Suunto SPARTAN gets GLONASS – so what?

suunto Spartan ULTRA SPortToday’s new firmware for the SPARTAN is annoying as I now have to re-do a GPS test I did last week 🙂 although hopefully this line from the Suunto update notes “This update also brings a new GPS firmware to improve general tracking accuracy” suggests that the test might be worth re-doing and will find increased accuracy.

Bizarrely my main tests, some time ago over a long complex GPS course, found the SPARTAN SPORT to be good and the SPARTAN ULTRA to be, err, not so good. Very strange. You can have a look at the files (here) if you like. (EDIT: re-tested with new firmware – provisional results NOT looking good for the ULTRA)

The announcement, below, says that GLONASS is added as well but that really shouldn’t make too much difference on increasing accuracy – just rather to the likelihood that accuracy to 5m can be achieved.

To turn it on you would need to specifically enable it in sport mode ie you have GPS as best and GLONASS as ON. Although when you specify it in sport mode it then seems to apply to all GPS enabled sports ie it becomes a global setting.

This will update your firmware to v1.6.14 (from 1.6.10)

From Suunto:

Current and upcoming updates

We have delivered updates to the Suunto Spartan solution in September, October November, and December 2016. We continue with this release and further into the spring of 2017.

25th January – We are excited to bring you a GPS-focused update.
GLONASS is now available to use for activities in conjunction with GPS in BEST accuracy mode. This update also brings a new GPS firmware to improve general tracking accuracy. We will continue to monitor overall GPS performance as we know it is an important part of your experience.

As we move forward with Spartan development, we continue to adjust and prioritise cus-tomer feedback we’ve received. You will see some changes in the priority list below which reflects this feedback. In development means that the feature is currently being worked on and is a priority.

Read the details here.

In Development

  • Interval training support
  • Sport Mode Customization 2
  • Points of Interest in navigation
  • Transfer training plans to Suunto Spartan and follow your progress
  • Graphs for heart rate, speed and altitude

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