One weekend and several bugs as well as missing features with the Race - I am sad

[Olaf Gottschalk]

Coming from a long history of using Polar devices, I got badly disappointed by them and was on the look for a new device (other than Garmin…)

So, I hoped to find my new toy with Suunto. And then came the announcement of the Race and all the positive verdicts by various tech bloggers. Boy was I hyped - what could go wrong if they come to a positive conclusion.

I just had to get it… to get disappointed again. How can a company make watches like this and screw up so badly in simple programming/feature things? Why do all of these bloggers and YouTubers miss the important points in everyday life?

My top 5 fails of the Race are:

1. Smartwatch Notifications are either OFF (DND mode) or loud and beepy, but cannot be silenced to only vibrate. HOW on earth am I supposed to use this in office life on next to people? It is annoying to say the least. Of course I want a subtle vibration and NOT a loud beep. Suunto “forgot” this. I have no clue how.

2. NO EMOJIS? It is 2023 and many people react on questions with a simple thumbs up or emoji face! My Suunto simply displays an empty square. It does not know how to render them. So, whenever anybody sends only an emoji, your notification is completely useless.

3. Sleep tracking is a wreck. Within one week I already had 2 nights with only a few hours of sleep where the watch thinks I stopped sleeping in the middle of the night. Never happened on my Polars.

4. SENSORS! On my god. This is unbelievably bad! OF COURSE I have several different kind of sensors, especially for bikes! Nowhere on their product page does Suunto state one simple fact: “Only ONE pod per type can ever be paired with the Race at once.” Gee! I first connected my Kickr Bike as a bike power pod. But when my road bike was getting a first ride, I had to pair my watt pedals. This kicks out the previous power pod. So, when back at home, you have to re-pair the Kickr bike. What a MESS. Also, the complete BT pairing section is a huge disappointment. No device IDs of paired devices are ever shown, nor does the Race ASK which one you want to pair! So, if you are not alone and need to pair any sensor (starting line of a race…), good luck with just pairing any stranger’s random BT HR sensor, pod, etc. I cannot believe how lame developers get when designing new products after a decade of bluetooth knowledge…

5. Komoot navigation. I knew the Race should be almost identical to the Vertical, so I had high hopes that this feature was used by many and solid. No. It isn’t. On a hike, as an example, you get notified “left turn in 2.2km”. Okay… I need more than half an hour to reach that point, how should I remember this for that time? After 2.2km… guess what. NO MORE “left turn NOW” notification! Instead, the NEXT upcoming waypoint in lets say 1km is announced and blocks the complete map view - especially HERE where I would need to see that NOW I need to turn! Did anybody EVER use Navigation on this device?

Why do tech bloggers not tell you the basic truths that are easily spottable on a single weekend use?

Apart from that I had one blank screen issue that required a soft reset and I found multiple bugs in TSS display, displaying the wrong name of routes, missing basic features like remaining distance of a navigation route, etc. But I wanted to stick to the top 5…

Why does nobody ever talk about basic things like this?

[Egika]

@Olaf-Gottschalk

thank you for your insights. Let me answer on some:

1. Yes, of course notifications can be silent and only vibrate. Just set tones all off, and vibration on in the general-tones settings. -> so non issue

2. sleep tracking nails it every night for me and many others. This has been discussed in other topics here. Have you set your resting heart rate to your resting HR and not you minimum?

3. has been discussed in other topics as well.

Questions that start with “why” are always difficult to answer in public forums. So no one here will be able to tell you why blogger xy has mentioned or not mentioned different things.
But the verdict is similar as to others before:
For some people emojis and multiple sensor support are essential and absolute basics. For others zone alarms during structured workouts are essential.
For me maps and routes are essential.

A single product will never meet the basic requirements of all of the potential users.

Thank you for sharing your essentials anyway!!

[Jamie BG]

@Olaf-Gottschalk
3) sleep - they joys. Sensors sometimes just don’t work for some people and same with algorithms - some have issues with fitbit, some with garmin, some with apple, some with polar - doensn’t matter which forum/reddit you go on - there are always complaints about HR and sleep trackilng. Perhaps Egika’s answers will help. Perhaps look at stats around when you woke up. Maybe raise support requests around it - perhaps its an algorithm issue.

4. Not sure which reviews you read/watched, but perhaps you don’t read DC Rainmakers review - quoted from suunto race review:
   "And finally, here’s a handy list of accessories that work well with the Suunto watches. Given the unit pairs with standard Bluetooth Smart sensors, you can use just about anything though. I’d recommend the Garmin bike sensors over the Wahoo ones, merely because the Garmin have two concurrent Bluetooth channels versus one for the Wahoo RPM/SPEED sensors. "… Am surprised that more reviewers didn’t mention it as they are usually quite good at pointing out limitations - or perhaps cause its generally known that in terms of sensor connections suunto has always been quite limited - thus more a case of business like usual. and thus not worth stating?

