Suunto - Suunto 9 Baro

I'm of the camp that Suunto, Garmin, and Coros all make great watches and if you've lined up three that all have the features you need, heck, you could go by which one you like the looks of most. Suunto has been stellar for my main sports – running, cycling, snowboarding, ski touring – and I recently went from the 9 Baro to the Race and I absolutely love it. I'm just about to hit the 3-year mark of recording 1 or more activities every day and I've yet to have any issues.

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.

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.