Heads up! Big sports tech sales have begun! Check out the massive list of everything, from 20%-30% off all smart trainers, to $200 off the Garmin FR945 LTE & $150 off the Edge 1030 Plus. Then $240 off Garmin’s Rally power meters (including MTB edition) and $200 off the Wahoo POWRLINK Zero Speedplay power meter. Plus deals on Varia Radar, rocker plates, more watches, action cams, drones, and more. Realistically the best deals we’ll see till November. Enjoy! Full and updated list here.
I’m DC RAINMAKER…
I swim, bike and run. Then, I come here and write about my adventures. It’s as simple as that. Most of the time. If you’re new around these parts, here’s the long version of my story.
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Smart Trainers Buyers Guide: Looking at a smart trainer this winter? I cover all the units to buy (and avoid) for indoor training. The good, the bad, and the ugly.
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In Depth Product Reviews
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Read My Sports Gadget Recommendations.
Here’s my most recent GPS watch guide here, and cycling GPS computers here. Plus there are smart trainers here, all in these guides cover almost every category of sports gadgets out there. Looking for the equipment I use day-to-day? I also just put together my complete ‘Gear I Use’ equipment list, from swim to bike to run and everything in between (plus a few extra things). And to compliment that, here’s The Girl’s (my wife’s) list. Enjoy, and thanks for stopping by!
Have some fun in the travel section.
I travel a fair bit, both for work and for fun. Here’s a bunch of random trip reports and daily trip-logs that I’ve put together and posted. I’ve sorted it all by world geography, in an attempt to make it easy to figure out where I’ve been.
My Photography Gear: The Cameras and Equipment I Use Daily
The most common question I receive outside of the “what’s the best GPS watch for me” variant, are photography-esq based. So in efforts to combat the amount of emails I need to sort through on a daily basis, I’ve complied this “My Photography Gear” post for your curious minds! It’s a nice break from the day to day sports-tech talk, and I hope you get something out of it!
The Swim/Bike/Run Gear I Use List
Many readers stumble into my website in search of information on the latest and greatest sports tech products. But at the end of the day, you might just be wondering “What does Ray use when not testing new products?”. So here is the most up to date list of products I like and fit the bill for me and my training needs best! DC Rainmaker 2021 swim, bike, run, and general gear list. But wait, are you a female and feel like these things might not apply to you? If that’s the case (but certainly not saying my choices aren’t good for women), and you just want to see a different gear junkies “picks”, check out The Girl’s Gear Guide too.
Regarding the watch face, the steps one is for the Suunto 3/5/9 since those doesn’t have the barometer. S9 Baro have the one with outdoor info instead.
And the color for the sunset/sunrise, that can be changed when you choose the watch face.
Ahh…that makes sense as to why on my Baro I wasn’t seeing it. Though, I’d argue it doesn’t make sense as to why the Baro edition simply couldn’t get steps on there as well.
Good call on the color. I had included photos of the coloring, but it didn’t click since the color selection actually shows coloring all the way around, so I was like ‘Hmm, shrug, that didn’t happen’.
Suunto already forgot about the 7 eh?
Suunto 7 is getting route navigation, FusedTrack and always on display for workouts
Do you mean now? I don’t see any updates either in watches or suunto web pages
Yes, it will be available in 1-2 days via Google Update
? thank you
Ironically, after seeing this and having been debating something to replace my aging Trainer Wrist HR., I went to the REI website and they have taken the Suunto 9 down.
Looks good, but I am waiting of improvements in sports modes and App. Like swolf, stroke rate, race prediction or ghost runner, allow edit triathlon mode something like that.
Good things come in three’s?
1: fw release for S3/5/9.
2: fw release for S5.
3: ?
fw for 7 with route navigation, always on display in WO, as Eduardo stated earlier, I guess.
Is it still impossible to connect to external devices on the Suunto 7? I mean…just an HR belt…
Not much of a runner, and in a different ecosystem, but think the “Wings for Life World Run” support is great. Slightly different take on the virtual partner/racer idea and it supports charity.
I wish they already updated the 5 and 9. It’s ridiculous that 5 misses barometer. Even if 5 was cheaper, I wouldn’t buy it for the lack of baro and compass. I prefer a smaller watch but with a barometer. Also will we ever see solar on second generations of 5/9?
