Race S2 -> release?
-
@elbee Most of my friends are runners and I’ve contact with a lot of other runners trough the years. I’ve seen many progress from beginner to advanced amateurs and I also always had an interest in training so I’m well aware of people doing structured workouts by their Strava feed.
Even from my own experience. I remember along my running journey that sometimes I did not cared about intervals but there were other periods when I wanted to test some structured workouts. This was more then a decade ago…we’re in 2026…no watch from any brand should be handicapped like this.
Suunto Run seems to be Suunto wanting to appeal more to road runners but they cut one of the core features…planning. And it’s no hardware limitation. It’s a Garmin move…cutting software features to upsell a more expensive watch.
And then we have Suunto Run with “Resume Later” and “Music” that the other Suunto’s don’t have…doesn’t make sense.
-
@Nelson-Diogo can’t you just create intervals on the watch itself, like on the other watches?
Suunto Race 2 (Titanium Trail)
Suunto Vertical (Titanium Solar Forest) -
@aiv4r Even if you could, would you want to?
-
Here are some more rumors:
https://gadgetsandwearables.com/2026/07/26/suunto-race-3-s-ai-coach-leak/t6, S6, Elementum Terra, Ambit 3 Sapphire, Spartan Ultra Copper, Traverse Alpha, S7 Graphite LE, S9B Ambassador, S9P Titanium, S9PP Titanium, Vertical All Black, Race Titanium Charcoal, Race S Titanium Courtney, Run Lime, Race 2, Vertical 2 Titanium
-
@Egika Interesting! Sounds like the only real difference will be a paid AI coach. Unfortunately thats in line with other manufacturers products currently. Samsung Galaxy S24 - S25 - S26 was also just “more AI”
Curious if older watches will get the deeper integration to Suunto coach too - if these rumors are true
Race S
Vertical Titanium Solar
Ambit3 Vertical
Eon Core -
@Egika Interesting! Sounds like the only real difference will be a paid AI coach. Unfortunately thats in line with other manufacturers products currently. Samsung Galaxy S24 - S25 - S26 was also just “more AI”
Curious if older watches will get the deeper integration to Suunto coach too - if these rumors are trueIt’s probably me, but the last time I got a watch with something new that was actually useful was my Ambit 3 run. That had navigation based on gps. It made longruns more interesting and I could enter trailruns that provide a gpx.
After that? Not really. The ambit 3 had some omissions (most important a vibrating alert) and limited battery life. The forerunner 935 fixed this, until the batterylife was down to less than 8 hours in gps mode (so a while day hike wasn’t possible anymore). The forerunner 965 added maps that made navigation slightly more convenient, but also added a lot of annoyances (forced voice assist during navigation being the biggest)
Overal I’m happy with my race s and will be for the coming years. There are some bugs to squash (including a big one with unstable bluetooth) and there are some nice to haves my previous garmins had (with live tracking being the nicest), but other than that? Definitely not waiting for an AI coach, nor willing to pay for it.
Except 1 thing. Being able to generate a local route for a given kilometers on a giving terrain on a given hillyness, for both running and cycling. That would be useful for me. Now I use strava, but I don’t want to pay for strava anylonger and route creating in strava isn’t as good as it used to be. And this would be solely in the suunto app, so every watch that has navigation will benefit.
-
@Steven-Hambleton of course, thst is how I and the people I know who has Suunto does structured workouts, easy and simple.
-
@Egika oh man, watches looks promising, but the AI coach stuff gives me “lost our way” vibes. Might be the end of Suunto for me depending on how well one can hide it and mot get bothered by it.
-
@VoiGAS no worries. It’s still rumors and new hardware will be more than just a new name
-
-
@elbee it depends how they add it. If you make MCP access, that is pretty nice and cool and does not really bother anyone. If you push AI to read your metrics and give recomendations and create training plans and etc, that is different level of annoying.
