I've tried both the Spartan Sport and the 9. Wasn't completely enamored with either. Not a fan of the movescount app (mobile or web) and both watches were not reliable for me for pool swimming and lap counting.

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tinman

What was wrong? Did they miss lots of laps?

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I still lapped everyone on the couch!

Yes, both the Spartan Sport and the 9 were pretty much useless in the pool compared to my Garmin fenix 5. On occasion, the garmin will miss a length but the Suuntos did it consistently every swim. Also, the movescount app displayed swim pace in MPH. Auto-lap could be configured for either time or distance but distance option was in miles (or tenths) rather than yards. Just weird settings.... The Suunto auto-pause seemed to work ok in the pool but that was certainly no saving grace.

I'm trying the Polar Vantage V right now so will have a better sense of pool swim reliability in a week or so. So, far I like it way better than the Suunto products. The watch/app combination have really in depth training/fitness data, metrics, reports. More on par with Garmin. Only quibble I have so far with the V is the vibrate lap/interval alert is pretty weak.

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tinman

Hi Jloewe.

I have used suunto devices last 11 years.. as i’m working in suunto.
Do my training nowdays with suunto 9. Have done few triahlona with it and next on will be ironman texas.

The swim critique is interesting. I dont get issues. Was just swimming without any missed turns. I do flip turns which makes this bit easier to identify. In swimming the few things which are great. You dont need to press buttons, watch automatically identifies intervals and rest times. (Patented by suunto). There is also a nice interval list view, you can follow previous intervals in one screen..

Anyway, all the basics are there.. create your own sport modes, huuuge battery life, cycling power, running power, interval setup on the watch, hr/pace/power zone setups by sport etc... connect to trainingpeaks, strava etc.

Janne

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I had a ambit3 and it was awful in the pool (missing laps all the time), to the point I had to go back to Garmin.
I would have though suunto would fix this by now, but I guess not

Can i ask. What type of turns you do? Do you do lot of drills? Did you see problems during normal freestyle?

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Open turns, freestyle only, no drills for me. Just want accurate laps and 100 pace times.

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tinman

Polar Vantage does this as well. I tried the spartan trainer and vantage M in the pool and both worked (open turns) though the Suunto doesn't specify stroke and doesn't give HR in the pool. Vantage differentiates between resting at end of pool, breastroke, freestyle and backstroke.

Both were better than my wife's Fenix 3, which is useless for pool swimming; she just has to lap it manually. She'll swim one length and it will say 150M. WTH.

Suunto does identify the swim style ie. Free/butterfly/breast/backstroke.
Ie.
http://www.movescount.com/moves/move269586546

The optical measurement from the wrist in swimming is definitely not accurate. You can use wrist hr during the rest period (ie. if interested of using hr as recovery indicator between intervals).
(You can also use hr belt with memory which then stores accurate hr data while swimming and the ofloads to the watch when out of the water.. solution especially for openwaterswimming with wetsuit)

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I own an S9 for a couple of months and I am very happy with it! Don't care about Suunto app or MC since
I sync all workouts with TP. I have always liked the Suunto watch interface and the S9 is as easy to use as any Suunto watch. Lots is personal preference. I like it a lot!
Sam

Suunto Spartan user here, don't work for Suunto. I've not had any issues missing laps (Garmin was really bad at this, or would add extra laps), but I do have some suggestions for JanneK which would really help with better tracking.

The pool I swim in is a scm pool, but I track my pacing and results (after the activities) by yards. When swimming, I see my distance and intervals in yards, rather than in meters. And, if I switch this to see an even 25-50-75-100 meters, I have to switch ALL my units in ALL sport modes to metric. Meaning when I run, instead of seeing time/mile, I see time/km, which is all but useless to this math-challenged American.

Here's my proposed solution: When I select a 25 meter pool prior to "Starting" the activity, just show me distances in meters in the workout. I don't want to see 328 yds after I swam 300 meters. I want to see 300 meters.

The other complaint I have is that even though the bike speed/cadence sensor comes with a rubber band to attach to the chainstay, it's comically small if you intend to use it on a modern tri bike. It has "XS" stamped in the rubber, but the service team tells me this is not a size indicator and that no larger version is available. A larger rubber band for tri/TT bikes would be extremely helpful, given that our chainstays are considerably larger than a road/mtb. Then again, maybe someone can point me to something on Amazon?

