Suunto Spartan Battery Life – proper test + random holiday test

I’ve amended this post as it was misleading. 31aug I did a loooooong bike ride. I had various gadgets. The SPARTAN ULTRA was in bike mode but only paired with a STRYD HRM (HRV, per second) and had BEST GPS mode. The ride was 8hr45 long and by the end the battery was down to 42% ie it has used 58% in 8hr45. So we might get somewhere close to 16/17 hours in BEST mode for continuous sport usage.

As the original post, below, shows you won’t get 16/17 hours on holiday without re-charging as the normal 247 usage also takes a hit on the battery.

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This inadvertent test was because I forgot the charger when going away. So it gives an indicative amount of exercise time you might get whilst also using it as a watch (and playing with it 🙂 )

In ‘Away On Holiday’ Mode

Suunto Spartan ULTRA: Full GPS Accuracy ON but no sensors. Battery fully depleted after 6 days of use as a daytime watch PLUS just under 6 hours of sports usage PLUS fiddling about (which turns the colour screen on). The claimed life for the ULTRA is 18 hours, for a one-off race usage you would probably get over 12 hours…needs testing to PROPERLY verify continuous race/train usage.

COMPARE: Used simultaneously for sports but not as a day-to-day watch ie reduced power used for screen display:

Garmin 920XT – Full GPS+GLONASS, HRV/per-second recording, HRM, PM – 30% remaining with identical sports usage but not wearing as a watch.

I also draw your attention here to a long ride with a 920 and a 820 neither of which lasted 9 hours…although on ULTRATRAC mode the 920 easily lasts over 10 hours.