Guide target zone alerts
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I know guides aren’t apps but they are also not the mobile app or watch specific so I picked here as the best place to post.
Can I please make an emotional plea for the adding of out-of-target-zone alerts to SuuntoPlus Guides. In every other respect I’m very happy with what the guides offer but the entire point of a Guide is to guide you through a series of steps where you are expected to adjust your pace, hr, power etc. to match. Without the alerts I have to basically stare at my watch to check I’m in-zone!
The Guides will alert on step/interval change so I assume the software internals do exist and the watch knows when you are out of zone because it shows you on the gauge display on the Guide page. I don’t know whether newer/more expensive watches give the out-of-zone alert via audio feedback but my 5 Peak doesn’t support audio feedback so, if Suunto are listening, please can you add the vibration alert like we get with watch-set target zones?!
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@far-blue I just bought the Suunto Race yesterday and have the same question. The zone alerts are base functionality for structured workouts. I’m coming from the Polar ecosystem where this has worked well for ages. I’m not super familiar yet with my Suunto so I hope it’s just a setting I’ve got wrong.
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@frankfurt89 Welcome to the Suunto family and I hope you are enjoying the Race
Unfortunately, no, as far as I’ve been able to work out based on support enquiries and people’s posts in the various topics of this forum it is missing functionality.
As you are new to Suunto I can give a summary rundown of what does and doesn’t work because there are various features you can use but on the core question of whether SuuntoPlus guides with targets will give alerts when you stray outside those targets (pace, hr, power) the answer is currently no.
The first option available to you is to start a non-structured workout but set an intensity zone. You can do this in the options before starting the activity. This only lets you specify a zone, not a range, but it does alert you when you are under or over.
The second option is to setup intervals on the watch alongside the intensity zone. This would allow you to use the intensity zone during intervals but you can’t set different intensity zones for different intervals and the on-watch interval option is a little limited in its capability. You’d basically need to ignore the target zone warnings when you were in a recovery step.
I’m not sure but you might also be able to set an intensity zone alongside a structured workout. This, if allowed on the watch, would have the same issue of only one intensity for the entire workout.
I also don’t know whether the Race provided audio feedback for structured workout target zone alerts - I only have a 5 Peak which doesn’t support any form of audio feedback so I can’t test. You can setup audio feedback through the app and then you use your headphones like normal on your phone and the app ‘ducks’ any music you have playing. I’ve no idea even if it uses tones or voice but you could try playing with it to see.
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The lack of target zone alerts is genuinely the only showstopper to me buying a Vertical or a Race - and the only big reason I would struggle to recommend Suunto to running friends.
I have avoided running watches for years simply because they mostly couldn’t offer everything I got from iSmoothRun on my phone but took the plunge with a 5 peak to test the waters with Suunto after lots of research. I love the great integrations Suunto have with the wider sport ecosystems and the use of de-facto agreed metrics like ATL, CTL and TSB rather than the walled-garden, custom metric approach of other companies. I like the style of the watches. I like the simpler menu system (and the new ui on the race and vertical looks great too!) and I like the Guides and Apps approach Suunto are taking to allow you to customise with only the bits you find useful. I knew I’d not get the voice feedback or the map layer with the 5 peak but didn’t want to risk a lot of money on my first sports watch so I’ve been very happy with my 5 peak and it’s taught me a lot about using a sports watch - enough to know I’d definitely benefit from upgrading.
Except, I really can’t justify the upgrade while I can’t make best use of the structured workouts due to the lack of target zone alerts
I am a keen advocate for TrainAsOne so pretty much every run I do is a structured workout. -
Interesting - I thought that maybe there was some incompatibility with intervals.icu, or that I’d done something wrong, and that was why i wasn’t getting out of zone alerts. So I agree with the far-blue, that this is something that should be supported in guides. An additional complication is that the display of phased workout information is very small, and not easy to read (Vertical).
While it’s great that Suunto has support for a whole bunch of different training platforms, out-of-zone alarm functionality should really be present. And the display of info for phased workouts could be much more legible.
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+1 in wanting the ability to have alerts for out of zone (HR in my case) at different levels according to my Structured Workout.
I was reading the SV instruction manual and saw the ‘alert’ screen for regualr alerts (in standard training), and it would be perfect to have that lined up with the rates set in the structured workout.
Yes please, Suunto!
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@far-blue This has been asked for multiple times in the past and by field testers as well. Hopefully it is on a to do list.
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Curious. I had a Forerunner 955 before, and I missed the option to disable this alerts. If Suunto implements it, it would be nice to have the option to enable/disable; It can be a bit annoying to receive alerts continuously.
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B Brad_Olwin referenced this topic on
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Really surprised that this functionality is not available. As an old, but newbie runner, this is really useful.
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@Brad_Olwin Remember to make it optional if someone will implement this. I hate this beeping stuff. Use case: I get a workout from my coach. I don’t want to have beeping. I like it like it is today. It’s the opposite in the garmin forum: People their want to disable that beeping stuff but it’s not possible! So annoying!
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@RightNow Really? I have a Garmin Forerunner and I didn’t think the alerts were ‘de-selectable.’
By the way: on the Polar Vantage V3 that I have, the voice alert for this is a real pain - especially if you are running and listening to something. To have a voice saying: ‘you have now entered zone 3…you have now entered zone 2…you have now entered zone 3’ when you are on the border of two zones is really annoying -
@wakarimasen Yes. They are so annoying on the garmin that I think they are not usable at all. That’s why: don’t destroy the Suunto solution. Because it’s a silent solution. I can always look on my watch to check if I am on track without beeping. Not possible with a garmin
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I have a Garmin 955 Forerunner and can set a custom alert for an activity on the device. Under the run activity I have an alert when my heart rate reaches my aerobic max level.
I am looking at Suunto because of the battery life and large face but would need a custom alert for my heart rate training. -
@RightNow said in Guide target zone alerts:
@Brad_Olwin Remember to make it optional if someone will implement this. I hate this beeping stuff. Use case: I get a workout from my coach. I don’t want to have beeping. I like it like it is today. It’s the opposite in the garmin forum: People their want to disable that beeping stuff but it’s not possible! So annoying!
I am 100% with you and personally do not want notifications as I train solely on RPE. When doing workouts I will feel better some days and have a stronger effort relative to RPE, when in heavy training blocks the opposite may happen. I think setting absolute values for pace/HR/Power is not realistic nor necessarily helpful for training. This is why I am using ZoneSense for most of my training except for short Intervals. The last set of Tempo Intervals I did was perfectly aligned with ZS.