(but overally I agree that the fact its sensor suite options is so limited can give issues- perhaps better option would be asking anyone if they have work arounds for this issue?).

5. Komooot navigation - why on earth would a blogger/reviewer test that - it it not part of the native watch and I suspect a lot of race users are unlikley to use and just go with Suunto native course creation instead - considering how good it is in terms of creating courses. It was one of the major things I missed when I moved to Garmin - though garmin’s course creation has got better - but still not as good as Suunto / Coros.

Would you be prepared to state why Polar Vantage isn’t an option - considering.its a system you know and it works with you.
Also why is Garmin not an option as garmin would certainly cover you for all of the above issues?
Never used a coros - so not sure how well they work … but suspect might cover most of your issues too/or maybe not.

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Egika Thanks for your answer!

1. This is sadly untrue. Notifications tones from Smartphone cannot be switched off. Why do you post this without checking this?
2. What does the HR have to do with detecting whether I sleep? Please explain. How does it help me if it nails it for you?

While I agree that not every product can satisfy everybody’s needs, it is also true that simple product design should prevent the things from being like they are.
See silencing not possible - which renders Smartphone Notifications useless in many daily situations!
And see navigation - who has tested this?

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Jamie-BG I can most definitely tell you why Polar Vantage was no option at all. Because since June 2022 my Grit X Pro crashed mid-session almost once a week. All training data up to the crash is lost. Polar has played dumb with me since then, was no help at all and in the end, after promises after promises nothing was fixed and a new model was released. Would you stick to that company and pay more money?

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Jamie-BG I do not get your point in 4…

What are you telling me? DC Rainmaker did not say that the Race only supports ONE power sensor, one bike sensor, etc. And I do not get why you highlight the Garmin vs Wahoo sensors for me. Please explain…

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Jamie-BG I do not know why I would use Suunto’s route builder if I am a very happy user of Komoot for years. Also, my findings have nothing to do with Komoot in general - this is not a Komoot issue. A route is merely a set of points with info at certain points. How and when those are rendered on a watch is up to the maker of the watch, not the list of events…

[Olaf Gottschalk]

1. Yes, of course notifications can be silent and only vibrate. Just set tones all off, and vibration on in the general-tones settings. -> so non issue

Now I see what YOU mean: maybe ALL OFF also mutes the notifications, but of course in my workouts I want the tones to be on for zones or navigation… so, no, you cannot selectively switch of these annoying and useless tones for smartphone notifications without switching it all off.

I had a discussion with support and even they admitted that smartphone notification tones cannot be switched off.

[Olaf Gottschalk]

3. sleep tracking nails it every night for me and many others. This has been discussed in other topics here. Have you set your resting heart rate to your resting HR and not you minimum?

Actually, I set my Rest HR to my minimum HR. And I started googleing what the difference should be - and could not find anything suitable.
Can you link more info on this and WHY Suunto makes a difference here?

If my minimum is around 40 to 45 bpm - what is my resting HR then? How does it differ?

[BrunoH]

@Olaf-Gottschalk

Resting HR is your resting heart rate while you are awake, like something when you are sitting in a meeting. Minimum HR is your average sleeping hear rate. And the difference between these two is exactly how the watch recognizes if you’ve fallen asleep, even if you are taking a daytime nap. So that’s WHY!

Calm down. These things have been discussed here in the forum. You could have used the search function. Perhaps even before rushing to buy the watch.

[Marius Jacobsen Eggerud]

@BrunoH But here Suunto needs to update their manual because it tell you to use your minimum HR.

[Egika]

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in One weekend and several bugs as well as missing features with the Race - I am sad:

@Egika Thanks for your answer!

1. This is sadly untrue. Notifications tones from Smartphone cannot be switched off. Why do you post this without checking this?

bcause it actually is true.
But I see, that you found it in the mean time too.

2. What does the HR have to do with detecting whether I sleep? Please explain. How does it help me if it nails it for you?

Also answered below. The watch has two kind of information to detect if you are sleeping. It has no eyes to watch you. It can measure movement of the watch and heart rate.
So sleep detection needs to take this data and decide if you are awake or sleeping. Movement alone won’t do the job, as sitting still and like watching a movie would be misleading.
HR is the major factor. The watch seems to need a little help telling it who you are, by setting the resting heart rate.
As outlined and discussed quite many times in recent days, it is not the minimum, but the actual resting HR. So sit down, breathe slowly, don’t think of too many things and get your reading for this value. Setting the value a little higher don’t hurt.
Then have the watch detect your sleep

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Egika Well, it is not true. You cannot silence the notifications without silencing everything.

