Very important: Suunto Vertical malfunction

Manuele

Hi,
Last week I went snorkelling in the open sea, highlighting snorkelling, not diving, with a Vertical Solar Titanium .
After about 15 minutes I started noting a slow response of the buttons, first the central and then the upper right. That prevented me from stopping the activity. Came out of water, the watch became completely unresponsive and shut down.
I then contacted the support and they suggested to try to keep the watch on charge for a while and then, while charging, press the upper right button for 60 seconds.

Tried that, with no luck, I then sent the watch to support and they replaced it with a new unit, different serial number.

The big issue is that today, basically the exact same thing happened to the replacement unit!

That is very very frustrating and I don’t really know what to do! My usage is completely reasonable, I went maximum 3.7 meters deep, in quite warm waters, and from a Scuba diving computer manufacturer I expect at least a bit of water resistance!

I need your help to understand if it is a common issue and if Suunto can make something about it, considering the price of the watch itself

sartoric

@Manuele
I’m not 100% sure but I don’t think you’re supposed to press any button under water, as most of sport watches, since the vertical is not a scuba watch even if it’s rated for 100m.

That said, you should ask support just to be sure.
Did you tell them when you contacted them the 1st time ?

Manuele

@sartoric
Yes I did, and I pressed the button with the watch out, or at least submerged in 20 cm

Manuele

@sartoric
[link text](https://www.suunto.com/en-gb/Support/Product-support/suunto_vertical/suunto_vertical/recording-an-exercise/snorkeling-and-mermaiding/)

Here it does mention pressing the buttons to change mode, and there are no other recommendations other than the touch screen being locked.

And also, how can I pause and stop the activity not pressing any button? It is very strange that I should look out for pressing them near water, while swimming!
If the watch is not sufficiently waterproof, why it is advertised as a snorkelling watch?

I am very disappointed, and I think you can understand why. I don’t fancy sending the watch back and forth to support just to have a replacement.

Egika

Sorry for your bad experience.
I have used Race and Vertical for snorkeling extensively in Egypt during New year’s week.
Absolutely flawless. Also the S9PP from my son worked as intended.
So I guess you just had bad luck…

Manuele

@Egika Yes, it is very unlucky, twice!

So you confirm that everything was working well for you, and that you may have pressed the buttons sometimes, even in contact with water?

Thank you for your response, it is a good feedback for me right now!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

Did you enable by any chance the touch screen? Maybe water would create touch interface events etc.

Manuele

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
Thanks for the answer.
No no, I am sure it was off, I tried to dry it out of water, but still, no touch screen and no buttons were working.
I went swimming in a pool many times before and I have never experienced any problems, and again, my usage in sea water was very reasonable.

The watch now doesn’t take any charge and doesn’t turn on. I will send it back to support again

Manuele

Nobody has any other idea?
Any experience with snorkeling?

Ecki D.

@Manuele I did a lot of free water swimming last summer and did some snorkeling too.
Had no problems with 9PP and can remember that I did press buttons while the watch was still wet but maybe not submerged,
But the Vertical differs because it has a bezel - maybe this a weak spot.

Egika

@Manuele said in Very important: Suunto Vertical malfunction:

@Egika Yes, it is very unlucky, twice!

So you confirm that everything was working well for you, and that you may have pressed the buttons sometimes, even in contact with water?

Thank you for your response, it is a good feedback for me right now!

Yes, I regularly swim indoor, outdoor, did snorkeling with both Race and Vertical and also go whitewater kayaking. All those sports involve pushing the buttons when the watch is wet or at the water surface.
No issue ever so far.

Manuele

@Egika Thank you, very helpful!

Manuele

Hi, just an update

I have sent the watch to Suunto Support.
They have replaced in few days and said they would investigate further the matter.

I will try the watch in water again!

Simon

You may press buttons under water. This can not be the cause of these issues. The watch must be waterproof no matter if you press the buttons or not.

surfboomerang

@Simon Is this your opinion or an official Suunto statement?
In the past, Suunto strongly recommended not to press any buttons under water

kriskus

@surfboomerang It doesn’t explicility say anything like that in the user’s guide. It says however that for snorkeling/mermaiding you can press the button during the activity:
‘The default view for Snorkeling and Mermaiding is the Surface view. While recording the exercise, you can browse between the different views by pressing the middle button.’

Manuele

@Simon I tried open water swimming yesterday, everything smooth, no issues

I will try again snorkelling soon!
Thanks for the feedback

kriskus

@Manuele And if this new unit also fails at some point, now you can possibly also exchange it for the new Suunto Ocean

Manuele

@kriskus Yeah, now I cannot complain about the choices available to us, but I am not an heavy underwater user, else I would have considered it.

Great watch though.

I had tried my Vertical few more times while open water swimming, and I did not have any issues.
I am still a bit cautious about free diving/snorkelling, as I do not want to have to send it back another time.

I will update the thread when I will, then

If anyone else had tried snorkelling, and want to share their experiences with the Vertical, I would be very interested to see if I have just been very unlucky!

drunners

I use it weekly for indoor swimming pressing buttons underwater and I’ve never had any issues, but ok, that’s not salty water