Dave CaseyFirst Look: Suunto Spartan Ultra Paddy July 12, 2016 Bike, Fitness, Reviews 2 Comments The long-awaited next generation of Suunto multisport watches will be hitting the Paddy Pallin stores in early August with pre order available now. The Suunto Spartan Ultra is the ultimate solution for the athletic and adventure multisport participant. The Spartan Ultra GPS watch utilises the recently renewed Suunto’s Movescount.com service and mobile smart phone apps to help you get the most out of yourself and training, find new trails & routes and to share your experience with your friends & peers. Adventure & Racing Proof Colour touch screen optimised for outdoor use Suunto Spartan watches use a state-of-the-art colour touch screen with a wide viewing angle that offers great visibility outdoors, even in direct sunlight. The touch screen is optimised to withstand disturbances from the environment, and it can be locked fully if needed. During exercise, the watches can easily be operated using the three buttons. Competitive battery life For demanding adventures, Suunto Spartan Ultra comes with up to 26h battery life with pinpoint GPS tracking accuracy. In the basic time mode the battery life if 15 day. You can also control the battery life of the watch yourself to conserve battery life. Adventure features For your sports adventures, Suunto Spartan watches provide rich route navigation including breadcrumb view* and digital compass to guide you through new terrain. Additionally the Suunto Spartan Ultra offers barometric altitude with FusedAlti™. *Breadcrumb view will be added in a software update in Spring 2016 Unrivalled durability Sapphire glass, titanium or stainless steel bezel and water resistance of 100 m (300 ft) ensure Suunto Spartan Ultra can take a beating and is ready for any adventure. All Spartan Ultra watches are hand-built in Finland. Training Insights 80 sports to choose from With 80 sport modes pre-installed in the watch, Suunto Spartan watches are ready to go for nearly any kind of activity right out of the box. Spartan watches provide sports specific metrics and rich ways to display it while training for sports like running, cycling, swimming, triathlon and various adventure sports, such as hiking or ski touring. Carefully designed sport-specific displays give you accurate feedback relevant to your sport. For most popular sports like running and cycling, dedicated purpose specific sport modes such as interval running, obstacle race running and treadmill are also available. In interval running, for example, you can see your latest interval times with average heart rate in the lap table display while running. Accurate Sport Metrics Spartan watches accurately measure for example your pace, speed, distance, altitude, heart rate and calories, and provide support for running and cycling power and cadence (requires external power or bike sensors). Naturally, Suunto Spartan comes with swimming specific functions such as swimming pace, stroke count and SWOLF. Suunto Spartan Ultra colour options L-R. Titanium All Black, Titanium Stealth, Stainless Steel White & Stainless Steel Black. Training Insights Training insights in the watch and on Suunto Movescount let you follow your training load, rest & recovery and progress, and help you plan your next training. The watch monitors your activity 24/7, providing daily and weekly activity summaries along with training history. To follow your progress, Suunto Spartan watches keep you up-to-date on your personal bests by sport. Personal bests can be based on duration, altitude and cycling power – like fastest 5 km run or highest 20 min cycling power. Suunto Movescount offers you a full set of tools and analyses for more in-depth information on your training load, progress, rest and recovery or creating training plans*. *Training plans will be downloadable to watch in Spring 2016 Community Powered Discover new routes with Heatmaps Use heatmaps on Suunto Movescount and Suunto Movescount App to find the most popular places to run, ride, swim, ski and more. Heatmaps reveal the tracks frequently used by the Suunto Movescount community all over the globe, based on millions of Moves. You can plan your own routes on Suunto Movescount with the help of rich, topographic maps. Trace a heatmap, or go your own route. Connect to your compatible Suunto sports watch and navigate the route with your watch. Progress With Peer Group Comparisons Compare your annual and all-time personal bests with those of your peer group to see how good you are. For example, you can compare your open water swimming 1900 m personal best to see if you rank in the top 20% of your peer group, and how much faster you need to be to reach the top 10%. Suunto Movescount provides real facts on what type of training others, for example, in your age group have done to reach their targets. Compare your own performance to those training towards a similar goal, such as a sub 4-hour marathon, and get real data on how other people are preparing. Peer-To-Peer Coaching You have an opportunity to invite your coach to access your Suunto Movescount training diary, to see all your training history and insights. Based on this information, the coach can give you online advice and create training plans for you to use and download to your watch. Connect online on Suunto Movescount and get started. Pre Order Now Suunto Spartan Ultra Specs Battery life up to 26h in training mode Titanium 5 / steel bezel, sapphire glass 100 m water resistance Barometric altitude Outdoor-grade color touch screen GPS/GLONASS, Bluetooth, compass Route navigation with heatmaps* for more than 15 sports Run, cycle, swim, multisport, triathlon and adventure sports specifics Support for over 80 sports with racing and interval use Training load, rest & recovery, progress metrics, and training plans** Peer-to-peer coaching* Distance, cycling power, and altitude based personal bests by sport** Personal bests & training insights comparisons with your peer-group* & ** Daily activity tracking with calories and steps Mobile sync and notifications*** Customizable watch faces *In Suunto Movescount **Available in September ’16 ***Suunto Movescount Mobile Apps for iOS and Android 2 Responses Robin Walpole July 13, 2016 I’m sorry – this tells me very little. Great add – but no substance. I am an aging and very experienced bushwalker – well skilled in conventional navigation – but can see some use for more precise positioning, tracking