Not going into details, but new updates coming... and very much to points you mentioned..

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WearOS = possible flop

DCR has only been that harsh on a handful of products. I would stay away until Suunto fixes it. But given the breadth of shortcomings, that seems unlikely. I believe that a true sport device needs to have a purpose-built OS and dedicated apps. Apple is a case study in mediocrity for sport and activity tracking on the AW.

In this space any idea of the future might be as true as any other..Bit of speculation..

Of course the full blown triahlon watch with swimming, cycling features, customixed sport modes, training load metrics, compatibility with main sport services, robustness such as possibilty to hit the watch with hammer.. Triathlon is definitely quite niche in grand scheme of wearables. The apple watch doesnt really have anything to offer to this.. and neither has wear os devices prior suunto 7.. the big difference between apple and google is the fact that apple watch is only apple device. So if triathlon is not an interest for apple (as of course its not) you will not get triathlon feasible watch from apple...and you cannot get apple powered Polar or Timex...

Now, with google the future is open. They have just decided to purchase the Fitbit and their wear os is being used by various wearable brands more than ever before... this brings more investments, more users, more interesr... so what you will get from wear os powered device today is propably very different what you get in year or two.. Currently Suunto (as well as polar) has wear os powered watches and proprietary own OS. So playing both worlds.

If you look at mobile OS as benchmark. Few years ago there were several Os.. now there are two. And the ones who didnt take the android, died. Could be that this will not happen with watches, but i woudnt say that wearable vendors would ultimately need to have their own stack in order to be best possible triathlon device. We will see. Interesting question would be, if in ”five years” there would be only aplle watch platform and wear os platform. What would garmin do?

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I tend to agree with JanneK's viewpoint. Its good to see Suunto move in this direction now as the Google Wear OS/Fitbit combination will certainly make inroads against Apple, Polar, and Garmin in both the wearables and sport watch spaces. Suunto can be positioned to be on that bandwagon. I wonder how long before Garmin comes out with a Wear OS offering....

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tinman

The main point from my comment about "purpose-built" is that the watch makers cannot present an open-ended platform and say "there's an app for that." They will have to package tier-1 apps for the core functions.

Looking at the analogy of the mobile device OS, packaging a sport watch without a very high quality app to capture activities would be akin to a phone maker providing a device with a rudimentary phone app and telling purchasers there is an app for the phone function. The market would laugh at that.

Also, one of Apple's further fails versus Garmin and Fitbit is that they lack a robust multi-tier platform for analyzing activities. Both Garmin and Fitbit offer a fully-featured vertical stack of mobile app and web app. Sure, there could be an app for this, but you are looking at many disparate apps and websites to manage everything a wearer might want.

The OS does not matter (well, it does if it sucks battery). But, what matters are very high quality core apps that are integrated with very high quality mobile and web interfaces.

It think we look this with quite similar view.
Its good to note as an example that suunto 7 has a suunto app. This does the sport magic, connects to suunto digital space shown as suunto mobile app in and there connects to other apps and services. The app in the watch is thightly connected to hardware capabikities which are not availabe with ”standard” wear os apps. So the whole stack in sports... however the wear os provides the google play apps on top... so pay with google pay or listen spotify or manage your philips hue lights..

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That's been Suunto's MO for product launches over the last few years, and I'm not a fan. It shouldn't take 6-12 mos of owning a product to get functionality that the products it's replacing already have.

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JustinDoesTriathlon

Owner, FuelRodz Endurance.

can we just please get a suunto that is an updated version of the ambit 3 peak (simple, accurate, reliable), no thrills or frills.

google os, google pay and spotify are some of the last things i want in a sports watch.