Suunto 7 - Is it worth buying?
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Hi There, I was initially going to purchase a Fenix watch until I heard about the Suunto 7. I think Suunto will have a created a watch for the people such as myself that are not hard core fitness enthusiasts and want smart watch features. I run several times a week and do weights 5 times a week. So I need a watch with reasonable fitness features (I currently have a Vivoactive 3). But I also would like to have a watch with smartwatch features, the WearOS side of the Suunto 7. I’m not concerned about battery life (I will charge it every day if needed). My question is to the Suunto 7 users - how is your experience with the Suunto 7? How are the fitness features? Have there been any major issues? Is it worth buying in your opinion? Thanks in advance. Appreciate your assistance.
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In the meanwhile, I hope you also searched the forum because some users are already reporting lots of info about the S7. Good luck!
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Have you looked at the forums? There have been plenty of posts starting with Suunto 7, from general discussion post announcement to people discussing setup, accuracy, and other things.
Here’s a good starting point:
https://forum.suunto.com/topic/3722/suunto-7
https://forum.suunto.com/topic/3806/s7-the-state-of-google-wear-osTo answer your question, whether it’s a worthy purchase depends on your priorities.
- Do you need a bona fide smartwatch, or are fine with just having some smartwatch features like notifications or music playback? Would you prefer to quickly type replies or select smart replies, or you can use a phone for that?
- What phone do you have? While Wear OS works with both iOS and Android, your experience will arguably be better on the latter
- Do you want to use third-party apps like Google Keep, or task management, or radar/weather, and so on?
- How important are customizable watch faces and complications?
- How about screen? Large, bright, high resolution or smaller, easy to read outdoors, but low-res and dim?
- How important is design and a selection of standard size bands for you? Build quality and materials?
- Do you need any activity tracking things like 24/7 HR, rest HR, steps, calories? Will Google Fit work for you, or you want something more detailed?
- Do you own any external sensors – heart rate, footpods – and want to use them with your tracking?
- Do you use standard sports modes in VA3 or have created/customized your own? Perhaps, downloaded ConnectIQ data fields?
- If your VA3 supports music playback (some models do), which services do you use? How flexible you are, i.e. Spotify offline playback isn’t available on Wear OS, but it’s there on Garmin. You do have Pandora and Google Music though.
I can go on and on, but the bottom line is: comparing VA3 to Suunto 7 is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. Suunto 7 is a Wear OS smartwatch first, an entry level sports device second. It has a number of limitations coming out of the gates – like lack of sports mode customization or sensor support – but because it’s a smartwatch, third party apps exist to fill in the gaps.
I’m personally fairly happy with my Suunto 7 purchase. It hasn’t left my wrist since Saturday when I got it, apart for the time to charge it. The battery life is fantastic with Suunto recommended settings (close to two days with 1-2 hours of GPS/OHR runs outdoors). I wish it had external sensors support, or intervals, or other things, but I have a sport watch to fill that need right now.
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Thanks @isazi and @NickK . Appreciate the replies.
@NickK : I went though your two links and that gave me lots of information. I had no idea that Wear OS doesn’t track sleep! Personally I don’t mind the VA3 but it’s not much of a smartwatch. Garmin also issues too many updates that sometime create more issues than they fix. So many apps (Bring, Jefit, etc.) are available on on wear os and I would love to have them on my watch instead of always going to my phone (none are on Garmin). I don’t need customized watch face, low res-dim screen would be acceptable. I don’t currently use any external sensors, but I was thinking of getting Stryd since I will be in a couple of marathons this year. So basically if the S7 can meet my ‘basic’ fitness needs (tracking runs accurately) and last through a fully marathon, then I’m in.
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@wolfie55555 said in Suunto 7 - Is it worth buying?:
last through a fully marathon
No problem. 2 hours are okay with GPS and AOD
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@wolfie55555 The device promises up to 12 hours with GPS and OHR, so you’re fine for some ultras. Not just a marathon. If you prefer to listen to music while running, you are probably looking at 5-8 hours depending on what app is used and if music is DRM-protected. Which should still be enough for a marathon.
Stryd is currently only possible with third party sports apps like Sporty Go. Perhaps, Stryd will release a port of their fantastic Apple Watch app. Suunto’s own app sadly doesn’t support external sensors, and that would include Stryd.
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About battery duration. My last test:
65’ outdoor gps running listening a podcast (using wear casts app). The watch was not connected to phone since I left at home. When I started activity wath had 35% battery. I cannot stop the activity because the watch enter in power mode
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it’s not about Suunto 7 being worth or not,
it’s about if you have enough money to waste or not. -
@zhang965
I’ve had enough money to waste on S9B… and I can’t remember when I last charged itliving sideways
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@wolfie55555 said in Suunto 7 - Is it worth buying?:
Is it worth buying in your opinion?
Yes. For me a watch for both, sports and daily usage. I sold my S9B and decided to buy a new S7.
After a week of daily usage I am glad that I did so.
