Race vs Garmin Epix Pro

Jamie BG

One thing that I always thought was cool about Suunto over the competition is that they will pass along updates/features as long as the hardware supports it. The same cannot be said about the competition. The forums have been a great asset to me to answer questions and resolve issues (yourself included; thank you very much!)

sorry but is that a fair comment to companies like apple watch (which is competition in some ways) and to Coros - they seem really good at pushing down features to all their models.

Tend to agree fair comment in relation to Garmin.

But then again if you are paying for features why should a £200 watch have the same features as a £1k watch - why buy the £1k watch…But yes there are certain features that should be rolled out better, and especially agree in regards to health features - where the garmin hardware can support see no reason why can’t be rolled out. Got to remember though that garmin crunches 98% of all their metrics on the watch - and that could potentially be limiting some feature set from being ported as not sue how different the hardware inside is.
It is really interesting to see that the Venu 3 in its latest beta is getting wrist running power and is getting wrist running dynamics (but can only see post activity in app). This is a masive change to how the venu 3 has been previously positioned and seen in garmin. And you have to wonder what this may potentially mean going forward…

Todd Danielczyk

@Jamie-BG 100% agree with your comments. I didn’t want to name -the-names but my reference was certainly pointed at specific brands of both smart watches and fitness trackers. Companies like Fitbit, Garmin and Google Pixel push their base to buy the latest tech versus rolling updates out.

When I was cross shopping brands, I considered Garmin as their build quality and battery life is comparable to Suunto (which I value). The fact that they steer buyers to models based off features or paid subscriptions (like Apple) is a game I am not willing to play.

Overall I have been happy with Suunto; starting with a Baro 9, to a Peak 9 to now Vertical Solar. The Peak 9 is a great watch but was a bit small for my liking so I moved to the Vertical.

Egika

@Jamie-BG said in Race vs Garmin Epix Pro:

@Shuhite

With Race training modes: Training mode with GPS 40h / 50h / 70h / 120h - what happens with each mode to adjust out the battery life. Also is that 40h with AOD on or off - no mention, cause if its with AOD off then 40h isn’t much different to 38hrs?

Race in Performance and Endurance mode has an always on data display. Only the map is switched to a breadcrumb view when lowering the wrist. So 40h with AOD and Dual Band GPS. Here is an overview:

…plus in reality the battery calculation after a longer activity is usually higher than 40h for me.

Dušan Ković

@Egika In Endurance mode with Maps - off, does it show at least breadcrumb trail on the black background, and can it load route and navigate?

Egika

@Dušan-Ković yes! It is only about the map. Not about following a route or breadcrumb trail on the watch screen.

@Jamie-BG It was on the Garmin Forums where I’ve been a member for the last 3 or so years. I happened to request my data the day I posted that, so I have a record of the exact post name and my posts.
https://forums.garmin.com/login?ReturnUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fforums.garmin.com%2Foutdoor-recreation%2Foutdoor-recreation%2Ff%2Fepix-2%2F350847%2Fmultiband-battery-life-estimates
That link doesn’t work for me anymore, and I don’t see my post. As I said, all my bug reports on the beta forums are gone too. I can’t log in, just get this everytime I try:

@Egika Yea I can confirm, during the couple runs I did with the Race, the display was always on, properly without dimming. I was running in rain so it was weird having it on while it was under a layer as I wasn’t used to it. But, on the Garmin forums some people should switch to Suunto, because they want their Garmins to do this and Garmin refuses due to burn-in and battery-life concerns (their (Garmin support) words).

Could anyone enlighten me as to what these two metal circles are at the bottom of the Race?

Brad_Olwin

@Shuhite They are for Suunto access and not for consumers. For example when watches are bricked.

Brad_Olwin

@Jamie-BG said in Race vs Garmin Epix Pro:

@Shuhite

With Race training modes: Training mode with GPS 40h / 50h / 70h / 120h - what happens with each mode to adjust out the battery life. Also is that 40h with AOD on or off - no mention, cause if its with AOD off then 40h isn’t much different to 38hrs?

