Enough

Sempre Avanti

Finally after one year with Race I got enough.
I love the watch but all the hickups is just ………
HR that almost never show correctly.
Sleep data is working for a day or two then just doesent show.
Connection between Sony experia 1 III and Race just stop working from time to time.
When updates finally comes and it is supposed to fix troubles, new ones emerge becauce the update.
So I will thank this community for the support, tips and trix.
What will happen now?
Just bought a Garmin forerunner 265 so I will go back to Garmin again.
Best wiches to all of you // Thomas

Adrian.S

@Sempre-Avanti

After five years with Garmin Fenix 6 and 7, I’ve been giving Suunto Vertical a try for a week now. The watch is great, but I’ve noticed some shortcomings and flaws.

We’ll see how long I last

Yes, the Suunto community on this forum is helpful.

cosme.costa

@Sempre-Avanti said in Enough:

Finally after one year with Race I got enough.
I love the watch but all the hickups is just ………
HR that almost never show correctly.

I understand that if you have bought a forerunner you do run, so why you rely in the watch OHR and do not take advantage of Suunto ZoneSense using a chest strap?

Connection between Sony experia 1 III and Race just stop working from time to time.

Could be that the problem is the phone and not the watch? Are the battery optimization and permissions set correctly in the phone? I’m using a Pixel 6a with the last beta of android 16 (less stable) and a SV without any issue. My mother uses a SR with a Xiaomi phone and with the proper settings she doesn’t have any problems.

When updates finally comes and it is supposed to fix troubles, new ones emerge becauce the update.

This is not really true, last update solve the majority of the bugs and is very stable, previous one was quite buggy.

Just bought a Garmin forerunner 265 so I will go back to Garmin again.

Not exactly same design and quality build. I hope you keep the SR, and maybe I’m mistaken but I’m quite sure you will miss the good of the SR that you haven’t mentioned here.

Best wiches to all of you // Thomas

You too, hope you enjoy your new watch.

cosme.costa

@Adrian.S Which are the shortcomings and flaws? SV user here. I used for two years a Garmin Edge 530 and eventually I sold it, for my use and in my opinion the device was okish and the app was quite bad.

Adrian.S

@cosme.costa

I can name a few:

The structure of the Suunto software is not entirely clear, as it still uses some outdated Suunto-Tracker.com solution, where basic information about activities is stored - you can use a computer. I don’t know why it is still being stored, maybe Suunto is preparing a new WEB version after being bought by China?

Pros for Vertical:

I prefer the look and the 49 mm case size vs. the 47 mm Fenix 7,
better menu navigation and Suunto watch operation,
no more lag in the menu, as noted in older posts,
more accurate maps than Garmin, smooth and fast zooming in and out
very accurate elevation and altitude measurement,
better battery and more modern solar energy collection panel,
better mobile app: cool 3D track display,
much better track creation in the mobile app than in Garmin, you can really use it, while in Garmin it’s a terrible mess for me,
great marking on the map of tracks already run, i.e. which trails have already been covered and which haven’t - this allows you to explore places you haven’t been to yet

I am semi-professional ultra runner, so my cons of Vertical:

There is no automatic screen lock (!), so you don’t have to click on the menu several times, but can focus on the descent and avoid breaking your legs.
no choice of track on the athletics track (apparently this will be added in the next update probably?),
no sound/vibration notifications for a created workout when you are in a given heart rate or pace range (there is a graphic indicator of whether you are too slow, too fast, or your heart rate is too low/too high),
no indicator on the map showing the distance to the nearest turn on the uploaded track (e.g., at a fork in the road, etc.), which I found useful for planning nutrition, hydration, maintaining pace, and “breathing” for my head, knowing that the turn is only 4 km away, for example,
turn notifications are there, but in my opinion they are slightly too late or I was going too fast - this works a little better with Garmin, which is more predictive,
with a uploaded track, there is information about how much is left to the summit and the remaining average gradient, which is useful for pacing yourself in an ultra or pushing harder in shorter races, but it is more readable and user-friendly in Garmin (in Suunto, you can only see this by catching GPS on the track, not sitting at home on the couch analyzing the elevation in Garmin) - in addition, Suunto only shows the current ascent, you cannot see the next ones offline, as in Garmin,
I don’t know how accurate it is, but it’s always a suggestion: water loss after training: if it shows me 2L and I drank 1L during training, I know that I still need to drink at least 1L of fluids to be at ZERO; Suunto does not have such statistics,
no information about “performance readiness” and “stamina” – for me, this often corresponds to how I feel during most workouts, regardless of the type: long runs, cross-country, stadium intervals, etc. It’s always a hint for analyzing your workout.
I have the impression and feeling that the resting heart rate measurement from the wrist outside of activities is closer to Garmin readings than Suunto, which sometimes overestimates by 10-20 beats, but at night it shows very similar results (of course, during training sessions only heart rate belt).

