Suunto Reviews

Suunto is horrible. The Movescount app was bad but at least it had the web interface. They’ve doubled down on their poor tech with Suunto.

If you have an Ambit 3 peak and are looking for some sort of mobile interface. Look elsewhere.

Problems I’ve encountered.

- Suunto won’t sync.... at all without having to be re-paired to the watch. Each and every time.

- even when finally paired it doesn’t actually seem to sync. I’ve got to use the PC sync to get my runs to appear.

- it doesn’t sync my runs to Strava. It synced 1 run out of 14. I had to manually upload to Strava via a fit file, which is a drag and goes something like this: Go to each run. Wait for Suunto to catch up and show the 3 dots. Export the fit file to SMS or messenger. Someplace I can pick them up on my PC. Download from messenger to a folder. Manually upload to Strava. This might have been acceptable in 2005 but this is 2021. This should be beyond basic.

- And there’s no web interface. The web sync actually sends you to Movescount Web for “settings” and “routes” but Suunto doesn’t actually sync to Movescount web......

this app forced migration to Suunto from movescount. I have yet to get my ambit3 peak to sync after 4 runs. It connects and begins syncing and fails every single time before completing. I’ve tried everything and still doesn’t work. I wish they had thoroughly tested ambit3 connectivity before pushing us to Suunto. Very frustrating. In addition I now have to deal with pop up adds for new watches they want me to buy. Beyond frustrating to deal with ads when I can’t even get my watch to sync. I’m getting the feeling the support and focus for keeping older (more reliable/simple/accurate) watches working is fading. It’s all about consuming more rather than support what’s already out there. Pretty disappointing but it’s all about selling product I suppose. I now have to sync with my computer and cable. Now I will consider Garmin since both this app and Garmin constantly have glitches syncing wirelessly. Real disappointing. New this app models just don’t work like ambit3 peak. I’ve tried them all. this app if you read this please support your older loyal customers.

Unfortunately, Suunto is total garbage for older this app models. I have the Ambit 3 Peak and the only time I’ve been able to upload data is when I first re-sync my watch to the new app (following the this app instructional video step by step). At that time, a few of the most recent activities will sync, but the rest do not. If I go out and do a new activity though, it will no longer upload to my watch unless I unpair and re-pair and go through that whole process. I find it totally unacceptable that they are essentially not supporting old models anymore. This is forced obsolescence and an incredibly underhanded way of forcing people to buy new product. I will happily leave the this app product family if that is the case.

The this app app a substitute for Movescount for a bit 3 is a premature release. Sync is slow and takes forever like 40 mins and I am not seeing the data. A phone call the sync fails and we have to reconnect. Profile setting option is wrong in app. Says correct it in watch, but it is correct in watch and wrong and no way of correcting in app. No way we can upload data to Suunto since there is no desktop version. Goal setting is very very primitive and we can set only hours. We cannot export files or import POI.
Really after an year of Movescount crash and burn?
There is no mention of this this app app in website. It is a picture on slide show. It does not say it is the replacement for Movescount to be sunset in 2020. Very sad if we need half the features we need to go to Movescount, but we need to uninstall it to install this.
I don’t think I have ever given a single star nor written a review like this but think after an year with this app and Movescount problems and now the much raved this app App. Sorry

I have the Ambit 3, which I have been using for well over 3 years now. The this app App doesn’t support older watch models in the sense that you can’t change your watch displays in Suunto . You can only do so with newer watch models. This was a big deal for me considering I’m always transitioning from roads to trails. I liked that I could change my displays to show cadence when road running or change to altitude when trail running. I was able to easily change settings and displays on the Movescount app, but now that I deleted Movescount I can no longer do so. It was a hassle to transition from Movescount to the this app app, which I could understand, but seeing that it took away a lot of important functionalities I was really disappointed. I hope an update comes soon for us older watch users or bring Movescount app back and allow us to use either or. I really like this app, but this has had me second guessing choosing a new brand.

I got this watch specifically for hunting and hiking, since it’s advertised for exactly that. The watch works great, but Suunto is almost completely useless. The only thing it does is sync your “moves” and even then it does that slowly and annoyingly. Suunto is quite obviously designed almost exclusively for runners etc. I can appreciate that, but if you’re going to sell a watch specifically advertised for outdoorsmen and women for hunting fishing and hiking, there needs to be some way to actually sync POI saved with the watch. I’ve used the Garmin EarthLink app with my inReach mini and have been nothing but impressed with it. I was expecting similar functionality and intercommunication but have this far been sorely disappointed. I’ll put the watch and app through their paces while deer hunting at the end of the month and see if it’s worth a hoot or if I just wasted a lot of money on a mediocre, stand-alone gps watch.