and the timely availability of other environmental information that goes with traversing the unknown/little known. I have been contemplating GPS positioning – and my magnificent 40 year old Seiko timepiece has finally given up. I am not particularly interested in Ultra Performance measurement. But I am interested in route planning and monitoring. I have been looking at a Suunto Traverse. And haven’t been particularly impressed in the ability of a supposed bushwalking shop to explain the intricacies. How does this new watch compare – and if there are the great updates promised in the above – and assumedly reflected in the background mechanism and software – will this ultimately be reflected in the Traverse etc? Reply Paddy July 14, 2016 Hi Robin Yes this article covers more the features and not much in the way of 1st hand use. This is due to the pre release version of the Spartan we have uses the BETA software which doesn’t have all of the features yet. We have a watch with an independent reviewer (same couple who reviewed the Scarpa Proton for us) once the software is updated they will be using it at a number of events and hikes in Central Australia in early August. With their review expected within a couple of weeks of them using it. The Spartan does have a number of GPS, route planning and monitoring features that would be useful for a bushwalker. Such as waypoint and visual route navigation, zoom levels in navigation, auto zoom based on route shape, the ability to upload 250 Points of Interest, heatmap based route planning (upload a route using the Suunto Movescount website or phone app) and the ability to have a personal route library in web synced to watch. As mentioned a number of these features use the Movescount Website or phone app to take full advantage of the Spartans navigation features. As you mentioned the Spartan does have many features that are aimed at the athlete (trail runner, rogainer, cyclist) who is looking to track their athletic output/training as well as their route (both following a route and to trace a route), many of which may be irrelevant to you. However the above GPS, route planning and monitoring features will cater for a bushwalker. The Traverse is unlikely to have any major updates to its software as the watches hardware differs to the Spartan. For an in the field review of the Traverse please head to our review from late last year that Jack did. http://www.paddypallin.com.au/blog/the-suunto-traverse-a-more-in-depth-look/ To compare the features of the Spartan to the Traverse please head to this link http://www.suunto.com/en-AU/Compare-Products/?products=14929;14011 If your looking for more of a navigation tool a handheld GPS http://www.paddypallin.com.au/garmin-etrex-10.html?q=gps may be a more economical and functional way to go. However if you can see the advantages of the GPS functions being more user friendly watch based as well the other features the watches being of benefit the Traverse or Spartan offer some great advantages of a traditional handheld GPS. Thanks Dave Reply Leave a Reply Cancel Reply Your email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email.
Robin Walpole July 13, 2016 I’m sorry – this tells me very little. Great add – but no substance. I am an aging and very experienced bushwalker – well skilled in conventional navigation – but can see some use for more precise positioning, tracking and the timely availability of other environmental information that goes with traversing the unknown/little known. I have been contemplating GPS positioning – and my magnificent 40 year old Seiko timepiece has finally given up. I am not particularly interested in Ultra Performance measurement. But I am interested in route planning and monitoring. I have been looking at a Suunto Traverse. And haven’t been particularly impressed in the ability of a supposed bushwalking shop to explain the intricacies. How does this new watch compare – and if there are the great updates promised in the above – and assumedly reflected in the background mechanism and software – will this ultimately be reflected in the Traverse etc? Reply
Paddy July 14, 2016 Hi Robin Yes this article covers more the features and not much in the way of 1st hand use. This is due to the pre release version of the Spartan we have uses the BETA software which doesn’t have all of the features yet. We have a watch with an independent reviewer (same couple who reviewed the Scarpa Proton for us) once the software is updated they will be using it at a number of events and hikes in Central Australia in early August. With their review expected within a couple of weeks of them using it. The Spartan does have a number of GPS, route planning and monitoring features that would be useful for a bushwalker. Such as waypoint and visual route navigation, zoom levels in navigation, auto zoom based on route shape, the ability to upload 250 Points of Interest, heatmap based route planning (upload a route using the Suunto Movescount website or phone app) and the ability to have a personal route library in web synced to watch. As mentioned a number of these features use the Movescount Website or phone app to take full advantage of the Spartans navigation features. As you mentioned the Spartan does have many features that are aimed at the athlete (trail runner, rogainer, cyclist) who is looking to track their athletic output/training as well as their route (both following a route and to trace a route), many of which may be irrelevant to you. However the above GPS, route planning and monitoring features will cater for a bushwalker. The Traverse is unlikely to have any major updates to its software as the watches hardware differs to the Spartan. For an in the field review of the Traverse please head to our review from late last year that Jack did. http://www.paddypallin.com.au/blog/the-suunto-traverse-a-more-in-depth-look/ To compare the features of the Spartan to the Traverse please head to this link http://www.suunto.com/en-AU/Compare-Products/?products=14929;14011 If your looking for more of a navigation tool a handheld GPS http://www.paddypallin.com.au/garmin-etrex-10.html?q=gps may be a more economical and functional way to go. However if you can see the advantages of the GPS functions being more user friendly watch based as well the other features the watches being of benefit the Traverse or Spartan offer some great advantages of a traditional handheld GPS. Thanks Dave Reply