The comparison could be this: Suunto is like the old Blackberry with great hardware, but when they started to lag behind Android, the hardware alone wasn’t enough, they needed software too.

cosme.costa

@Adrian.S said in Enough:

The structure of the Suunto software is not entirely clear, as it still uses some outdated Suunto-Tracker.com solution, where basic information about activities is stored - you can use a computer. I don’t know why it is still being stored, maybe Suunto is preparing a new WEB version after being bought by China?

I’m not affiliated to Suunto in any way but this has been long discussed here. Sports tracker was a solution from Nokia that Suunto (Amer sports) bought to Nokia and was the base for the Suunto App. Probably they share the same database and for that you can enter in Sports Tracker with the same credentials than in SA.

I am semi-professional ultra runner, so my cons of Vertical:

There is no automatic screen lock (!), so you don’t have to click on the menu several times, but can focus on the descent and avoid breaking your legs.

I do not understand what you mean here, could you elaborate?

no choice of track on the athletics track (apparently this will be added in the next update probably?),

Yeah, it seams it will come with the Suunto Run, in the Spanish forum some hints of it can be found.

no sound/vibration notifications for a created workout when you are in a given heart rate or pace range (there is a graphic indicator of whether you are too slow, too fast, or your heart rate is too low/too high),

If your pace/HR range is the same in all the steps of the structured workout (I mean the pushing ones) you can activate the intensity zones in the exercise options. It is also known that improvements will come to structured workouts, I do not know what or when.

no indicator on the map showing the distance to the nearest turn on the uploaded track (e.g., at a fork in the road, etc.), which I found useful for planning nutrition, hydration, maintaining pace, and “breathing” for my head, knowing that the turn is only 4 km away, for example,

The last firmware update has introduced some improvements to navigation, and one of them I think is that the tooth in the map indicates the distance to the next Waypoint or the end of the route if you do not have WPs in it, so you can add WPs to the route.

turn notifications are there, but in my opinion they are slightly too late or I was going too fast - this works a little better with Garmin, which is more predictive,

Never used them but I now they have changed with the last update.

with a uploaded track, there is information about how much is left to the summit and the remaining average gradient, which is useful for pacing yourself in an ultra or pushing harder in shorter races, but it is more readable and user-friendly in Garmin (in Suunto, you can only see this by catching GPS on the track, not sitting at home on the couch analyzing the elevation in Garmin) - in addition, Suunto only shows the current ascent, you cannot see the next ones offline, as in Garmin,

You can do it in the app if you are at home, couldn’t you?

I don’t know how accurate it is, but it’s always a suggestion: water loss after training: if it shows me 2L and I drank 1L during training, I know that I still need to drink at least 1L of fluids to be at ZERO; Suunto does not have such statistics,

I had this with Garmin and was totally fake, at least with the bike. I’ve seen a 0.5 l of water loss in a 10 km easy ride at 10ºC with my HR under 110 bpm. You can trust it as any metric in any watch of course. With Suunto you can set a Suunto App with reminders for drinking and/or eating.

no information about “performance readiness” and “stamina” – for me, this often corresponds to how I feel during most workouts, regardless of the type: long runs, cross-country, stadium intervals, etc. It’s always a hint for analyzing your workout.

I do not use/care about this but I think most of this info is in Suunto coach.

The comparison could be this: Suunto is like the old Blackberry with great hardware, but when they started to lag behind Android, the hardware alone wasn’t enough, they needed software too.

