Folks! What about a sporty smartwatch that you can wear anytime and anywhere plus it is cleverly built to tell you the most popular routes hikers take in a hiking trail? Suunto has nailed it this time with the Suunto 7.
When Suunto released the Suunto 7, we wondered what else the leading smartwatch maker could possibly turn up. It was a surprise. This is good news to for a wide audience, especially hikers. For the first time ever, Suunto 7 has not only equipped its smartwatch with Suunto’s versatile sports ecosystem, it combines it with features from Wear OS by Google™. Unlike other Suunto watches, now there are a lot more things that we could do with the Suunto 7.
One of the best features of the Suunto 7 is the Heatmap watch face. When you go hiking, alone or with friends, at a new place and you wonder which route you should take at the junction of a hiking trail, turn to the Heatmap. It will show you the most popular routes that hikers take. Not only that, you could even zoom in as close as 2km or as far as 15km in the Heatmap to see the most popular routes.
The Heatmap is not designed specifically for hiking only. If you are a road runner, trail runner, road cyclist, mountain biker, downhiller, golfer or just for chill walking and more, the Heatmap shows you where most people are. Aside from giving people the opportunity to interact with others, it also puts you at greater security ease in the company of more activity enthusiasts. The Heatmap smartwatch face also opens the doors for us to try more unfamiliar trails.
The next great feature of the Suunto 7 is the free offline outdoor maps. Before you travel to a new place or begin an outdoor sport, you can download the map of the location in advance. You can now leave your mobile phone behind and the offline map will guide your way.
If you are a music lover, pair your headphones to the Suunto 7. With the Wear OS by Google™ on this watch, you can download music apps and play your favourite music while resting during a hike or when not doing sport. You can even control the volume of your music or change songs directly from the Suunto 7. Be cautioned that covering our ears while hiking or doing other sport that require our attention of the surroundings is dangerous. Avoid listening to music with headphones during sports.
On the aesthetic side, the Suunto 7 meets the best of a sporty and lifestyle approach. It is an all-day watch. You can wear the Suunto 7 to work, for sport, and to social events. The slick design has toned the watch away from a conventional sport watch look to a trendy lifestyle timepiece.
The 50mm case size may be a little too big for someone with a small wrist. The 15.3 mm thickness, design of the case and colour options makes the Suunto 7 trendy on most arms of men and women.
On the software side, Wear OS by Google™ does bring a lot more fun and reasons to own a Suunto 7. On top of downloading maps and music, you can download many more apps to the smartwatch from Play Store.
When unboxing the Suunto 7, we were concerned about the response of the smartwatch to the Wear OS by Google™. We were worried that the smartwatch would lag and take longer time to respond to each application. Our concerns were unfounded. The user experience was good that we could easily setup the watch and pair it the Suunto and Wear OS app on mobile phone in almost no time.
The flip side of the Suunto 7 is the battery life. You will have to recharge the watch every other day if you are using the unit as a smartwatch. The battery lasts for about 12 hours if it is used for sport with GPS on. It could last for as long as 40 days if the smartwatch is set to time mode which in our opinion defeats the purpose of owning a smartwatch.
For hikers, the battery life is not an issue if it is for a day-hike or an overnight hike which most of us do. For a multi-day hiking trip, you will have to bring an extra powerbank for the watch.
A sporty lifestyle design, over 70 sport modes, free outline outdoor maps, Heatmap, wrist heart rate monitor, 50m water resistant plus Wear OS by Google™ and more, the Suunto 7 has most of the features that satisfy the modern lifestyle of most people. If you don’t mind to charge the Suunto 7 every other days like you do with your mobile phone, the Suunto 7 is an excellent candidate for your next smartwatch. Oh ya! It takes only 100 minutes to fully charge the Suunto 7.
