Playing with intervals, data and devices – Suunto and Apple Watch Ultra

Today, during my interval running session I used both Apple Watch Ultra and also Suunto Vertical, executing the same structured workout fed by Final Surge, just to see if there is a consistent difference in using one or the other for this kind of sessions. It’s clear that for regular sessions, both devices are good, with their pros/cons with each one – but basically, for workout execution they are very good.

Now, none of the two devices are very strong with Intervals, but in different ways

• Vertical for example
  • doesn’t notify you (sound or vibration) if you’re over/under the limits of the prescribed effort
  • doesn’t say at any moment which interval you’re executing (not when the work/rest starts, not during the execution of the interval work)
  • the display of indications at the beginning of the work/rest is using very small fonts, so it’s not very helpful unless you pay extra attention to it
• Apple Watch Ultra
  • the pace display is not very responsive and has some delays to sudden changes (smoothening is not very helpful) – so it may mislead you during the interval – at least in the beginning you can only go by feeling more than pace indications
  • during the interval, you don’t know much about what interval you’re executing, but the start of the work/rest also mentions the fact that you’re preparing to execute Step X of Y, which is better than Suunto – the fonts are also minuscule – yes, the watch resolution is great, but that doesn’t help in this case

In practice, between the two, probably Suunto is to be preferred since the pace sensitivity is better and as long as you count in your head the execution steps, you’ll be fine. Apple, at least for the pace (or power) driven intervals won’t be great because it might mislead you – or, if the intervals are somewhat longer, let’s say more than 4 minutes, the pace display will be more uniform and less misleading.

Suunto apparently is working to improve the structured workout execution and a new firmware would add the long waited quality of life changes to show the interval information and provide also over/under prescribed target notifications. The notifications may be more useful for shorter intervals, for longer you can still glance at the watch and you’ll see if you’re above or below target. Let’s wait and see .. but Vertical for example was released soooo long ago and they didn’t implement basic features which were part of the old Ambit.

For Apple Watch, I don’t expect them to change their approach on smoothening the pace display, the device may show it’s limitations for short intervals, for longer ones this is acceptable and your can live with that (and you can even live better than with the current Suunto implementation).

Both devices are coming short when compared with the “king” Garmin – which has a much better (more complete) implementation of the structured workouts:

• notification in advance of the interval (5 seconds counting) start/end
• large display before and during the interval about the interval instructions
• under/over target notifications (visual and audible/vibrations)

Other comments on this session:

• Apple Watch Ultra optical sensor works very well, even for sudden changes and higher intensity sessions – there are some small hiccups during warming up or cooling down, but for the intervals part, the optical HR from Apple was very good

• Suunto ZoneSense is interesting – I knew that I shouldn’t expect to see “red” zone in such short intervals, the HRV analysis makes more sense for longer intervals of at least 4-5 minutes, but at least it captures the fact that during cooling down, fatigue was moving me from aerobic to anaerobic zone at a similar pace with the warmup period.

• distance measurement and GPS tracking is very good with each one (AWU measured 11.09km and Suunto 11.15km – so the difference is 0.6%)

Devices & versions:

• Apple Watch Ultra – watchOS 11.3 – standard workout app
• Suunto Vertical Solar Titanium – FW 2.39.20
• Suunto Smart HR belt (connected to Suunto Vertical)