Gadgets & Wearables

Suunto SPARTAN – Thoughts On the new Functionality

suunto spartan sport whr valencellAnother significant upgrade to the SPARTAN series was released yesterday. Some lucky people had access last week.

These are the headline features:

  • Start planned Moves on your Spartan [SEE BELOW]
  • Find back navigation [BACK TO START]
  • Notifications for daily activity targets (steps and calories)
  • Triathlon mode customization  [SEE BELOW]
  • Do not disturb mode
  • 30-day activity sync after software update [Syncs activities back to your devices…interestingly if you have more than one device it seems to put all the history of all watches onto each and every watch]
  • Enhancements to watch-app connectivity (pairing and sync improvements) [NOT LOOKED AT]
  • Additional bug fixes and performance improvements

Here is how you add some basic moves/workouts on MOVESCOUNT. It is BASIC functionality and I suppose more of a reminder about what you need to do. It’s NOT structured workouts. Don’t forget that intervals can be setup on the SPARTAN watch.

The planned moves are then greyed out as they are displayed on MOVESCOUNT’s ‘calendar’

After a sync, these then appear in the same sort of way on the SPARTAN as a sport profile would at the start of the exercise.

Although once you have selected the planned move you can subsequently chose which sport profile should be applied to it. It’s not overly exciting but it looks like this:

The triathlon mode functionality is a bit more interesting, I suppose. There is a pre-configured triathlon mode and the pre-existing functionality looks something like the following:

So even in the pre-configured triathlon mode there still is a quite a lot of general sport mode settings that can be changed eg PODS TO SEARCH FOR. That kind of generic thing.

However, the new functionality enables a new triathlon profile to be created. This time the triathlon sports can have their screen configured. I’ve shown that below with the addition of a 7 data field cycling screen and I seem to remember deleting a few other the other screens that I didn’t want.

So this is probably fine for most people doing their occasional triathlon. But the problem seems to be that you can’t actually define the sports that make up a multisport session. So if you are a bit more of a keen multi-sports athlete then I can’t see how you can do the following:

  1. Run-Bike-run-Bike-Run (or longer & repeated) – brick training session. this was always a criticism of Garmin, so I have to make it against Suunto.
  2. ÖtilÖ Swimrun – multiple run+swim (I think Suunto used to sponsor ÖtilÖ in some way – see tip below)
  3. Duathlon/Aquathlon – I couldn’t seem to find those basic multisport profiles but they are probably already pre-configured somewhere as ‘cheerleading’ is already there as a sports profile. I DO NOT think their omission is a major issue for the majority of the current target market for the product. But it means that people like me would only use the SPARTANs for single sport training or maybe 2 single consecutive sports. Indeed that is what I do use the SPARTAN for (but neither for BRICKS nor for TRI/DU RACING)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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18 thoughts on “Suunto SPARTAN – Thoughts On the new Functionality”

    1. PowerRace was just to get around things like of power alerts for running with garmin ie because garmin do not have proper native support for running power.
      suunto and polar DO have proper native support. So as those feature sets expand your wish will come true.

  2. That 30 day activity sync is awesome. Why this isn’t a standard function for all these watches by now is a shame. Next step needs to be cloud support for the user, that way all empirical metric data is synced across all devices on the account including new ones. It beats having to get the watch to learn from you every time.

    1. I think it’s more of a bug fix. but yes it’s quite neat in som erespects too. would be good if garmn colud sync the personal metrics like v02/recovery across devices

  3. ” So if you are a bit more of a keen multi-sports athlete then I can’t see how you can do the following…”

    Well, I did an ÖtilÖ in April. The trick is to de-activate the not used profiles in the watch by un-selecting them in Movescount. That way the upper (right) button long push resembles an activity change. It works quite well and is comparable with the activity change in the triathlon mode. Have a look at this move: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move149794080

    2. I am about to do my first swim run race and have been trying to figure out how to do this. When you long push the upper right button – how do you define the activity, while you are racing? Did you have to pre-configure something? Thank you.

  4. In general very happy with my Spartan ultra but I have encountered som strange behaviour. Could be me but as a duathlete/triathlete and runner (using Stryd) I can’t seem to be able to use power on both bike and running!? Is a big matter for me as I always use power on my bike and if I do a brick session (race or training) I can only choose to use/pair one power device at a time. Have you also seen this behaviour? Not being able to set up a duathlon profile is also disappointing. This makes the Suunto, for me at least, totally useless for any type of multisport training. I expected more from a (very expensive) top of the line sports watch. Being a multisport watch you would expect it to work for multisports. Suunto even have a collaboration with Xterra but I do not think one single person use the Spartan for cheerleading (pre-defined profile)…

      1. Well, that would be the most important thing for me as well. Maybe I finally can get both the left and right P1 pedal connected at the same time.

      2. I’m not sure that will happen.
        I was looking at the watteam powerbeat PM recently. That specifically had the ambits at only supporting a single doubled-up power.
        i’m not familiar with details of the p1 pedals. i’d imagine that the ambit/Spartan will not support Bluetooth dual (that’s just my guess)
        have suunto said anything different to you?
        I’ve only asked similar questions to polar, and their m450/m460 does support dual bt.

      3. No, they just said that only one sensor of the same type could be connected. No word about future changes. They are behind Polar in that area, they have managed to get it working with the V800.

      1. Yes, a structured workout. I think that workout planner it was ok for design in Movescount app personal workouts. But Suunto in present don’t give any alternative in Movescount.com and in app. It isn’t invent the wheel, just implement a tool that already are available for a older Suunto’s watch like Ambit.

  6. For new one Suunto Spartan Trainer they have on Specifications, Planning, the term “Planned Move”??? coming later for Suunto Spartan watches. What this mean?

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