Suunto 7 announced!

Posted on January 6, 2020 in Cycling, News & Updates, Running, Swimming

Suunto just announced a new watch in their lineup. The new “Suunto 7” will use Google’s “Wear OS”. The idea behind the 7 is to bridge the distance between a designated sports watch and a ‘normal’ watch. By using Wear OS, Suunto allows you to use all kids of tools with your phone. The Suunto 7 laims to support over 70 different sport modes and it also supports ‘unconnected’ playing of music.

Features of the Suunto 7

The features are quite versatile, by using Wear OS it can integrate with various apps and your every day life, and with it’s built in Wi-Fi connectivity it can download updates without using your phone. And, in true smart-watch fashion, you can obviously customise the watch face.

Battery

The battery life seems a bit restricting. It promises up to 18 hours of “versatile device use” and up to 4 hours of outdoor workout. Which, compared to the Vívoactive 4 is quite a bit less, where standby time is 5 days for example, but in workout time it doesn’t really differ much, but definitely something to keep in mind when you decide to go for that centennial bike ride or a half triathlon. But Battery use is so versatile these days, it really depends on how you use the watch. Do you have it constantly on, are you playing music, etc. etc. For more information on the battery you can look here.

Suunto 7 Colours

The 7 comes in 5 different colours. From eye catching black-lime to stealthy all black. The bezel can be rose-gold or ‘copper’, which is a bit hard to see in the photo’s. I haven’t got any super high res material so for now I can only show you these.

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Google

What’s nice it that is has Wear OS. With it comes support for a lot of features of this platform. The Suunto 7 can install all kinds of apps from Google Play, has support for Google Pay and Google Fit. It also depends on a lot of other features on Google’s eco system. Think of the compass, music, weather, calories, etc. Where I don’t have anything against Google Fit itself, it seems like it can be a bit cumbersome to have your data all over the place (at least Suunto and Google) and not in one companies’ storage.

Value Pack

The Suunto Seven, just like all Suunto watches, comes with a value pack. A collection of premium/trials and other connections for you to test out various partners, ranging from Strava to TrainingPeaks and Relive to PWR Lab.

What’s missing?

If you would compare this to its competition, a clear missing feature is wrist based heart rate monitoring. The Suunto 7 requires an external HR monitor, either on your wrist or a chest strap. Furthermore, I personally think the battery life is a bit short.

Sport Modes

Another note it the number of sport modes, Suunto states it supports over 70 modes, but from the specifications the sport “modes” seems to be more variaties of the three main sports, swimming, cycling and running as no others are listed. I’d love to be wrong – or they’ll add others later – but this seems a bit restricting for the price of the watch.

Price

The new Suunto 7 is available for pre-order today and shipping will start January 31st. The pricetag? $499.

And be sure to check my productwatch for the lowest price for the Suunto 7.