Suunto has announced an expansion to its recently introduced Suunto Spartan Ultra multisport watch – with the new Suunto Spartan Sport, which is billed as a strong and sleek multisport GPS watch for athletes.
“Our customers have asked us to create a full-featured multisport watch with the sleekest possible design for an optimal fit,” said Suunto Performance Business Unit Director Sami Arhomaa.
“Many athletes prefer a low profile fit on the wrist over extra-long battery life. They have also told us it is as important for the watch to be good for getting quickly out of a wetsuit in T1 as it is for wearing as a fashionable timepiece. And naturally, they expect the watch to be strong and durable, to withstand the heat of the race.”
Arhomaa continued, “With Spartan Sport we wanted to meet these needs and created the trimmest all-in multisport GPS watch that Suunto has ever made. And the Suunto Spartan Sport is not just sleek. It is also built to last, with mineral crystal glass and stainless steel bezel, pushers and buckle. Under the hood, the Spartan Sport shares the same outdoor-grade colour touch screen, engine and software as its recently announced big brother, Suunto Spartan Ultra.
“The Spartan Sport comes with the same great sport and training specific features for triathlon, running, cycling and swimming as Spartan Ultra.”
Like the Spartan Ultra, the Spartan Sport is hand-made in Finland and ‘built to last in any conditions’. Both watches are water resistant to 100m, and sport a durable colour touch screen with visibility in direct sunlight and a glass fibre-reinforced polyamide casing. Spartan Sport models come with a stainless steel bezel, while Spartan Ultra watches come with either a grade5 titanium or stainless steel bezel.
The Suunto Spartan Ultra features a battery life of 18 hours of training and racing time with Full Power. Users can extend the battery life up to 26 hours of training and racing time with Power Save. Respectively, Spartan Sport comes with a battery life of 10 hours (in Full Power 1sec GPS fix rate) and 16 hours (in Power Save 1sec GPS fix rate). Battery life settings are customizable to optimize battery life based on each athlete’s personal needs, by sport mode. In time mode, Suunto Spartan Ultra has a 15-day battery life and the Spartan Sport a 10-day battery life.
Both Suunto Spartan watches provide route navigation and a digital compass to guide athletes through new terrain. Additionally, Spartan Ultra offers barometric altitude with FusedAlti for accurate, responsive altitude readings. The navigation functionality also includes a breadcrumb view.
Suunto Movescount provides heatmaps for more than 15 sports, including running, cycling, open water swimming, hiking, skiing, and surfing. Users can browse Movescount’s sport-specific heatmaps to find popular tracks or create their own route with the help of topographic maps. The routes can also be downloaded to the Suunto Spartan watches.
Suunto Spartan watches come with 80 pre-set sport modes, providing sport-specific metrics and display options while training for sports such running, cycling, swimming, triathlon and adventures, such as hiking or ski touring. For sports including running and cycling, modes such as interval running, obstacle race running and treadmill format are also available.
With GPS, FusedSpeed and a built-in accelerometer, both Spartan Ultra and Spartan Sport measure pace, speed, distance and GPS-based altitude. Athletes can pair the watch with power and bike sensors to get running and cycling power data and cadence.
Suunto Spartan watches come with swimming-specific functions such as swimming pace, stroke count, SWOLF and heart rate during swimming.
Spartan Ultra and Spartan Sport use the Suunto Smart Sensor to measure heart rate, calories, Peak Training Effect and recovery time.
Training insights in the watch and on Suunto Movescount let athletes follow their training load, rest & recovery, and progress, and help plan the next training session. To follow your progress, for example, the Suunto Spartan watches keep the user up-to-date on personal bests by sport. Personal bests can be based on duration, altitude and cycling power – such as fastest 5 km run or highest 20-minute cycling power interval.
Available from September 2016, Suunto Spartan Sport comes in four models, each available with or without the Suunto Smart Sensor for heart rate monitoring: Suunto Spartan Sport Black, Suunto Spartan Sport Blue, Suunto Spartan Sport Sakura and Suunto Spartan Sport White. The RRP price of the Suunto Spartan Sport will be US$549 (US$599 with the HR sensor).
