Suunto Spartan Ultra - why does it always take some time before the HR tracking works?

ViHal

As I searched bug reports there was plenty tagged for Suunto App and HR tracking but since I´ve had this issue from the beginning with Spartan Ultra (many firmware updates have been done since) it must be something to do with watch and it´s software. Does anyone else have this below problem?

I´m using HR belt with my watch and when I start any sports mode the watch finds GPS and HR very quickly. HR result is also correct when I haven´t started the exercise in sport mode yet, if at rest it displays my rest heart rate and so on.

After I start the exercise something annoying always happens, one of these three variants :

Although HR was found in setup the sports mode doesn´t start to track HR, it can take few minutes before it comes alive
and/or when HR tracking comes alive it´s stuck to first value and doesn´t start to update (sometimes clicking through sports mode screens helps, sometimes not)
HR starts from gargantuous level, well above 200 bpm and then drops to correct level after few minutes screwing up the statistics which one has to then manually fix if keeping track
sometimes however this +200 bpm level doesn´t drop even though the watch seems to be tracking the HR results, you have to do a full stop and wait for a while or stop the excercise and start a new one

Is this a known issue, does anyone else experience this and does anyone know if there´s a fix coming in the future or is this a won´t fix?

Couple of examples here below, I don´t have pics of the watch screen but started from complete rest with HR displayed between 68-75 before clicking start.

This is pretty annoying and doesn´t represent any quality for the product but I´ve found one pro to this problem. One must always have a good warm up session before excercise trying to “calibrate” your watch for sports and warm up should always be done anyways so Suunto´s helping at least me with that. My work out excel has nowadays quite a few comments about this issue when describing days excercise

cosme.costa

@Ville-Halmes I think this is vastly spoken and you should check the battery of the Smart Sensor or change/deep clean the sensor belt. When you see this high spikes usually means that the belt has “died”.

I only have faced the issues you mention when the belt is in bad “shape”, and I have the same configuration than you. You can search posts of the Smart Sensor speaking of all of this.

ViHal

@cosmecosta Ok Thanks mate! I have to check the belt then and try to clean it. I thought that it might be working good since it finds the signal real fast and at rest it gives the correct result. With older setup I use with Ambit2 Peak it doesn´t respond at all after battery goes bad.

fejker

@cosmecosta certainly that is not always the case, I have had the same results as Ville Halmes with a brand new belt and sensor, fresh battery and all. Two friends with SSUs also same problem and it doesn’t matter if the belt and battery is new or used. I constantly measure my battery with a multi-meter and wash my belt under the shower when I’m taking a shower after the exercise.
I’ve had these behaviors with HR spontaneously after certain FW updates. The previous FW seemed to work fine, the new one (SSU 2.8.24) causes problems again, but not always.
I’ve also had scenarios when the HR would not get picked up on the start screen and after starting the exercise it would show up immediately or show up after a couple of minutes. Usually a watch reset makes it pick up, or I “fake start” a move, then stop and delete it and start a new one and it works straight away.

pilleus

I never had problems with the hr and SSU. But I never used the smart sensor from Suunto, but always Polar H7/10.

ianshowalter

@pilleus Exactly. It’s not the watch that’s the issue in these situations, it’s the HR monitor. I’ve been using a Polar OH1 for a little over a year with my Spartan Ultra, and they’ve worked together seamlessly without any problems the whole time. Before then things were dodgy sometimes.

cosme.costa

@fejker Well, in my case, I have never face connection issues. It always connect within less than 5 seconds but then I has strange results, in case of the Smart Sensor very sudden high values, like 240 bpm during several km, then sudden drop to the normal values, etc. With a new belt everything worked fine again, the problem is that a belt that lasts 4/6 months is not what I consider “fair”. I bought a Polar H10 and after 7 months without problems I started to face sudden drops in the values, so in my case I believe that my issues are related to my sweat composition. From time to time I do a strap clean with hot water and issues go away for some time, I prefer the Smart Sensor over the Polar because for me it is more comfortable, the Polar leaves bruises in my skin. I have never faced any issue related to FW update.

borgelkranz

This happened to me occasionally but not often enough to make me get rid of my smart sensor. Since I bought a Wahoo Tickr Fit for other reasons, this problem never occurred again.

ViHal

@ianshowalter said in Suunto Spartan Ultra - why does it always take some time before the HR tracking works?:

@pilleus Exactly. It’s not the watch that’s the issue in these situations, it’s the HR monitor. I’ve been using a Polar OH1 for a little over a year with my Spartan Ultra, and they’ve worked together seamlessly without any problems the whole time. Before then things were dodgy sometimes.

Ok Thanks guys I need to investigate about going with Polar then.

I did change the battery and clean the Suunto HR belt. The end result of that was a short hike yesterday when HR monitor didn´t wake up at all, well I didn´t mind because the point was to relax.

This evening I went running and ended up having 6 exercises - first 4 the HR didn´t start to track at sports mode even though watch found HR and displayed the correct value in sports mode landing/start up screen or it did start to track after a while but bpm was +200 all the time, maximum logged was 228 BPM which is kinda high, even when I stood still.

The 5th iteration of my running went real nice from the HR point of view although I was getting so fed up with the watch that probably my heart rate was couple of beats too high But then again cruising at very steady and easy aerobic pace it suddenly jumped after 3.5 km again from 120 BPM to 175 bpm and stayed there. Wish me luck that I´m not dying, I´ll forgive you Suunto in that case, you were just trying to warn me. I did count the approx HR from my wrist the old school way, I´d say it was 120-130 BPM. 6th “lap” was realistic from start to finish, the last two kilometers. Awesome exercise to push into stats, this one.

I sure hope Polar will do the trick then for me as well, I know they´re way more respected in HR tracking here in Finland among the athletes.

And finally I have to share my favourite part of todays jogging - I removed the HR belt during the 3rd episode and throw it to the ground. Then I selected the running sports mode again, I was standing maybe 1,5 m from the belt. The sports mode start up screen found the GPS 1st and after that the HR belt and kept tracking the HR still while I gently kept taking few steps back and forth, BPM quietly bouncing between 165-167. Weird stuff right? Considering that this setup worked again 20 min later it makes you wonder that it´s hard to engineer anything this random even if you´d try?

Suunto Sprtan Ultra HR.jpg

zhang965

If I were you, I will buy a polar belt and call ghostbusters.

BKtoo

@Ville-Halmes try resetting the sensor by putting the battery in the wrong way for 30 seconds. Then put the battery in the right direction. When cycling and clothing fluttering, it helps to pull the HR belt to the left so that only one sensor measures at the heart. Good luck

ViHal

@KnutB Thanks Knut will try that one also, Cheers!

Adam_Warburton

@Ville-Halmes yup, pretty much the same thing I experience every time I start an exercise with my HR smart sensor on my Suunto 9. The start up screen shows HR belt has been found and it shows a reasonable HR value. Starting the exercise and no HR is shown for about 30s. Sometimes this shows later after uploading to movescount as zero or 200bpm+ values. All pretty rubbish. This occurred on my first smart sensor with both an old strap and new strap, it also occurs on my new smart sensor on a new strap.