Cause with Epix its (all AOD off wrist gesture on) its 38hrs multi, 62hrs all systems, GPS only 82hrs before you start hitting the ultra trac 125hrs or expedition modes which can extend gps time out to 27days. Of course all this battery life is based on standard settings i.e. bluetooth on, HR continuous every second etc (mention that due to how apple ultra watch extended modes work - no idea if suunto extended modes the same) - as can adjust some of those settings and extend battery life even more.

This is not an appropriate comparison as you are comparing the 51mm watch with a much larger battery. As you can see in the table included by @Egika the battery estimates are for AOD on. The 47mm Epix2Pro is the appropriate watch for comparison.
Smartwatch: Up to 16 days (6 days always-on)
Battery Saver Watch Mode: Up to 21 days
GPS Only: Up to 42 hours (30 hours always-on)
All Satellite Systems: Up to 32 hours (24 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Multi-band: Up to 20 hours (15 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Music: Up to 10 hours
Max Battery GPS: Up to 75 hours
Expedition GPS: Up to 14 days

So 15h for Epix2Pro and 40h for Race…amazing battery for Suunto. I had an Epix2 not an Epix2Pro, although the battery specs are identical. With a route loaded and maps on I could not get more than about 30+ h for GPS only. I recently ran a 100 mile race with the Suunto Race with maps on and a route loaded on Performance mode (Multiband, All satellites 1 sec), finished at 35h 27 min and had 6h 30 min of GPS run time left!
Stellar is all I can say!

wmichi

@Shuhite I use my SR only in performance mode, and my watch dims a little bit when I am not looking at it, exactly like a FR965 or Epix. It dims enough, that it’s hardly readable. Only when raising the wrist, the screen lights up completely. And in this state it’s perfectly readable in every lightning situation. That’s not a complaint, that’s how AMOLED screens work, as far as I know. The Apple watch is a little bit different. On the AW there doesn’t seem to be a dimming during training.

Brad_Olwin

@Brad_Olwin said in Race vs Garmin Epix Pro:

@Jamie-BG said in Race vs Garmin Epix Pro:

@Shuhite

With Race training modes: Training mode with GPS 40h / 50h / 70h / 120h - what happens with each mode to adjust out the battery life. Also is that 40h with AOD on or off - no mention, cause if its with AOD off then 40h isn’t much different to 38hrs?

Cause with Epix its (all AOD off wrist gesture on) its 38hrs multi, 62hrs all systems, GPS only 82hrs before you start hitting the ultra trac 125hrs or expedition modes which can extend gps time out to 27days. Of course all this battery life is based on standard settings i.e. bluetooth on, HR continuous every second etc (mention that due to how apple ultra watch extended modes work - no idea if suunto extended modes the same) - as can adjust some of those settings and extend battery life even more.

This is not an appropriate comparison as you are comparing the 51mm watch with a much larger battery. As you can see in the table included by @Egika the battery estimates are for AOD on. The 47mm Epix2Pro is the appropriate watch for comparison.
Smartwatch: Up to 16 days (6 days always-on)
Battery Saver Watch Mode: Up to 21 days
GPS Only: Up to 42 hours (30 hours always-on)
All Satellite Systems: Up to 32 hours (24 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Multi-band: Up to 20 hours (15 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Music: Up to 10 hours
Max Battery GPS: Up to 75 hours
Expedition GPS: Up to 14 days

So 15h for Epix2Pro and 40h for Race…amazing battery for Suunto. I had an Epix2 not an Epix2Pro, although the battery specs are identical. With a route loaded and maps on I could not get more than about 30+ h for GPS only. I recently ran a 100 mile race with the Suunto Race with maps on and a route loaded on Performance mode (Multiband, All satellites 1 sec), finished at 35h 27 min and had 6h 30 min of GPS run time left!
Stellar is all I can say!

And just to add the edit in: Even the 51mm Epix2Pro cannot keep up with the much smaller race. Same is true for Enduro2/Vertical comparison. Here are the specs for the 51mm Epix2Pro.
Smartwatch: Up to 31 days (11 days always-on)
Battery Saver Watch Mode: Up to 41 days
GPS Only: Up to 82 hours (58 hours always-on)
All Satellite Systems: Up to 62 hours (48 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Multi-band: Up to 38 hours (30 hrs always-on)
All Satellite Systems + Music: Up to 17 hours
Max Battery GPS: Up to 145 hours
Expedition GPS: Up to 27 days

@Brad_Olwin Yea I understand that the 51mm is not the correct comparison per se, in my opinion the most direct Garmin competitor price wise is the Forerunner 965, which has similar battery life to the Epix 47mm. I have the 51mm, that’s why it’s my point of reference, and the fact that Suunto beats the 51mm is crazy.