Do these updates allow you to program your own distance it time based intervals? After I lost my Ambit, I went back to Garmin because the feature was not available. I think the best it would do was to subscribe/buy interval programs that other people had planned.
As far as I can remember, you can program simple intervals based on time or distance on the S9.
And you can do it anytime you want during a session, modify them…etc.
I find this so much more flexible than the Forerunner/.Fenix approach where you need to define everything before starting an activity, and not forget to start the training/interval before starting the session…
Bu on the other hand, you’re tied to simple intervals (covers 85% of the cases..)
You can create simple intervals (single sprint and recovery distances/times). Still cannot create complex workouts like you can with Garmin.
The SAFE feature is something I really will use very often. But what if I (auto-)pause the workout: I can’t see the Plus-Page anymore?! That doesn’t make sense! Same with the new 9Baro watchface: Can’t see this when started a workout. I think switching to the watch while the workout is running in background would be fine. Also scrolling through the workout-pages while a recording is stopped.
Polar M400/430 can display the GPS coordinates called “current location info” during an activity.
Has this been removed from the newer Polar watches?
yup
Yup, like pretty much any useful feature or accuracy Polar watches had before the Vantage line. Don’t expect Polar to change that anytime soon. They cater to the instagraming cross-fitters now who care about lifestyle gimmicks more than anything.
How bizarre that current GPS watches can’t display GPS coordinates. After seeing Ray’s Coros Pace 2 post I decided to do 8 laps with my M400 to see how accurate the GPS track is? Not bad for a watch released in 2014? Even the distance measured 3.4km was accurate given I did 8 laps in lane 4 at 422m per lap.
I really like the idea of getting some weather data (not just barometer readings) on the wrist without any external service and I really wish Garmin would add it to Fenix lineup.
Hopefully Garmin loops back the autolap feature.
Are Any of theses new features coming to the Suunto spartan Baro Stealth model they seen to have forgotten there other watches?
It would just be nice if they added these features outside of Suunto Plus so that more than one of these features could be used at a time and so that they don’t need to be toggled outside of Suunto Plus.
I had no idea that Garmin had taken away the ‘autolap by position’ functionality from their watches until I read your comment above. In fact I looked at the 945 user manual because I could barely believe it. But yes, you are right. The top of the range Garmin sports watch does not have the functionality of my 7 year old 910. And do I use it ? All the time when I am at the track, doing laps or doing a street run with multiple laps – pressing the lap button is one less thing that my old brain does not have to worry about. Progress eh !
Hi.do you know if the (3year old) older Spartan Sport range will get any signifcant updates now these are rolled out?
So the Bearing Navigation is just a minor addition to the otherwise quite middling navigation function. I’ve spent the last few outings (hikes, bike rides) trying to do on my Suunto 9 Baro what a handheld Garmin eTrex had figured out over 20 years ago – how to make breadcrumb tracks and simply, intelligently navigate back over them to the starting point. Oddly, Suunto treats ‘routes’ separately from breadcrumb tracks. And while the track back function exists, the graphical arrow/pointer seems to point straight at the origin instead of along the breadcrumb track (which you’d actually be walking, and trails are rarely in a straight line). I’m also concerned that a live breadcrumb track could be lost, since the finish/save option suggests that until saved, a track is in volatile memory and could be lost due to a watch/firmware hiccup – and once saved, a breadcrumb track seems to disappear from being user accessible (without a companion cell/table app, which I loath to carry on the trail). All my comments might be in ignorance of the nuances of device usage – but I’ve been paging the manual, reading blogs like this, and experimenting, and it’s just not obvious how the Suunto 9 Baro could be used equivalently to a traditional GPS for wilderness navigation. These seem to be arguably just millennial-oriented apps for gamifying activities and supporting a data driven lifestyle. No offense, but before buying this product it didn’t occur to me that a GPS device by a company long well regarded in the outdoor community wouldn’t really offer core GPS navigation functionality like had previously been established in the market.
