The Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR has just been released through our store. Our overall impression is positive, however the feature we’d like to focus on is the wrist-based HR.
Okay, what’s the big deal with Suunto adding wrist-based HR? Simply, it’s the best wrist-based HR we’ve seen on the market to date.
The biggest drawback with wrist-based HR is that the device technically doesn’t measure heart rate; it measures pulse. The biggest impact of this form of measurement is a delay between your actual heart rate and the numbers displayed on the watch, to the extreme that you might still see your resting heart rate after a set of lifting weights or a quick sprint during interval training.
For the Spartan Sport Wrist HR, Suunto teamed up with Valencell utilising all their years of experience. The HR sensor uses two green LED’s and one yellow LED, improving accuracy across a broader range of skin tones.
Overall with the Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR, you will see a delay of up to five second and a difference of 2 BPM. This is considerably better than any other wrist-based HR sensor and as close as you can get to the accuracy of a traditional HRM chest strap.
Also announced and now released for the Suunto Spartan range is a heap of software improvements. Improvements include GPS tracking accuracy, ability to customise activities on the watch, ability to create custom interval training on the watch, the addition of altitude and barometric pressure trends (Spartan Ultra), POIs in navigation, and the ability to view 30-day activity summaries.
If you have any questions please feel free to visit our store or give us a call on 03 9598 7888.
Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR – All Black
Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR – Blue
Suunto Spartan Sport Wrist HR – Sakura
