Suunto - Suunto 9 Baro

Currently wearing a Suunto Race and I love it. Ran a 100k last year in about 20hrs, and still had 65% battery left. They also make the Suunto Race S, which is the smaller version! My rule for watch replacement is that I upgrade when my activities outlast my watch battery life. Prior to that: - Suunto 9 Baro, nice but bulky and after 4 years, battery wasn’t holding up - Garmin Forerunner 295: Wore for 4 years, but had to charge part way through my first 100mi - Garmin Forerunner 610 - Nike+ Sportwarch

New models are just over $400, but I've used my Suunto Baro 9 for the past 5 years while kayaking and I'm very happy with it. GPS tracking is great and has the availability to "guide" you to spots previously saved (I'm fishing 95% of the time, so think underwater structure). Wear it daily, and its great for all of the hiking, training, etc as well.

I would suggest the Garmin in that case. It's not perfect when you are articulating your wrists during workouts (eg - lifting) but it's still very good. Excellent during running or cycling workouts. Check out "Fit Gear Hunter" on Youtube. He is a CrossFit enthusiast who does FIT-file comparisons for the accuracy of Wrist HR on various watches vs. Chest Strap (considered the high-bar standard); the Garmin watches consistently perform well during his workouts based on wrist data. I loved my Suunto for style and the user interface, but when I purchased a Baro9 and it failed to read my resting HR metrics (sleep, recovery, etc.) and my workouts (including running), I was basically stuck with a watch that worked as well as my old Suunto Spartan. It was super disappointing and drove my switch to an Epix Gen 2 Pro. I really enjoy it.

Yeah I can't speak for new ones if it got any better but on my s9b I can see if I'm being called and about 50 characters of the most recent text/notification and that's it. Also the auto reply function doesn't work anymore. so i can't even send a "yes" anymore If someone sends me a text and immediately sends a single word or emote as a separate msg the 2nd last one is gone

I upgraded 2 weeks ago from Suunto 9 to Race S. Late 40s male. Swimrunner. (Observer, Ambit 2, 9, Race S) I am really enjoying the upgrade, and the price made it feel like I stole something. As for your questions: 1. HR accuracy: This was a knock against the 9. The race s is a major improvement on accuracy. I think one thing that helps is that is fits better against my wrist, but they also added in more sensors. 2. How decent is sleep tracking. Very good so far. Measures stages, HR (avg, min), HRV blood O2, "quality" 3. strength training: good with my HR although I don't find HR tracking for strength training to be all that important. 4. Is the 'resources' metric useful as a measure of daily energy? Unlike Garmin, there will be some adjustments, but once you become familiar with TSS, CTL, ATL, and TSB, it becomes helpful for my periodization training. The nice thing is that there are a lot of other apps and programs that use these metrics.

Agree! I had used Suunto 9 for years and years and only switched to Suunto Vertical with solar panel recently, got it on Black Friday discount £200 off ❤️

My Suunto 9 works fine. Watches will only pick up GPs when they come out of the water (eg every other stroke of freestyle). Breast stroke, the watch remains underwater. So, the watch is basically recording a breadcrumb trail, which isn't always accurate. Sometimes, cloud cover and rain will also affect the accuracy.

Suunto 9 - works very well but the swim pace is always slower than I think it should be...