And there is always an option to use the older watch that does not support the newest and “greatest”
-
@aiv4r
Yeh, how they implement it makes a lot of difference. Suunto isn’t that good in making things optional by default. For instance, I find morning report completely useless (there is really zero info on it that I need to know first thing in the morning) but I have to dismiss the screen every day. My previous garmin had the same useless morning report, but at least you could disable it in the settings. (luckily I discovered turning of sleep monitoring also turns of morning report)But AI is something else. It’s such a hype and everybody wants to jump on the train. I’m afraid it will be forced on everyone.
But like you said, there is always an older watch. My race s is fine for many years. I also nurture my iPhone 12 mini, because I like the small formfactor.
-
@aiv4r yes but you don’t have a way to plan them outside of the app or watch. That’s not enough. With any other suunto watch and entry level watches from other brands you can plan and send them to the watch from outside plataforms like Runna, Intervals or TP.
-
@aiv4r yes but you don’t have a way to plan them outside of the app or watch. That’s not enough. With any other suunto watch and entry level watches from other brands you can plan and send them to the watch from outside plataforms like Runna, Intervals or TP.
Except for TP—since it’s unclear what will happen now that it belongs to Garmin. Even so, the future of all training platforms is quite uncertain given the rise of AI.
-
@Nelson-Diogo yea I mostly agree that is not enough for some people, but it is also possible. A lot of people use other platforms or coaches to get training plans. I mostly just check what I need/want to do that day and set it up on the watch (if it is intervals or sprints or what ever). Other than that why bother to automate it, I can mostly remember that I have a long run for about 2 hours or smth, not that difficult.
-
@Egika if you spread this rumour, I am quite sure that it is misleading
-
The version of JavaScript (5.1) running on the Race series was introduced in 2011, the watch firmware feels old, and Suunto needs a new firmware architecture. I think Run was intended as a trial run of that architecture. And as often happens when you do a full rewrite, you are not initially feature complete.
Could the “3” series be a new hardware platform to go with new firmware? If that is the case Race 3S would likely be the new “Run” and all the old watches would become obsolete.
I would assume the developers would have to work hard to deliver a new architecture with feature parity, hence an AI coach could be a way to tempt customers to upgrade. Additional features would come later, built on the new architecture.
-
I don’t see a successor of the race s as the new run.
There is definitely room for a cheaper watch below the race s. Not that many runners use a lot of the features and specially navigation. That means there is no need for maps, that means less storage, that means (given prices of memory) a cheaper watch.
While the race and race s prices were very competitive, a entry level running watch that costs more than 300 euro isn’t.
-
@elbee
Good points.But you would likely develop a new HW/FW architecture in a way that you could change the price point by switching parts on the BOM, like memory, display, or case material.
Suunto probably does not have enough developers to maintain multiple code bases. So we are moving towards one code base, with (I would think) a scalable HW architecture.
I agree that Suunto needs a watch at a lower price point, but that could be a 3S scaled down, which of course could be called a Run 2. I am more thinking about what is inside the case than the branding and positioning of the product.
The Run and the 2-series were all developed during the time Suunto was likely working on a new architecture, hence they will have considered how to migrate users. The watches that are currently on sale are likely to be fully abandoned. The Run and 2-series is more interesting.
-
First of all, I’m not in the running for a new watch. My race s will be fine for many more years. So I couldn’t care less for the next 5 (I hope) years.
But I would hate to see a smaller highend watch disappear. Formfactor is an important criteria for me (I nurture my iPhone 12 mini)
I don’t know how firmwares of watches are developed. It almost seems like manufacturers (whether it be suunto or garmin) make a copy of the firmware repository for every new watch and backport some features and bugfixes to older repositories for older watches. I really don’t see any signs they start a new firmware from scratch, at the moment.
But that’s my view on the blackbox. Based of 30 years software development and 15 years sportwatch experience. For what it’s worth.
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login