This was my point on the Garmin Forums, how come Suunto can beat the 51mm multiband battery life when it’s a smaller battery (yet same size display, and similar accuracy). I got flamed for this. The fact that the 51mm Epix can get 11 days of battery life with AOD (31 gesture only) and all HR and BT on, but only gets 30 (or 38 hr gesture only) vs 40hr…tells me Garmin should be able to optimize somewhere. But I guess it’s not a conversation I’m allowed to have there.

@wmichi oh okay. I guess the timeout is much longer than I’m used to with Garmin? I set my timeout on the Epix to as short as possible, and the Race screen just kept shining until I just stopped looking at it haha, I therefore thought it never dims. It must be really good at knowing when I am going to look at it!

Brad_Olwin

@Shuhite Guess not, my experience with the Epix2 was with normal use I could not achieve those battery estimates either. I almost always use routes when racing or long trips as I need them and maps. That severely impacts Garmin battery life. However, on the positive side they do offer features that Suunto does not have and are incredibly versatile for setting up screen metrics.

Brad_Olwin

@taziden He was correct and I fixed my post, was responding and inadvertently wrote the Pro afterwards as that was the post topic. I thank @pavel-samokha for the sweet silence. Amazes me how he (zhang365) has the time to burn…

@Brad_Olwin Yea, I’m not on your 100 mile level, (how do you even train for that?) but I was able to barely do a 48km hike while using maps a lot, because there were a lot of trail intersections. I would estimate it cut the expected battery life by around 30% compared to when we started. Got close to thinking the watch would die that day (I did not start at 100% battery).

Brad_Olwin

@Shuhite You train just like you run a 100 mile race…it is simple really and how my wife puts it. “you just put one foot in front of the other until you are done”. She is a more talented athlete than I, National Champion in Dog Agility and she is not wrong with that statement.

wmichi

@Shuhite Yeah, the gesture to fully light up the display works really good on the Suunto Race!

Jamie BG

@Todd-Danielczyk said in Race vs Garmin Epix Pro:
. The fact that they steer buyers to models based off features or paid subscriptions (like Apple) is a game I am not willing to play.

I really don’t have an issue with either.
The reality is that to develop systems, to create new features metrics etc that all costs money. if I don’t want/need those features, why should I pay for a more expensive watch that has them when I don’t need them.
In a similar way have no issues with subscriptions either - as long as its clear what its for. You add in the cost of the sub to the price and then do a comparison.

Reality is that even suunto has done the pay for features model - everyone does this including coros, suunto etc. Suunto recently had a variety of different suunto 9 ,models, a Suunto 5, a suunto 3 - all a different prices with different features. Didn’t look much at the S5P and S5Peak Pro and the S9P and S9PP but will to bet they aren’t the same price and have slightly different feaures whether hardware software etc. Same with Race and Vertical - while quite similar there are hardware and likely software features -and there is a difference in price.
This is normal and should be celebrated.

My issue with it where there shouldn’t be a distinction i.e. with Garmin - the health features - there should be no distinction across models unless the hardware can’t support it (i.e. ECG) - but see no reason why they can’t all run the same sleep algorithims, HRV status etc (should have been rolled out to venu 2 for example); and smilarly there are some really weird ones like the omission of training readiness for FR255 - could understand when Instinct 2 didn’t have it, but it got it in an update but FR255 still doesn’t have it - why not - and no hardware reason it couldn’t/ and can’t see a price varitation or any other reason why it shouldn’t. Can understand and agree why the health watches venu 3 / vivoactive 5 shouldn’t (but in recent update its interesting to see how that line is being blurred with venu 3 and latest beta updates including wrist running power and wrist running dynamics (though can’t see on watch only post activity in app) - what I would consider fitness not health and thus shouldn’t be on the venu 3 - but understand it from price point and competative edge (up against samsung and apple which offers variants of these - so makes sense that if want to compete need to offer similar - but then there is FR265… uggghhhh - and this is where garmin gets in a mess but not remaining consistent).