There is no risk. You can return the S7 if it shouldn’t be the watch which fits your personal needs.
But be aware of the fact that you will stay with the S7!
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@TELE-HO said in Suunto 7 - Is it worth buying?:
I can’t remember when I last charged it
Be careful if you can’t remember facts and events!
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I’m a happy S7 owner too, for all the reasons already explained here…
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Thank you to everyone that responded. Considering that this is a first gen watch, I expected that there would be more issues with the watch. I’m gonna buy it. I think that Suunto will have a real winner with the S7 in the smartwatch/sportwatch segment. This won’t appeal to the hardcore fitness enthusiasts or Apple watch aficionados (lots of apps) but there is a large segment of ‘us’ that needs fitness and wants some Wear OS apps.
Thanks again to everyone for responding! I appreciated your assistance.
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@wolfie55555 My hope Suunto sees the light and delivers a few key features that would let us use Suunto 7 for some or most workouts not currently tracking well. The list is fairly short for me. I’d settle for external heart rate, footpod, and intervals at this point
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Hi all, first post here.
I actually came across this forum whilst also looking for a replacement for my Garmin Vivoactive 3.
I was originally looking at the casio WSD-F21HR but then came across this suunto 7.
I’m hoping someone could offer a little advice as to what would better suit my needs based on my usage outlined below:-
Mon-Fri work usage until around 5pm would purely be as a smartwatch where id like to see notifications,weather etc.
The activities I will be doing is mainly mountain biking,static bike and occasional free weights.
I really like the idea of mapping as we also go on family walks etc so this would also come in handy.
I’m not overly bothered about fitness tracking (steps,sleep etc) but would be nice to have available.
Anybody used the Casio Pro trek? Any comparisons? Google doesn’t come back with much to be honest.
I really want to pick this watch up and was pretty much ready to pull the trigger before watching the DC rainmaker review.
So I guess my question in a nut shell is “am I getting the best bang for my buck with the suunto 7”.
Thanks for your time
Gaz -
@gazaman77 Check @the5krunner blog as he reviewed several Casio watches me thinks. Without going into too much details (see Suunto 7 lengthy thread), your use case of walks, mountain bike, and spin bike should be pretty agreeable, but…
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You won’t be able to connect your bike sensors like speed or power if you have them, because no external sensors are supported at the moment by Suunto own app. Third party apps do offer support
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For weights, the wrist heart rate won’t be accurate. Some people managed to wear the watch further away from the wrist and got acceptable results, and there are, again, third party apps that support external heart rate
Other than this, Suunto 7 is the best Wear OS smartwatch with legit sports tracking. It’s probably the best Wear OS smartwatch in general spec-wise too, given materials, screen, offline maps, water proofing, and on. Is it the best Wear OS sports watch? I’d say Polar M600 sporty/activity tracking side has an edge in many respects for now but its GPS isn’t nearly as good and outside of sports it’s a clunky, dim, slow, four year old parole bracelet of a watch…
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I actually bought a WSD-f20 last week as it was on sale here in Germany (160€). After ~1 week of usage, I am actually happily surprised. The battery life is very good for a Wear OS watch: nearly 2 days with Wifi and Bluetooth ON and the GPS trying to get the position every 6 minutes. Always ON eats the battery though, as some Watchfaces. Speaking of Watchfaces, I only use the Casio ones, they are very nice (but very Casio, so still miss Suunto here).
The offline maps seem to work fine and the GPS as well. The altimeter is surprisingly bad compared to Suunto or Garmin, it probably needs to be calibrated often. The watch does not differentiate at all before changes of pressure and change of altitude (it’s basically the exact same curve
).
Very cool stuff is that the tools can use the LCD screen (something I found out today). With the WSD-30 you can also have the sensors info in the timepiece mode (so with Wear OS off).
The screen is very good but not super easy to see in the sun. The 2nd LCD screen the opposite, super nice in the sun, very hard in darkness
In term of Activity, it is a Protrek, not a Suunto: it will not show much info, also not record much info. What you get at the end is a summary and a KML path.
So a very cool watch, and probably one of the best Wear OS aside the Suunto 7
At the same price, I would buy the Suunto TBH. -
my review is first. do not buy pro-trek f-21
I compared track with suunto 9
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Hi all,
I am still considering to purchase S7, but I have few main concerns.- battery life, it seems to be too short
- activity tracking…seems that Google Fit and integration to that is not working well and I just hate Fit.
-Sleep tarcking is missing. I do not want to use third party app and I would like to have all fitness activities such as sleep, steps, sport activity etc. collected to same app, preferably to SA.
Pros
- possibility use different apps
- maps
- good loking watch
I am still considering to buy S9. There are good discount on S9 at the moment, but it might be in the end of lifetime as well what comes to SW updates etc.
Any rumors about S10 or any other watch after S7.
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@Toni-Kotiranta It wont be the end of features / updates for the S9/S5 if that bothers you.
Just helping out here.
