Suunto Race S optical heart rate sensor accuracy
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My experience with the Race S OHR is very good, better than S9 Peak and S5. But I have no Garmin to compare and wear the watch tight above my wrist
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I just bought a Race S and am having problems with the heart rate accuracy, it seems to read double my actual heart rate when resting. I use an external sensor for activities so not sure how it would stand up then, but the resting rates are often way off. Shown here alongside the Pace 2 that I was upgrading from which is reading accurately.
I’ve tried everything I can find, soft reset, hard reset, toggle 24/7 monitoring, tighten, loosen, move watch, downgrade firmware to previous version, nothing seems to solve it. Do I have a faulty watch, is it a software issue that will hopefully be solved at some point, or is it innate to the sensor and will likely always be like this?
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@RdoubleC I don’t think yours is faulty, mine has always been absolutely junk as well. Last night reading 85-90bpm when my actual HR was in the 40/50s.
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Even if some OHR may work better here and there, also in other brands, this is an infinite debate.
On me I’ve never found from now any good OHR for intense activities. For daily use, sleep tracking… it works very fine.
Whenever I want accuracy (trail running, cycling…), I use the HR belt.But regarding Suunto OHRs, they’ve been improving over years (S9b <<< Sv < Srs). On me the SRs works better, but Not a very big difference with my SV.
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@dariof The Apple Watch is supposedly the best OHR out there. For me an AWU works OK on easy, sustained runs. I always have some OHR dropouts and on intervals AWU is not good. Suunto OHR for me is worse. I always wear a belt for exercise. However for 24/7, sleep and not exercise I find Suunto and Apple identical.
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did you resolve this? I have the exact same issue - i can compare to my garmin or just check my own pulse and the Suunto is regularly 2 times actual…
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If Suunto is unable to provide a better WHR accuracy, then Suunto should at least support multiple sensors.
Personally I can’t wear a chest sensor during longer events. I get skin irritation on the chest to the point of bleeding. I guess that is because of salt accumulating in that area and compression straps of hydration vest moving the chest sensor. I started using Coros armband HR sensor, and it is very good, but it doesn’t support ZoneSense. A good solution would be to use an armband HR sensor for longer events and a chest HR sensor for shorter runs and workouts, but that is impossible without constantly having to re-pair the sensor.
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@Brad_Olwin I have the same bad experience with OHR while running on my newly bought Suunto Race S and I just return to the dealer for checking. It give me the inconsistent heart rate data, sometimes it bump up very high and some times no heart rate signal while I still maintaining the steady speed on the flat road. This morning, while seating at the office, My heart rate should be in normal range 45-50 but it is bump up to 90 - 100 ad I cannot measure the SPo2 on my watch, I tried to measure SPO2 several times and it says it is only 70 which is super ridiculous. I feel sad then go to Suunto Vietnam directly after that, now i need to wait for their check.
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@RdoubleC May I know how is the heart rate on your watch now. I got the same issue as you and now I am waiting the answer from Suunto Vietnam after leaving my watch there one week for checking.
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@TuanNT said in Suunto Race S optical heart rate sensor accuracy:
This morning, while seating at the office, My heart rate should be in normal range 45-50 but it is bump up to 90 - 100
While reading this I decided to check what my Race S is currently showing as I am taking a coffee break at work. The watch is showing 120-140 while I am sitting still and my pulse is clearly about 50 - I have manually counted it. This is ridiculous!
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B brechtvb referenced this topic on
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@sky-runner My first impression was that the heart rate accuracy was good. After buying the watch, I went on holidays and used the watch mostly for intensive hiking.
When back home, doing circuit training I noticed the heart rate sensor was displaying half of what I expected it to be. I ordered a new watch strap from Hirsch, model vocem, which better keeps the watch correctly positioned. Accuracy has well increased and I rarely notice heart rate drops -
@dariof
I was so depressed by the ugliness and cheap feel of my Garmin 265 that I purchased the Suunto race S and wore it in parallel for a month.Take-aways:
General- I am stuck in the Garmin eco-system… Would be great to export all activities including gear into Suunto. There are so many things i want to search in my history that Garmin keeps (actually - mostly gear is missing), and MASS import/export
Pro - Suunto
- much more asthetic and better built - I love it
- much nicer overall feel
- incredibly much better navigation and maps
Con - Suunto
1 not as good battery as Garmin - this was a surprise.
2 alarms are not by weekday (i get up different times different days in predictable pattern, my garmin handles that for wake-up alarms
3 eco-system issue
4 the HRM is crap when exercising (However, identical to Garmin when just going about, and very similar HRV for some reason.)- I still dont get a VO2max read out after a month of 24/7 wear?? (hence cant judge if it seems correct)
Overall - impossible choice. I might stick with garmin for ecosystem and some features I am used to. Painful as it is not to have the Suunto on my arm.
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@Tobias-Petrini hey
you could import all your past activities to suunto using RunGap app on iOS or syncmytrack on android Regarding vo2max I think there is a bug you should run 3 times with an hr belt and then it is unlocked if I remember well
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@Josaiplu I never used hr belt and I have vo2max
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@Gunnar with my Race vo2max never appear before I did 3 run with hr belt as far as I remember, if this is fixed it’s good news
thanks 
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@Josaiplu @Tobias-Petrini It took about 8 months running 3/4 times a week with hr belt for VO2 to show up on my Race(1)…
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@Tobias-Petrini regarding VO2Max, try the Cooper Test on Suunto App, after completing, you should get the value.
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I’ve had similar chronic issues with the heart rate on my Race S. Not registering an accurate heart rate until a mile or two into a ride or run, dropping heart rate during an activity, reading overly high during a ride or run. On some activities like cross training, I’ll never get a reasonable heart rate reading. I tried posting a review on Suunto’s website describing this and other issues I’ve had with the Race S and Suunto refused to publish the review saying my feedback “is not a common issue.” I contacted customer support hoping for some resolution since they apparently regard my experience as abnormal. Instead of a resolution, I got a bunch of excuses as to why I can’t really expect the watch to perform any better. All in all, my experience with this watch has been a disaster. I’ll never buy another Suunto product. Going back to Garmin.
