The Suunto Spartan has a new User Interface

The real star of the show is the new User Interface, which has taken the old Suunto watch navigation a huge leap forward in usability terms. It’s possible to pick up the Spartan, swipe a few times and be off on a training run, which wasn’t always the case previously. Basic daily stats are just a swipe away, and the default time display can be configured to show steps and recovery times too. Once paired with the new Movescount app you’ll be able to receive smartphone alerts, such as missed calls and emails, although at the moment in the iOS app these are simple text only, there’s no opportunity to send a response like in a full smartwatch.

You can configure which sports you’d like via the movescount site, so saving the interminable scroll through 79 other disciplines, as well as view your recent performances onsite, in app and on watch. From the time screen, swipe up to view daily step totals, again for training totals and again for recovery time, swipe down to head up into the main menu, accessing ‘Exercise’, ‘Navigation’ and ‘Stopwatch’ as well as ‘Settings’ functions. While tracking an activity, you’ll notice the navigation feature is a swipe or two away (depending on how many screens your sport has), which displays your route in a virtual bubble – the best use of this being a ‘get you home’ type function.

There’s a barometer built in too, which means your altitude, rate of ascent and descent stats are confirmed both by GPS and the barometer/altimeter, theoretically improving accuracy.

However, many of the really interesting training tools and services (such as touch screen lock, alarm, personalised coaching plans, granular planning, Personal Best flagging, logging and comparisons to name but a few) are still availability TBC, as is the Android app, so giving a final verdict seems a little previous. Check the specifications tab on the official Suunto site for a list of ‘coming’ functions – there’s quite a few.

Verdict

Overall the Suunto Spartan Ultra is a very promising package indeed, with contemporary looks, solid build quality and some great usability. I’m looking forward to testing this over the coming months, as it feels like a real fusion of cardio training tool, everyday recovery and fitness tracker, and finally an trustworthy ‘just in case’ navigation tool for the outdoors. Suunto have a vast history of delivering solid technology tools for difficult environments (check out their dive computer the EON steel for example), so I’m quietly  confident they’ll deliver over the next few months, but for now the jury is still out.

Specs

• Battery life up to 26h in training mode
• Titanium 5 / steel bezel, sapphire glass
• Barometric altitude, 100 m water resistance
• GPS/GLONASS route navigation
• Sport expertise and support for over 80 sports
• Training insights and community powered tools in Suunto Movescount

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