As for the resting vs minimum HR - the manual does not tell anything about this. So, I would say, Suunto has some editing and explaining to do.

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@BrunoH I had to get a new watch. And well, the things I found - the bugs and the missing features, are really quite sad because they could easily be changed.

[Mauerwegler]

@Marius-Jacobsen-Eggerud said in One weekend and several bugs as well as missing features with the Race - I am sad:

@BrunoH But here Suunto needs to update their manual because it tell you to use your minimum HR.

Exactly my point in another thread I link to below. No one should have to search this forum for basic stuff like that and it does not help the average user that this is common sense in this forum. I only joined this forum when my SSU hung up with the „arrow down“ screen after four years of trouble-free usage. While this forum is very useful and friendly, one should not expect the average user to lurk here. Users should manage to set the right „minimum“ heart rate without this forum.

[Tieutieu]

@Olaf-Gottschalk About “turn by turn” navigation (wether you’ve used komoot or suunto route planification), you should have a reminder 100m before your next turn. That’s the way it works with my SV (and with every other suunto’s watches that support turn by turn). Should be the same with the Race. But perhaps you missed it ?
And then at the turn it tells you next point (ok this is the wierd behaviour of sunnto’s turn by turn that has been discussed many times).

(I personnaly don’t use turn by turn anymore, or very rarely, since the maps where introduced with SV ; I’ve tried komoot few times but find Suunto’s route planner with heatmap much more convenient, also because there is more freedom to add/remove turnbyturn waypoints. I uselly keep only few important turns => the 100m before turn works well).

[Egika]

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in One weekend and several bugs as well as missing features with the Race - I am sad:

@Egika Well, it is not true. You cannot silence the notifications without silencing everything.

come on. Your initial complaint was “Smartwatch Notifications are either OFF (DND mode) or loud and beepy, but cannot be silenced to only vibrate.”
I told you that you actually can have them vibrate only. No way to know you probably wanted something else.
If you actually wanted to comment on something else, that’s fine, but if this happens in your mind and not in writing, it is difficult to answer. Just don’t tell me my information answering to your initial statement is wrong. Taking a discussion sideways is never helpful.

As for the resting vs minimum HR - the manual does not tell anything about this. So, I would say, Suunto has some editing and explaining to do.

Yes. known. That is what this forum is about. Users helping users. I tried to help here by explaining how it can work well.
If you came here to vent and are not interested in solutions, that’s fine as well. Just let the other users know and we won’t try to contribute.

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Olaf-Gottschalk About “turn by turn” navigation (wether you’ve used komoot or suunto route planification), you should have a reminder 100m before your next turn. That’s the way it works with my SV (and with every other suunto’s watches that support turn by turn). Should be the same with the Race. But perhaps you missed it ?
And then at the turn it tells you next point (ok this is the wierd behaviour of sunnto’s turn by turn that has been discussed many times).

Nope. Sadly not. It tells you about the next point immediately, no matter whether it is in 2km or 100m away and then never again. When you are AT the point, it shows you the next turn point, which is bad because it covers the complete screen with this information exactly at the moment where you look at the watch because it notifies you…

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Egika ???
I said I want smartphone notifications to be silent. That’s it. Your “solution” is ALSO silencing everything which is of course nonsense. When I am in a training, I want to hear what’s going on, when I am in the office, I want to not have everybody in the room know I got mails… easy, hu?

[wmichi]

@Olaf-Gottschalk Some of your points are Race specific, others apply to all Suunto watches.

3. For me sleep tracking is also completely off in most nights. For others it seems to work perfectly. Suunto should investigate this. I mean, it’s a new algorithm, of course there are optimisations possible. Or does the watch need some time to “know” the user? And the thing with min/resting hr just needs an updated documentation (that will be updated, I am sure)
4. Yes, the sensor management is crap. DC Rainmaker always points this out in his reviews. In 2023 this is just outdated.
5. I never understood why I get at a notification at a crossing about the next turn, which can be kilometres away. When I need to turn right, the watch needs to say “turn right NOW”. The following turn is of no interest at the current turn (my opinion). The notification that comes 100m before the next turn is enough (it should be there, haven’t tested yet with the Race). Whoever I ask, this is what people expect. And now that we have maps, the fullscreen notification no longer makes sense in my opinion. Displaying it at the bottom 1/3 of the screen would be better. This way we wouldn’t loose the context of the map.

I guess with the next firmware update coming this November a lot of the issues will be fixed. Of course not all.

Generally I would not trust reviews on Youtube. They usually just scratch the surface and they only test devices regarding their own use case (mostly running, cycling), use it for too little time, are biased or simply paid.

Despite the downsides, I still like the Race and like training with it. As long as it doesn’t restart during training Being an early adopter is risky.