Suunto is a huge step backwards in terms of speed, functionality and stability for Traverse users. I have a Traverse Alpha and was invited by a pop up in the Movescount app to start using the new this app app as it was now supporting my watch. The new app advises that you must delete the Movescount app. I did this and moved to the new app only to find I lost the ability to customize the information shown on my watch while recording an event. Then once I try to sync the event to the new app it takes up to 15 minutes, maybe more. Suunto starts the sync over every time you leave the sync screen. This is a big problem for those of us who use our watch with only an iPad or phone since you have to reset the watch entirely to go back to Movescount and change the watch face. Sorry for rambling, but I think this app has rushed into this for Traverse users. I’m sure Suunto will improve with time but it is very frustrating as is.

I appreciate all the hard work you have been putting in to get away from 2 apps (Movescount & this app). Love that you can create custom exercises from Suunto too! But, the stock watch faces are hideous and do not allow for any customization (fields, data, clock format, etc). My Garmin allows developers to create custom watch faces, and even the stock ones you can change the data on the fields, have different clocks, etc. Any plans for this in the near future? Also, my Garmin allows me to save an activity for later and the pick up whenever I decide to spin up GPS again. This is helpful because it keeps one GPS log (and upload to Strava, Garmin Connect, etc. not spamming my feed with more than one post for a climb/hike) and also doesn’t count my “rest” time (or sleep time if an overnighter) as the total activity. The whole point of having a fitness watch is to track “active” time. Would love to go all in with this app again. My Core was amazing. But since switching to a GPS watch, these are two huge dealbreakers for me...please address...you guys have hands down the best hardware...but the software is your Achilles heel. PS, huge improvements from the this app team year over year and I know you all take feedback to heart. Thank you and keep it up! :)

So I’ve been using this app watches for a while. I own the Ambit 2, Ambit 3, Spartan Ultra and now the this app 9. The Movescount app was/is sort of clunky but the movie function for outdoor running and cycling was fun and interesting to share. The new app doesn’t have this function and I’m not clear why the developers would omit something that already existed and is relatively simple from a coding standpoint.

What’s even worse though is that this new app doesn’t upload/sync the data automatically to the Movescount WEBSITE. Where Suunto was clunky, the website was great for data tracking and comparison which was super valuable for distance/endurance athletes. I’m unclear why this was left out but since the same company owns both platforms it’s a bit confusing. I don’t want to lose the ability to compare over five years of exercise data.

I’m taking away another star because I just found out (confirmed by a developer) that Suunto is unable to sync with more than one watch. This means if you have multiple this app watches you must go through the process of pairing/unpairing every time you switch watches.

I’m not pleased with this new app. It looks nice but my Ambit 3 will not completely sync. I’ve tried disconnecting and reconnecting many times and no luck. The practical connection is that I only receive notifications on my watch when my phone gets a notification. However workout data will not transfer. The only way to transfer data to Suunto is plugging my my watch into the computer. So I’ve gone back to movescounts but, when I try transferring the data to the new app again, I already used my one time transfer. Please put focus on why the data won’t transfer over Bluetooth.

Hi this app,

I work in device communication so understand the complexity involved in making sure that devices talk to each other correctly.

I have had the this app ambit3 for 1.5 years now. Movescount was working fine, it would not sync automatically with my watch, but I would just need to boot up Suunto and the sync would start.

Moving to this app app sucked.

No.1 I had to reset my connection to the phone and start from scratch. Lost a bunch of my info because my this app account wasn’t available and had to use a google account to login, then that wasn’t available and now I’m back on my original account.

No.2 the first time the watch synched, things worked fine. But Suunto doesn’t start synching with the phone as soon as Suunto is opened anymore. And now even if a sync is initiated with the watch, the sync fails.

I’m tired of starting from scratch. I don’t know what else to do but complain here, and I know you guys are watching this. Let me know what I can do, and direct me to making my watch and my phone work again. Thanks.

I recently upgraded my Ambit 1 to the Ambit 3 Peak as I wanted to be able to sync with my phone and use Suunto to modify changes since they were discontinuing the Movescount PC website in near future. I downloaded the Movescount app a while ago but it would not sync. The this app app did sync but am not able to use any of its features such as customization of display, route sync, or other essentials. I can upload data and view the routes but far from what the Movescount app slows from my review online. this app I am very disappointed. If you sell a watch, don’t discontinue Suunto that supports the functionality. Most Ultra runners consider the ambit 3 peak to be the pinnacle of watches this app has made including the 9. Support for the Ambit 3 peak through your this app app is paramount!

