA!! I have run aground in a boat before. Although not a Chichester. And there was no alcohol involved. Honesht occifer…hic… no lips has passed my drink…hic

What’s the supported wattage for charging?

Jamie BG

@steff
But don’t forget watches today are doing a lot more than they did 3 years ago, so I don’t really blame chip or manufacturers - its just a reality and you make your choice.
(Do more - 24/HR monitoring, better screens, spo2 sensors, more lifting around smarts and inter connectivity, HRV analytics etc etc, sleep tracking).

Aleksander H

For me, faster charging would be a bigger benefit than long battery life. If the shower after a run was sufficient to charge up the device, I wouldn’t notice longer battery life.

olymay

@aleksander-h said in Suunto 7:

For me, faster charging would be a bigger benefit than long battery life. If the shower after a run was sufficient to charge up the device, I wouldn’t notice longer battery life.

I’m pretty certain the S7 can charge from almost dead to full in about an hour. So unless it has run down to a very low level, then charging whilst in the bathroom (shower, shave, teeth, poop, etc) then you should (might?) get enough charge out of it, especially if you charge it like this every day.
(unless you do a long GPS activity each day then then yes, you may struggle).

Nigel Taylor 0

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

@aleksander-h said in Suunto 7:

For me, faster charging would be a bigger benefit than long battery life. If the shower after a run was sufficient to charge up the device, I wouldn’t notice longer battery life.

I’m pretty certain the S7 can charge from almost dead to full in about an hour. So unless it has run down to a very low level, then charging whilst in the bathroom (shower, shave, teeth, poop, etc) then you should (might?) get enough charge out of it, especially if you charge it like this every day.
(unless you do a long GPS activity each day then then yes, you may struggle).

I drop S7 on charger in the 5-10 mins whilst ‘getting ready’ and when in shower and I rarely end up going lower than 50%.

Ahead of any longer run I just take care to juice to 100%…for a morning run that means powering to 100% the night before, and then the 10minute charge in the morning tops it up…or for an evening run I just whack it on the charger whilst working in the afternoon for 45mins or so.

macdav

@olymay I brought them to the service center. It is not rare and they should remove and change the screen. Hopefully it will works

olymay

@nigel-taylor-0 said in Suunto 7:

I drop S7 on charger in the 5-10 mins whilst ‘getting ready’ and when in shower and I rarely end up going lower than 50%.

Ahead of any longer run I just take care to juice to 100%…for a morning run that means powering to 100% the night before, and then the 10minute charge in the morning tops it up…or for an evening run I just whack it on the charger whilst working in the afternoon for 45mins or so.

Pretty much exactly what I do

If I find I haven’t got my timings right and it’s low before a run I charge it whilst getting changed and doing my warm up stretches.

The S7 charges to quickly that even a short charge gives it a fair old boost

olymay

@macdav said in Suunto 7:

@olymay I brought them to the service center. It is not rare and they should remove and change the screen. Hopefully it will works

Hopefully it all gets sorted for you

Maybe review using the AoD in future? I agree it’s nice to have the AoD, but it does hit the battery and now we are seeing some screen burn in, it might be work disabling it?

I used to use the AoD, but found that in the evenings it was too bright in a dark room, even with brightness set to minimum. I now run Power Saver Tilt instead and it works well

Jamie BG

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

@nigel-taylor-0 said in Suunto 7:

I drop S7 on charger in the 5-10 mins whilst ‘getting ready’ and when in shower and I rarely end up going lower than 50%.

Ahead of any longer run I just take care to juice to 100%…for a morning run that means powering to 100% the night before, and then the 10minute charge in the morning tops it up…or for an evening run I just whack it on the charger whilst working in the afternoon for 45mins or so.

Pretty much exactly what I do

If I find I haven’t got my timings right and it’s low before a run I charge it whilst getting changed and doing my warm up stretches.

The S7 charges to quickly that even a short charge gives it a fair old boost

And this is where I had a problem - my morning routine got to the point where there just wasn’t enough time to recharge based on the level of activity I was doing.

This last month would have been fine - bruised some ribs so have been out of action for last month - without doing a couple of hours of activity per day would have been fine.
However have just started to get back into the swing of things, but slightly overdid it last week on holiday (fortunately not overly impacted on ribs), but going to take it easy this month slowly ramping up. But didn’t even need my charger last week on holiday as F6xPS handeled the week with ease - love not having to worry about charging.

olymay

@jamie-bg said in Suunto 7:

And this is where I had a problem - my morning routine got to the point where there just wasn’t enough time to recharge based on the level of activity I was doing.

This last month would have been fine - bruised some ribs so have been out of action for last month - without doing a couple of hours of activity per day would have been fine.
However have just started to get back into the swing of things, but slightly overdid it last week on holiday (fortunately not overly impacted on ribs), but going to take it easy this month slowly ramping up. But didn’t even need my charger last week on holiday as F6xPS handeled the week with ease - love not having to worry about charging.

Yeah, the routine I have isn’t going to work for everyone, especially if doing the level of activity you are

Maybe you just need to take longer showers to give it time to charge (joking obviously).
But thinking about that, could charging during morning routine (sh*t/shower/shave) as well as evening routine (brushing teeth etc) give you enough? I know not perfect solution, but worth a try?

