Suunto - Race S

recently bought my first smart watch, a second-hand suumo race S, and it works pretty well. also, it's European!

Hola, pasé del fenix 6 pro al suunto race, y lo hice porque el altímetro empezó a fallar al año, pero bien exagerado, el servicio técnico de Garmin es una vergüenza, se llevaron el reloj y me dijeron que todo estaba bien, obviamente para trailrunning si las métricas de desnivel acumulado no son buenas, no sirve de nada. Suunto en GPS y altímetro no tiene rival, todos los días la misma ruta y clava las pendientes, el ascenso guiado es muy bueno también. Si buscas algo fiable, para mí no tiene rival en ese aspecto, outdoor TOTAL. Si buscas guías de entrenamiento, música, pagos con el reloj, etc... chorradas varias pues Garmin no tiene rival, y en cuanto a Coros, veo mucha copia de Garmin, podría ser una mezcla entre Garmin/Suunto. En cuanto a la medición del pulso, una cinta siempre, absolutamente siempre, será mejor. En cualquier reloj. Llevo 6 meses con el race y ahora no sé si venderlo y pillar el vertical 2. 🫣🫣, ¿qué me recomiendas?

It depends on how many activities you track. But if you sleep with it on, expect to charge it 1-2 times per week. I turn it off each night, and I need to charge the Race S about once every 10 days. I track about 6 hikes per charging cycle (6 out of 10 days).

I recently switched to suunto and they are great. The race s is more affordable and pretty good. However for a first running watch I believe garmin is a bit too pricey. They also added many paywalls within their app and various features also are behind a paywall. I've also been told that their app isn't very good. My recommendation is the huawei gt4. (I've used it for 2 years). As it's an older model now, it is very cheap. It has very good battery life, good gps, good heart rate monitoring and many smart watch features. Great for running! If you're thinking about getting one, watch the review from the quantified scientist on youtube. I don't think you'll be missing out on much compared to garmin and again, way cheaper

I think if you dig in my posts you could find a few detailed comparison answers.  I personally would stay away from Run, as it’s a different underlying platform from the rest of Suunto family and is thus incompatible with many Suunto features like S+ apps. Moreover, it seems it was more of a one shot attempt at alternative to the development that started with S9PP and isn’t going forward. Race S is a great watch though, which brings me to my next point. V3 is more akin to Race, so your real comparison is down to S vs M3. Both size, screen size, weight, and price wise.  Sleep, recovery, and general activity tracking is absolutely better on Polar assuming you can stomach their embarrassingly outdated app. They promised to overhaul it next year, but for now it is ass ugly and keeling over. That said Polar does have a web version (Suunto doesn’t anymore), with tons of useful reports and features. Also included are several adaptive fitness programs, from their  running programs to FitSpark to paid Fitness program. I think their training load and training load status are far easier and more intuitive for most people to deal with than Suunto’s stuff licensed from TrainingPeaks. On a flip side, Suunto has a very gorgeous and super informative app with ton of features (and sadly ridden with many bugs) and many great watch features targeting more advanced users, from ability to import workouts from third party systems, to track running mode, to structured workouts targeting specific intensity ranges not just plain 5 zones like Polar, to ZoneSense, to climb guidance, S+ apps and device integrations, and so on. I believe Suunto and Race S do have an edge for more training and fitness oriented people.  Getting to things like accuracy I’d say Suunto owns Polar on GPS (M3 is quite decent but not as good as Races). Also Polar tends to do some weird altitude thing that results in elevation gains 20-30% lower than other watches. On OHR, it’s the opposite. I find Polar far more stable and accurate. If you care about heart rate, unless you go for the latest gen, you’ll want that chest strap with Suunto for sure. Accidentally, Race S is better than other Suuntos, but far from perfect.  I’d say if your focus is more on general wellness and activity tracking and your fitness needs are generally to support that, M3 will be a great choice. If you need something sportier and with more advanced modern day training features go Suunto.  One other consideration is Suunto does update their watches with new features regularly (like 3-4 times a year) and does so for years. On a flip side, those updates lately bring unwanted bugs like HR dropping out in the middle of an activity, sleep tracking not working, etc.  Now my personal solution when faced with a similar dilemma?  I have Vertical 2 on one hand and Polar Loop on another. I do have V3 too for morning orthostatic, jump, and VO2 Max tests and a few other things Polar does well.   It’s either that, or get a single Garmin really… 

I have the Suunto Race S. OHR can be iffy but I use a Pilar strap anyway for the best heart rate. However elevation, barometer, compass etc etc is simply brilliant. Don’t use my Coros or Garmins any more.

Interesting. I’ve found my old garmin more accurate that my AW10. I use the AW more because I can skip commercials on podcasts with it and I’m not longer doing serious distance runs and triathlons. AW is great for the casual athlete, but every full triathlon I go to as a fan now, I only see Garmin and a few Suunto. The Suunto Race S is a great fitness watch.

I’m a long time user of Suunto after having a lot of issues years ago with the early Garmin FR210 series. I upgraded from the 9 Peak to the Race. But just wasn’t happy with a number of things. Bought a 965FR and haven’t looked back. And I’ve had no issues with the Garmin. I took the leap after purchasing a set of Garmin Rally Power meter pedals a few years back which have been excellent. This renewed my confidence with Garmin as a brand in general

This dude spends a weird amount of time trash talking on the Suunto subreddit. I think someone from Finland kicked their dog. Garmin, Coros, Suunto, I'd wear any of those three. Love my Suunto Race, partner likes her Garmin Fenix, I've used Coros in the past. Having used all three apps, I like Garmin's the least, and it's too bad to hear they're moving toward paywalling features.

It's also surprising. Afaik, Race and Race S have been excellent when it comes to GPS (can personally confirm for the latter).

It's also surprising. Afaik, Race and Race S have been excellent when it comes to GPS (can personally confirm for the latter).