The Suunto 7 is available now to pre-order. The best bet I can currently see is with COTSWOLD in the UK and elsewhere retailers seem reluctant to advertise a great new product?!? Strange. You can pre-order direct from Suunto too, of course.
Cotswold is linked below in the UK
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No article by DCR or 5kR regarding new Garmin watches?
you mean the golf watch and the secret agent watch?
just running /triathlon and interesting stuff here 😉
Ah yes the secret agent watch, the details are probably undercover.
Pseudo-Military grade watch. Who are they going for here?
Regarding not many merchants advertising the product, there might be exclusivity deals for X period between Suunto and select retailers, I heard this might be the case in some locales.
true true.
wiggle are normally one of those
and other more nefarious companies still do the pre-order regardless of when they expect stock.
So, there have been no reviews of actual battery life during use.
Where are all the in-depth reviews at?
I think Ray said it’s around the standard 2-day mark (watch mode) with like 7 hours claimed in GPS. Doesn’t have a lot of basic sport watch features and it’s not the Valencell OHRM under the hood, which might be a good thing?
I don’t think his statement on battery life was based off actual usage. Unless his video implied different. The way I read it, there was no objective opinion on the battery.
It just seemed to reiterate the press information. Which, I’m sure is fairly accurate. (such as turning off all notifications or using a mix of regular and time mode)
it is VERY hard to test a watch for its true battery life. or at least it is now when battery lives are so long.
it’s not even simply the case of leaving it in a window recording as it might also need to constantly interrogate sensor info eg if using ohr the sensor will just turn off in the windowsill. if you wear it and record your day as if it were in an exercise then gps will have problems indoors which will negatively impact battery life. dcr DID do some sort of test on such a topic last year, it made a good story rather than a good testing protocol that can be followed by him or anyone else.
bottom line you have to trust the company is are not lying or, more correctly, try to understand what they turned off to achieve the battery life which no-one else seems to be able to. (this is a great subject for a debate tho)
it also then segues into what you want a reviewer to do…remember they are not ‘beta testers’ and, more correctly, they are experience testers (although with certain SENSORS categories like power meters then some accuracy testing is important…power…gps…hr). spending several hours or a day focussing on battery life may well be important to some people but could that time have been better spent looking at something else? many reviews spend WAY too much time talking about features (rather than what goes on behind them) and perhaps not enough time on things like the number of buttons or UX/UI in general. but then even if the battery life is good what will it be in a year once the battery has degraded quite a bit?
But Suunto has made a wild claim about the setting for 40 days of battery life. … How useful is it? Can you even access the Suunto app via time only mode? Can you mix between the two? (Like if your watch is off your wrist does it have a setting to go to time only)
This is a wear OS watch which notoriously kills battery life. Does Suunto have a combination that actually makes wear OS useful as a sport watch? …. This watch would potentially be good for everybody except ultra runners+ and Ironman distances+.
The way all (and I do mean all) reviews have read is very similar which means the info in the pre release reviews isn’t useful. Brand alone can’t make this watch 500. There has to be something that actually makes this wear OS watch something worth the preorder.
That key feature is the battery life and it’s claims associated with the battery.
I’m sorry, but the reviews for this watch really do need to discuss this. 500 for another wear OS watch is basically what has been stated thus far. … I’m an idiot with money but I can’t throw away money on this with the information provided. I appreciate all the time you and the other reviewers have put into this and other watches. But as it stands I’m better off buying some cheap fossil 5th gen watch over this one.
Things of concern
BATTERY
Heart rate
Lack of sensor support (Ray did hit on this very pointedly)
Things that are of little concern
GPS
Apps
Watch faces (the heat map watch face is very cool)
I still haven’t got mine. i’m getting a production one rather than a beta one. there are very few reviews where people ahve the product (gerald, dcr…i link to gerald’s post in one of my others)
here are the specs.
Battery life (approx):
Time mode: 40hrs (**NOT DAYS****) (edit: that was copied from Cotswold…it’s 40 days on suunto.com)
Training mode with GPS: Up to 12hr (with music and always on screen, ohr plus gps i’d guess 4 hours !!)
Daily use: Up to 48hrs
you press a button or maybe a certain wrist gesture will start up wear os (i’d guess in less than 1 sec) then you start the suunto app either as a tile or as an app…
absolutely this will NOT be suitable for ironman or ultra running. even a year old garmin 935 will struggle with an ironman in normal battery mode. (batteries deteriorate)
so , no, the key feature is NOT battery life it’s wearOS.
it’s going to have a decently robust caseand probably a decent sports app. you probably wont get those on a fossil. but i agree 500 is steep.
lack of sensor support will ilkely only be in the suunto app. the watch itself, via other apps, will likely support 3rd party sensors and i will def be looking at that.
you say gps and apps are not important but to other people they are !! even with a decent screen the watch face becomes important…almost every ohter watch (eg garmin) have kiddie watch faces which i find amazing on expensive grownup watches.
I couldn’t reply to your last comment (the reply button didn’t populate)
So, did they significantly reduce the pre release units for this product?
It should be 40 days in time mode. That what makes this potentially so appealing as a wear OS and sport watch. Still, in no way suitable for the athletes you and I have both mentioned.
The reason why GPS isn’t a great concern is because it will do the base function of tracking your workout but accuracy is the small concern there. It’s a point that needs to be discussed but over the past 5 years only a couple watches really fell on their face here. … That’s what I was kinda getting at.
I’d argue that wear OS isn’t really a key feature since we all know the capabilities it provides. How it incorporates the wear OS features with the Suunto app and battery saving features (which nobody else is doing) that is key. So wear OS is big for Suunto but it’s not groundbreaking software. Optimization of the battery is what will potentially start bridging the Gap between smartwatch and fitness watch.
I really do look forward to your review with the production unit!
I copied that info from one of the online specs. yes you are right from suunto’s site: https://www.suunto.com/Products/sports-watches/suunto-7/suunto-7-sandstone-rosegold/
press release units in the uk haven’t arrived yet. i will get one of the first…or so they say. i’ve had the s9/s5/s3 before release hey ho. shame as wearos is more my thing!!
i put gerald’s content on my site (with his permission) as he has had a test unit for months (prob more than anyone else who writes stuff online)
features: fair enough. it is A KEY feature but clearly it’s not the USP. usp come back to battery and case and app etc
Got Suunto 7 today (02 Feb 2020), but I dont known how to setup interval training on running.
I am Spartan Sport Wrist HR user.
“…you say gps and apps are not important but to other people they are”
Count me as one of those people! The main thing perking my interest in this watch is the fact it does not use that mediocre Sony GPS chip. I had two Forerunner 245s over the span of two and a bit weeks. I did plenty of testing – 2.5k walk to work in the morning, then back in the evening, and three or four 5k runs each week. The tracks varied between “ok-ish,” and “you must be kidding”. My 1st gen Vivoactive was much more accurate and consistent in the distances and tracks it recorded.
Admittedly I didn’t make much use of the additional apps, but they were definitely a nice to have. All I personally want is:
Solid GPS performance – at least a bit more accurate than a nearly 5 year old watch seems reasonable!
Reliable software
Clear screen
Looks good
Feels light & comfortable
I’d like a longer battery life, but with the choices available at the moment, it looks like I have to compromise somewhere.