In my opinion, Suunto is adding lots of effort and new features to the watches but it take time. I like their approach with the software, few but useful features. More is more is not always better.

isazi

@Adrian.S this list should become much shorter soon

aiv4r

@Adrian.S most of the points I can agree with.
But I really hope Suunto will not start adding random numbers as gimmicks like “Sweat loss” or “Stamina”, just to have them there. The watch on the wrist should never be able to tell the water loss one experiances.

halajos

@aiv4r Suunto is not known for gimmicking, for sweat loss there’s an S+ app to pair with a 3rd party sensor to measure that

dulko79

@isazi how soon?

isazi

@dulko79 2025?

dulko79

@isazi Fair enough

cosme.costa

@dulko79 In the Spanish forum someone said days for the new watch

Stefano M64

@isazi said in Enough:

@Adrian.S this list should become much shorter soon

everybody is in anxious expectation for the habemus update

isazi

@Stefano-M64 rule of thumb is one update every quarter, so we should expect one in June I’d say

Adrian.S

@cosme.costa said in Enough:

I am semi-professional ultra runner, so my cons of Vertical:

There is no automatic screen lock (!), so you don’t have to click on the menu several times, but can focus on the descent and avoid breaking your legs.

I do not understand what you mean here, could you elaborate?

Sorry, I meant that locking watch should be easier, just like in the menu (assigned button) without activity enabled. When activity is enabled, you have to go to the menu and settings to enable screen lock.

This is dangerous because you have to look at your watch when, for example, you are running downhill fast.

The last firmware update has introduced some improvements to navigation, and one of them I think is that the tooth in the map indicates the distance to the next Waypoint or the end of the route if you do not have WPs in it, so you can add WPs to the route.

That’s exactly what I’m talking about, these little shortcomings are annoying.

Way Point… Imagine manually creating waypoints for a 100 or 150 km route. It’s pointless.

That’s why it should be done by the software, because the watch calculates the route anyway. If it can calculate a turn on the track, it should also be able to calculate how many kilometers to the next turn.

This is a very useful feature.

no information about “performance readiness” and “stamina” – for me, this often corresponds to how I feel during most workouts, regardless of the type: long runs, cross-country, stadium intervals, etc. It’s always a hint for analyzing your workout.

I do not use/care about this but I think most of this info is in Suunto coach.

Just as I said. In my case, this has been proven not by one training session, but by hundreds of running and cycling workouts. It’s not perfect, but in 90-95% of cases, it works in terms of how I feel after training and in the analysis of the data after training.

For now, I will test the data collected by Suunto during training sessions with my trainer and see if it was a bad idea to refresh my adventure with Suunto or if it was a good idea.

Although, as I mentioned, it’s a nice and cool watch.

I have a question: why doesn’t SuuntoPlus allow to enable more than two apps at the same time during an activity? For example ZoneSense + Climb and only 2 limitations.

It’s a bit of a bummer because I can only run 1 app and 1 planned workout, which doesn’t make sense—it’s another limitation on data collection from trening.

brechtvb

@cosme.costa for me Suunto Race S is also very unreliable on wrist HR.

Just not reading the heart rate (stopping after a while) and cadence lockins. I have posted screenshots on this forum.

I never had these problems with a garmin forerunner 55. The el-cheapo garmin.

Reading decent (!) OHR on the wrist is a requirement for smart watches these days.

Race S has a beter OHR than Race (different sensors!). This is substandard for a 350 EUR watch.

cosme.costa

@brechtvb First of all, this is a requeriment for you not for me, different people have different needs. From what I have been reading and from my own experience, OHR, since S9PP, has improved greatly. Issues with OHR readings is not only a problem about the sensor and is more with the technology, and all the brands have them. Probably there are also lots of people with the FR55 that have bad HR readings as you have with the SRS. As an example, Garmin continue to produce and develop chest straps, Coros has an OHR arm band that all its athletes use, instead of the watch OHR, the same for Polar.

BTW, I wouldn’t call any of the actual Suunto a smartwatch, they do not have any “smart” feature. They are sport watches.

2b2bff

@brechtvb the problem is that different sensors work for different people. Race S is said to be better than the older ones. Apple Watch is said to be excellent, but I read from people where Apple Watch was not working at all. Very difficult topic.
YouTuber ActiveIdeas has a Vertical and says it is spot on for him.

For me the Race S is okay, using a velcro strap. However the strap that came with it gives worse reading. Even 196bpm while cycling home from work while breathing through my nose. A pity because I love that power orange…

That said my Garmin Epix Pro let me down several times as well. 10bpm off while taking a walk in a park…

Jaakers

it’s just not nice coming from a watch where you had the feeling the sensor was working to a new watch where you have the feeling it is not working.
it kinda feels like wasting money and leave you disappointed.
if the watch then also restarts from time to time…

though it’s already been a few weeks without a restart…