Wow 26 comments. Suunto should write a book on how to kill off a division of your business. It’s weird because if they’d done nothing they would probably be more popular at this point. The devices are good, the code is good, yet somehow they managed to pull the rug out from under customers. I still have a 9 Baro and a Spartan something sitting in a drawer – I take them out every 6 months or so to see whether there’s a viable app/platform and then put them away again, disapointed. On the other hand every time I take out the Vantage V I remember how much better Polar is than Garmin, then put it away because I miss music and maps too much. At least when Polar promised to finish their device they actually did it! I’d love to see the page hits between the various brands on your site over time, I’d imagine it’s a good representation of market sentiment 🙂
@Dave Lusty I was thinking the same thing based on the lack of posts related to the Suunto App updates.
I’ve thought that the number of posts on Suunto related topics has gone off a cliff in the last 12months, I hate to think what this translates to in sales.
Can you comment on the OS upgrade from Google yesterday? Do you notice any improvements, particularly for battery life?
Do you know what the colors for the pressure mean on the barro watchface?
the range of each color is not constant.
The lighter green colour stands for the pressure development during the last three hours. Watch the webside of Gerald Zang-Schmidt. He has a good description.
Have fun outside 🙂
pretty cool.. I think id like to have the new watch face show steps on my baro as well!
Agree & together with the date & day.
I wonder why the new watch face did’t come with date since i always wear my suunto 9 not only during sport but almost all time including leisure time and at the office. The new face is awesome but without the date it’s a bit annoying. Please update the new watch face.
Actually mine is suunto 9 baro.
I’m wondering if I should update from my Ambit3 Peak. Can anyone tell me what battery performance loss I will have with that after 3 years of use? Wild ass guess is 1200 hours of GPS use.
I don’t know if I’d be happy with a 20% loss of battery capacity because I have some long runs planned next year.
I have updated from Ambit3 Peak and there is no such battery performance loss
Thanks for the reply Della, but I wasn’t clear with my post.
I am wondering how much battery life my Ambit3 has lost due to age/use. I don’t trust trying to extrapolate how long it will last from a 5 hour run – which is about as long as I’ll go in a training run. My long runs now are only 2.5 hours but use 15% – but this is below freezing temperatures. I have races of 20-30 hours booked for next year.
I’m understand that this wouldn’t be a problem with a new S9.
Are you happy that you’ve updated to the 9? What do you consider improved?
Is the screen as legible? My vision isn’t great (unless I were to bring my reading glasses along 🙂
Hi
Anyone having problems connecting the S9 to a SRM crank.?
Cheers
Morten
SRM doesn’t support/have Bluetooth on their crankset power meters yet (only ANT+). Just their pedal ones.
And inversely, Suunto doesn’t support ANT+ on their devices anymore.
🙁
This is another Ambit3 to Suunto 9 upgrade question.
How does the screen visibility compare between these two? My eyes aren’t great, so if the Suunto 9 screen is harder to see than the Ambit’s, then that is a concern to me.
Thanks for any replies.
Ugh, I need (want) a new Suunto but I really want to buy whatever they replace the 9 with.
Hate buying tech that is about to be superseded.
Any ideas when their next top end refresh is going to happen? The 9 is still heavily discounted, 34% off some models and they are flogging them cheap to Ambit and Spartan owners. Surely this means they have something planned?
I agree many of the criticism Suunto getting in these comments but I still think they have balanced hardware and software platform with S9. Before S9, I tried Apple Watch, it basically is a remote for your phone, lots of good apps but horrible battery life makes it not even comparison with Suuntos for sports. I tried Garmin top dog Fenix 6, lots of and lots of functionality but lack of organization, not stable software platform and pain to navigate menus w/o touch screen, had issues with software couple times before selling it. I am using S9 for a year now and it met my expectations fully. Once you set it up, it is not on your way, you can track your exercises, check couple messages if you need to and live rest of your life. Battery life is amazing, it is a real help during hiking with lots of great navigation screens and looks really good (this is subjective). Yes, I like to see some more fancy watch faces and maybe one or more functions that helps with day to day life (touch less pay…etc) But overall they still have the best humble combo as long as you are not trying but a wrist computer that needs to compete with your phone.
Now create your ancestry chart on the go with Family Tree Maker. Family Tree Maker is an ancestry software that is loaded with multiple features. While it’s worth having these features onboarded to the application, it can be cumbersome and confusing as well. This is not only true for Family Tree Maker but it can be true for any feature-rich applications. But, that should not be a concern if there is enough support available for the users.