As much as I would love a watch to last the same as the F6X, and other Garmins and Suuntos, I’m not prepared to give up the functionality my S7 gives me. I want a full smartwatch, not just something that gives me notifications that I can’t do much with (can do full replies on the S7, either typed or by voice).
And Google Pay from my wrist is something I’m not sure I could live without now. (Garmin pay is utterly useless in the UK).
But I am jealous of the battery life

Jamie BG

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

Yeah, the routine I have isn’t going to work for everyone, especially if doing the level of activity you are

Maybe you just need to take longer showers to give it time to charge (joking obviously).
But thinking about that, could charging during morning routine (sh*t/shower/shave) as well as evening routine (brushing teeth etc) give you enough? I know not perfect solution, but worth a try?

Tried, and could extend out, but sooner or later I found myself having to wait for the watch to charge and or having to not wear it during the charge to let it charge.

I want a full smartwatch, not just something that gives me notifications that I can’t do much with (can do full replies on the S7, either typed or by voice).

Not a major issue for me, as cannned responses work 95% of the time for me. Occasionaly maybe once/twice a month may have the occasional use. Voice response always been a bit of an issue for me, due to my accent. Best on GA which is about 80-90%, wear os was around 75-90% (depends on what I was doing) - the rest including siri are virtually unusable. Thank god I can set up Alexa and coach it so get around 60% with it, plus have set up playlists etc, and can fairly easy get to that - but sometimes feel like throwing it through the wall…

And Google Pay from my wrist is something I’m not sure I could live without now. (Garmin pay is utterly useless in the UK).

Curve -came to my rescue - creates a digital card off your actual cards (you also get a physical one), and then can use that with Garmin everywhere - my cashback etc even works with it, and doesn’t cost me a penny to use it. But know what you mean as I was going to miss this until I found out about curve.

Battery - Was a slow week for me while on holiday as still recoverying and due to being on holiday, but didn’t take a charger (toped up to 100% before I left) - use pulse ox tracking with sleep at night, normal battery modes and usage, 16hrs of tracked activity across the week - and only bothered to check on the last day to discover I still had around 46% battery life which would be good for around another 6 days (could switch off pulse ox tracking during sleep and would extend out to around 12 days).- was nice to not even think or worry about it.

olymay

@jamie-bg said in Suunto 7:

Tried, and could extend out, but sooner or later I found myself having to wait for the watch to charge and or having to not wear it during the charge to let it charge.

Yeah, it’s not going to work for everyone. But I still think it could work for the majority of users. I’m always surprised at the amount of smartwatch wearers who don’t charge the watch when showering (you’ve taken it off and put it on the table, just put it on the charger!) or even wear it in the shower!?!?

Not a major issue for me, as cannned responses work 95% of the time for me. Occasionaly maybe once/twice a month may have the occasional use. Voice response always been a bit of an issue for me, due to my accent. Best on GA which is about 80-90%, wear os was around 75-90% (depends on what I was doing) - the rest including siri are virtually unusable. Thank god I can set up Alexa and coach it so get around 60% with it, plus have set up playlists etc, and can fairly easy get to that - but sometimes feel like throwing it through the wall…

I’ve got lucky with Google Assistant as it recognises what I am saying probably 95% of the time (I have a pretty neutral English accent with a slight midlands twang). A buddy of mine has Alexa and he spends more time swearing at it for getting thing wrong than actually using it. Never used Siri but from what I hear I’m not missing out.
Due to this, I can use the voice mode in Gboard to send complete messages via WhatsApp or text and it’s often better than my typing

And Google Pay from my wrist is something I’m not sure I could live without now. (Garmin pay is utterly useless in the UK).

Curve -came to my rescue - creates a digital card off your actual cards (you also get a physical one), and then can use that with Garmin everywhere - my cashback etc even works with it, and doesn’t cost me a penny to use it. But know what you mean as I was going to miss this until I found out about curve.

Curve sounds really interesting! I bought my gf a Garmin Venu for Christmas last year (she wanted a full smartwatch but also wanted something that could do decent fitness tracking. She wanted an S7 until she saw how ridiculous it looked on her small wrists ) and she was frustrated to discover her banks don’t work with Garmin (no)Pay.

Battery - Was a slow week for me while on holiday as still recoverying and due to being on holiday, but didn’t take a charger (toped up to 100% before I left) - use pulse ox tracking with sleep at night, normal battery modes and usage, 16hrs of tracked activity across the week - and only bothered to check on the last day to discover I still had around 46% battery life which would be good for around another 6 days (could switch off pulse ox tracking during sleep and would extend out to around 12 days).- was nice to not even think or worry about it.

Yeah, that’s pretty impressive battery life!

Jamie BG

@olymay said in Suunto 7:

Curve sounds really interesting! I bought my gf a Garmin Venu for Christmas last year (she wanted a full smartwatch but also wanted something that could do decent fitness tracking. She wanted an S7 until she saw how ridiculous it looked on her small wrists ) and she was frustrated to discover her banks don’t work with Garmin (no)Pay.

You should definitely look into that for her, as it seems to work for most UK banks, and if you keep to the basic level it costs nothing (they even send a physical card).