From Florence and its difficult conditions for GPS, let’s go to flat open countryside ideal for GPS and see how GPS tracks from the Suunto 7 recorded here compare to others…

In such easy conditions, where there is always a clear view to the sky, it is not surprising to get very similar GPS tracks from all GPS watches.

Then again, differences or issues, such as the “meandering” that the tracks recorded by the Suunto 9 used to show, become all the more obvious in such a situation.

Tracks and Distances

In the test runs here, it becomes pretty clear that easy conditions make for good tracks with few issues:

Distances recorded here were:
Suunto 7	5.19 km
fenix 6X Pro	5.13 km
Polar Vantage V	5.14 km
Coros Vertix	5.11 km
Polar Beat (Samsung S9)	5.10 km

Distances:
Suunto 7	12.64 km
fenix 6X Pro	12.62 km
Polar Vantage V	12.58 km

Distances:
Suunto 7	11.22 km
fenix 6X Pro	11.10 km
Polar Vantage V	11.08 km

Pace Recordings

Pace recordings per kilometer, no matter which watch, are thus also similar:

This last run, let’s look a bit closer…

This is interesting…

By the looks of it, the Polar Vantage V smoothes the pace very strongly, so that it is not as fast to react – or as disturbed by whatever it was that disturbed it sometimes.

The fenix 6X Pro also reacted less strongly/badly than the Suunto 7, but similarly overall (at least, compared to the Vantage).

The Suunto 7 shows something that has later become clear from GPS overall, which is that its algorithm looks to be a touch too sensitive. For interval training within certain ranges of pace, it should still be usable, if not as good as the others.

(And I must say, seeing this graph makes me wonder if the Vantage isn’t perhaps too sluggish in its reaction to pace changes…)

Then again, the Suunto 7 is made for someone who does sports as a counterbalance to a busy life, not someone who is a sports data nerd.

Altitude

There is not much altitude change on these runs. Like with the GPS, that may mean that it is less sensible to have a look at this here – or that any errors would only become more pronounced.

What’s noticeable is just that – of course, what else? – different watches sometimes start out at different altitudes and continue with (more or less) the same difference between them.

Given that I never bothered to reset altitudes to my current location, absolute altitude values should not be looked at. What counts is that the graphs, trends and thus ascent/descent values are similar enough. Are they?

Run 1:
Suunto 7	9 m	6 m
fenix 6X Pro	10 m	10 m
Polar Vantage V	10 m	10 m
Coros Vertix	19 m	17 m

Run 2:
Suunto 7	130 m	135 m
fenix 6X Pro	151 m	152 m
Polar Vantage V	143 m	140 m

Run 3:
Suunto 7	58 m	63 m
fenix 6X Pro	51 m	62 m
Polar Vantage V	58 m	59 m

Those differences between watches are easily explained by different algorithms, counting different elevation changes as real or just an artifact; they *are* similar enough that they are within rounding errors.

Heart Rate Readings

oHR is something I have not often posted about because it’s been a very mixed bag for me.

In the summer, it’s often pretty good. In cold temperatures, my hands get little blood flow, optical heart rate measurement becomes more guesswork than actual data collection.

Some people have reported excellent oHR recordings from the Suunto 7; I cannot confirm that. The only reason the Polar Vantage V is the device to judge all others against here, however, is because I was using it with the H10 HR chest strap (its Precision Prime oHR sensor has not usually been very good for me).

Don’t take these three examples as the be-all, end-all, though. I have had better results from the Suunto 7, worse results from the Garmin, etc.

Battery Runtime

Battery is probably a bigger worry, especially on the Suunto 7 as a WearOS watch.

The runtime of the Suunto 7 is, of course, nothing that should be compared to those of a dedicated sports/outdoors watch. It needs to be viewed as its own thing or, at most, compared to other WearOS. Anyways…

In Italy, over 55 minutes (and 8.8 km), the Suunto 7 battery went down 18% (from 100% to 82%).

In the two (latter, I forgot to write down the battery ‘consumption’ on the first one in January) easy runs here, battery usage was:

47% to 35% (12% down) over 1:07:30 (and 12.5 km)

(Garmin fenix 6X Pro only went from 68% to 65% battery;
Polar Vantage V from 64% to 58%.)

23% to 7% in 58 minutes, 11.1 km on the second run, down 13%.

It would not be appropriate to extrapolate directly (much as I would like to say that I should be able to run 100 km in 10 hours :-p ), but that should get the Suunto 7 to 8+ hours of runtime…

Now, off to the mountains I go!

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