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Brenden Macy
Sports & Entertainment Attorney
I am Drive. I am Grit. I am Determination.

A very relevant thread for me... my replacement 910xt has just gone on the blink (refurb replacement to previous one that failed) - shows 100% charge then goes off tjen sligjtly dark all over screen tjen shows MINUS 1% charge and sit there not charging.
And a few weeks out of the warranty.

So... would you folks recommend the Suunto, or the Polar, over a 920 or 935 (maybe a 735 at a push).
I'm not wanting phone messages or music. Just a reliable gps that also works to count swimming laps (touch turning) , with a battery that will hold up for a slowcoach IM and not break down after 4 months.

Thanks

I've had the Spartan Ultra a good long while now (not long after release). It replaced a 920XT which was, by current standards, very simple but superbly reliable.

Ups are: good battery life, ability to switch from just about any sport type to any other whenever you like, open water tracks were excellent (for me anyway), excellent build quality, and autopause in the pool. Easy Stryd comparability has been cool.

Downs are: consistently missed freestyle lengths, weird, arbitrary distance measurement in pool swims, ridiculous requirement for web based activity customisation, lack of ANT+, size.

I probably won't buy another Suunto, but instead wait for the Garmin Descent 2.

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Get a 935.

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Bringing this back because I've had a few questions with my new Suunto 9. Coming from a 920xt as well. The main feature I want is a way to actually record rest like the garmin does. The garmin rest screen is perfect on the 920xt; interval time, "on the" time, interval distance, etc... Maybe I haven't tried hard enough but I haven't found a good way to mimic that screen. Having all my swims report my average pace as total time/total distance is annoying and not as useful for training metrics and data cleanliness in TP as actually distinguishing between wall time and swimming time like garmin does.

Has anyone found a way to make the Suunto 9 more like garmin when it comes to swimming?

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Could you explain a bit.
How does garmin show the rest time when you are on end of the pool? What would you like to see?

Its true that avg swim pace definitely should be based on duration without the rests.. something to fix.

Jk

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So with my 920 I start my swim and all I see/want to see is the Interval distance and time (that I know I can do on my Suunto). But then when I hit lap the screen automatically changes to the 'rest screen', which shows me this:

And then when I hit lap again, it goes automatically back to the white interval distance/time screen. From what I can tell Suunto doesn't even have the option for something like the "Repeat On" field there, which is one of the most crucial fields for interval work. Maybe I'm just missing it though.
I've recorded a 30 second video of this interaction as well: https://photos.app.goo.gl/5tB4ALPUUDKPdWQu9


This is easy to distinguish when I'm swimming (to make sure the watch is recording correct), as the moving time is white backlit and the rest time is black backlit. There are basically two different sets of data screens as well, I can scroll when I'm on the rest to see other things like total yards. I might be biased because the 920 is the only watch I've ever swum with but it seems like it does it way better than the Suunto. I do like the columns field though on the Suunto for being able to check back on previous intervals mid workout.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Just pushed the new update to my watch but haven't had a chance to swim with it yet. I noticed you all added a pace clock screen for swimming but anything more happen not in the brief notes to make pool swimming more practical with the watch? From what I can tell it looks like there is still not distinguishing between rest and swimming, they're still all just intervals.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

Yes. No news on the rest fields.
The pace clock actually marks your interval end, so you can see your rest time. There are four hands on the pace clock, when you start and lets say the red hand is on top and your interval ends at the time the hand is on 40s mark, there is marker placed on 40s mark.. Now you can check the rest time...obviously the pace clock in the watch can be used similarly as normal pace clock on the wall..

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Is there a drill function on the 9?

Nope. At least not that I ever found.

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Benjamin Deal - Professional - Instagram - TriRig - Lodi Cyclery
Deals on Wheels - Results, schedule, videos, sponsors

No.

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I have been a lifetime Suunto user and I am very happy with the S9B. Swim metrics work very well (and I don't do flipturns).
The Suunto watch interface is so intuitive and easy to use which is the most important for me. It has all functionality I need in a very convenient package.
The Suunto app is basic but transfers workouts nicely to any other analysis platform like TP which is the way to go since most people use a variety of sensors of different brands.
In terms of features less is sometimes more.
Sam