Suunto does not reliably sync my Ambit Peak 3. It often refuses to start syncing, takes forever to sync, and my watch no longer believes it has synced correctly, so activities are building up and I’m getting warnings about space.

Really, the developers need to prioritize their time on the basics and stop adding pretty features. I bought this watch only a couple of months ago so that’s a pretty big investment to have the quality slip downhill so quickly.

Once you get that sorted, would it kill you to let me change my settings from my phone rather than forcing me to go look for my laptop.

(Why did I buy such an old model? Because it is supposed to have 200hr of battery life, though that’s another story.)

(Note: I avoided iOS 14 because I was afraid issues, though I’ve since given in. Hard to tell if the iOS update or Suunto ’s last update is the reason for the improvement from one start to two given they coincided.)

Finally it synchronises with strava. Making some progress but it took at least 2 months since the first version I used. Unfortunately data interface is wrong for indoor swimming which is my main use in winter. now strava only takes into account the total workout time as the moving time so pace is totally wrong ( doing many series with many breaks pace can be therefore 30 % slower even though I am pausing the watch). This was not the case with movecount 2 weeks ago.

compare to Movescount you change the swimming pace kpi to 1km instead of the watch set up against 100m disturbing and unfortunately no possibility to modify it.

Also every time I try to edit one activity the application freezes and is not active for at least 15 sec if not completely dead.

Overall I miss Movescount and not satisfied with both this app and strava. ( after the problem on swimming pace I checked with my runs and it appears that Strava is adjusting the moving time even if you did not stop your watch. as an example in my last half marathon race strava automatically removed the time I spent drinking at the water stations so instead of 1h40min ( both spartan and official race time ) strava gave me 1:38 ). This issue has been reported for many years on strava support forum and they do not care. I hope this app will listen to the comments of its customer base as alternatives are numerous today... and would miss this strong watch ...

Suunto works to sync activities from my this app 9 watch, but I wish or had some key features.

1. A way to “trim” activities. I often forget to stop recording on my watch at the end of an activity and I end up with a recording of driving home in the car at the end of the activity. I wish there was an easy way to trim off the end of the activity in Suunto .

2. Selective uploading to Strava. I don’t like to sync every activity with Strava so I leave the syncing turned off, but once in a while I have a fast time that I want to share on Strava and I wish I could manually upload and share that activity from Suunto .

Still a way to go to make this a high quality fitness tracking app. I love my this app Ambit3 watch, but Suunto was CLEARLY launched too soon!!! And worse, once I loaded it, I couldn’t go back to Movescount!!

Current issues that need to be addressed:
• doesn’t load my 2.5 years of Movescount data
• crashes every time I try to view details on the map of a cycling “move”.
• won’t properly import my age & weight from my Ambit3 watch — all my calorie calculations are now wrong!
• doesn’t allow me to collapse down all my “moves” into a simple list like Movescount does.
• any time you edit a move, when it re-saves that move it takes you back to the top of the list of moves. I then have to scroll, scroll, scroll back down to verify the change. See item above.
• when I delete a move from the new app, it reloads again from the watch next time I sync. Ultra-annoying because you can’t delete “junk” or erroneous moves. Movescount did this properly.

Things that are good:
• upgrade to allow weekly and monthly summaries

I really want to love Suunto. Movescount worked but I (and I suspect most of us) only ever used it to set up my watch faces and relay my ‘moves’ to Strava. I love most of the immediate features of the this app app, a lot, but two major as yet unsolvable setbacks have me bummed out. One, it won’t run in the background on my iPhone 7 when I’m syncing. I’ll start the sync, and as soon as my screen times out, it interrupts the process and the sync fails. If I go to another screen to send a text, sync is interrupted and has to start over... apparently from scratch. Sometimes I have to reconnect to my watch altogether.

Also, the Progress bar doesn’t reflect what’s really happening. For all syncs, regardless of data size (and therefore upload time), the bar appears to proceed at the same rate rather quickly to 11 o’clock, then hangs out there until the upload is complete. So I have no idea how long I have to wait for the activity to upload, which for long runs can be well over 30 min.

For an app that’s supposed to replace the universally criticized Movescount, you’d think this app would have presented something a little more polished up front.

I know they’ll work these out but when we are advised to delete the Movescount app b/c of side by side connection issues, and leap into Suunto cold turkey, it should be clean.

Thanks this app. I mean that. Your watches rock, and I look forward to a better this app app.

UPDATE. 09 AUGUST 2019

Since my last review Suunto has been working flawlessly. It tracks and auto syncs almost immediately after I’ve ended the workout session. Still only giving 3 stars out of an abundance of caution. If it continues to perform well I will update in a few months.

Initial Review:

I’ve used the Movescount with my Ambit 3 for a while, and it was fine. I just got a new Spartan Sport Baro (which I absolutely love). But the this app app is a mess. Initially it paired with my watch and downloaded activities fine. Since then it will not sync. I’ve followed all the troubleshooting steps and still nothing.

Probably the most frustrating thing though, I contacted customer support and listed everything I did, which was all the troubleshooting steps. As I suspected (and feared) they responded by basically cutting and pasting the troubleshooting steps. All of which I did, took the time to write out to let them know I did in an hopeful attempt to avoid that very response. So I’m not sure if they just didn’t read my message or where too lazy to care.

this app, if you’re really going all in on a useful app that works as you say you are, I have a right to expect more as a consumer. However, I love the free market and their are lots of great products out there and I’ve been an early adopter and a sneezer for this app for a while now, but I’ll just have to see how this goes in the next month.

Guys nothing was quiet as bad as MC it did watch no justice, I was never going to buy another this app watch as a result of the software! The watch is amazing now Suunto is up there!!! Thank you!! Only hassle I’ve had is the retainer hold down insertion strap both broke so strap catches in everything. Bought in China they said they’d give me a replacement strap, but I don’t go there any longer, any ideas, still have receipt for my Ambit 3??

Also I do circuit training 5 times a week, any chance of getting this exercise on the watch, I use CrossFit it’s just not the same.

Thanks for eventually trashing MC!!

The this app App is a big improvement over the Movescount App. Syncing moves and settings is significantly faster and more stable. The ability to create and set routes from Suunto is a huge improvement. It’s also a lot easier to make custom sport modes and I can now add graphs to my modes.

I would like to see a desktop site that works in stride with the mobile app like Movescount did. I would also like some of the additional functionality from Movescount added (setting POIs, planning moves on a training schedule).

I have tried to call support and submit tickets with ZERO response, so there is NO CUSTOMER SERVICE from this app. The most recent update can only handle 1 activity. A couple times a week I do a run followed by a weightlifting or strength session, my run the first of two activities uploads but not the second. I have done hard and soft resets on my watch, deleted and reinstalled Suunto and had to re-synch all my activities and the days since the new release that I 2 workouts back2back only the first activity uploads. I can’t get any support and this watch is 9 months old. If you are looking at this before a purchase spend the money on a Garmin or Polar. Maybe they actually provide service.

Keep your old Movescount app for now. This new app looks good and will be better when they flesh it out but right now it doesn't work well. It crashes when you open workouts. You can't create new workout types (or change your multisport workout since you can only have one active on my watch) from Suunto like you could with the old one - Unless I'm missing something. Your workouts will stop synching if you navigate away from the synch page and will have to start over when you go back. I will say the layout is better and the stats layouts in your workouts are better (when you can get into them). It looks much better and will be good eventually but it still needs a lot of work.

There are lots of things I do like about Suunto . I especially like the interval views for workouts like swim and run where I can see breakdowns in other than default auto lap. For example in swim it shows me the data on my 100 yard sets broken down by 25 yard length and not just 100s also if it’s a longer continuous set I can see the data and stroke for that. So it tracks my 200s, 300s etc.
Don’t likes:
I can’t preload workouts like I could with my ancient Garmin connect app.
App is often unresponsive when I try to add comment or photo
Likewise it frequently won’t open workouts when I tap them on the diary screen meaning I cannot actually see all the lovely data.

Suunto is absolutely terrible. I have been a this app user for about 10 years, starting with a Vector. I loved my Ambit 3 Peak right up until they swapped from the old app. This new version is absolutely terrible. One update it syncs just fine, another iteration and the watch will not connect to Suunto ...all the while connected to my phone and receiving notifications. So disappointing. Giving this a two star just because I truly do love my Ambit, just so fed up with Suunto rendering the watch useless. Try their troubleshooting, that is supper fun and doesn’t work. It’s awful. Suunto is the sole reason I am considering switching my watch out to a competing brand.