Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Suunto Advizor > Curt Peterson > Field Report

Suunto Advizor Wristop Computer

- Field Report -
June 2006

1)Tester Background and Contact Information

Name: Curt Peterson
Age: 34
Gender: Male
Height: 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m)
Weight: 270 lb (122 kg)
Email address: curt<at>boopants<dot>com
Location: North Bend, Washington, USA

I live in the Cascade foothills, just 20 mi (32 km) from the Pacific Crest Trail via trails leading right from my backyard. My outdoor time in Washington is spent dayhiking, backpacking, climbing, and skiing everywhere from the Olympic coast to rainforests to Cascade volcanoes to dry steppe.  I played football in college and often evaluate products from a big guy perspective. My typical pack load ranges from 11 - 20 lbs (5 - 9 kg) and usually includes plenty of wet weather gear.

2) Suunto Advizor Specifications

• Black with black watchband

• 1.9 oz (55 gm) for the watch alone

• 2.0 oz (57 gm) for the chest strap alone

• Manufacturer Website: www.suunto.com

• Ships with watch, chest strap, and manual

• MSRP: $299 US

3) Suunto Advizor Field Report
 
For a brief look at my use of outdoor-focused watches, the Suunto Advizor's features description, and an overview of navigating through the watch capabilities, please refer to my Initial Report.

In my Initial Report, I focused on the "Big Five" Modes to describe the functions of the watch.  Keeping with that format, I'll comment on the field performance of each of those areas before noting some of the other aspects of the Suunto Advizor.

1. Time: The Time Mode is the most basic of the "Big Five".  It's very standard and performs exactly as expected.  This Mode includes the alarms, which so far I've found to be quite loud and effective.  In fact, after returning from a trip I forgot to turn off the alarm and even though the next morning the watch was on the first floor of my house, it woke me from my bed on the second floor.

2. Altimeter: This is probably my favorite feature of the Advizor so far.  I've always had a fascination with elevation, and this watch indulges that with its consistent accuracy.  While I typically re-calibrate every day or two - or whenever I notice it's off a bit - I've gone as long as 2 weeks without adjusting and found it to be only 1 or 2 increments -10 to 20ft (3 to 6m) - from accurate.  More typical for a week or more is 60 to 80ft (18 to 24m) off, but that's still very little drift for a barometer-based altimeter in my experience. The segmented ring around the circumference of the watch face that visually indicates how far it is until the next 1000 foot/meter point is very cool.  I happen to live at a very convenient location for this.  My home is at 1020ft (310m) and a trail leads from my yard to the top of a cliff at 2000ft (610m).  This gives me one full circumference on the ring for a regular hiking trip I take.  I don't have to monitor or even pay attention to my actual elevation.  A quick glance of the watch shows me exactly how far up the trail I am.  Half a ring means half-way.  An almost full ring means I'm just about there.  This is such a simple feature, but one that is so useful that it's hard to imagine an altimeter watch without it at this point. 

3. Barometer: The barometer seems to work well, but as far as I can tell from the numbers and the manual, it only displays the past few hours of actual changes and makes no predictions about future weather.  For example, if the trend is down for a few hours, it's up to me to interpret that as declining conditions.  Other watches I've used take the barometric trend and predict changes in weather patterns - even indicating them by weather icons.  I find the prediction approach more useful as it's relative to overall barometric pressure.  If the pressure is very high and declines for a few hours, it may still be high pressure and stable weather is still likely.  With a prediction system, it would know that the overall pattern is still high, whereas the Suunto system only shows a downward trend that could be interpreted as bad weather coming.  This could be mitigated by understanding the actual numbers instead of just trends, but I admit ignorance in this area and prefer the no-brainer approach.

4. Compass: The Compass is a bit disappointing so far - perhaps the only thing about the Suunto Advizor that isn't truly impressive at this stage.  It does not seem particularly accurate, and certainly doesn't seem accurate enough for crucial navigation.  Some days the compass works fine - North is North.  Other days it's off by as much as 90 degrees.  Even when it is close, however, it fluctuates all over the place and never really settles.  I can hold the compass perfectly still - in fact I can set it down so it's not moving at all - and it still jumps around.  Typically "still" fluctuation is anywhere from 1 to 15 degrees, with 3 to 8 being average.  There is a leveling bubble that helps, but overall it's very hard for me to feel confident in a compass that's this finicky.  That said, of all the digital compasses I've used, it seems to be the most consistent.  That's not a big endorsement as most don't work very well at all in my experience.  There's a lot of really cool features on this watch, but if I'm using a compass for critical navigation, I'm still going to pull out my traditional magnetic compass every time.

5. Heart Rate Monitor: The Heart Rate Monitor is what separates the Advizor from most of its Wristop Computer siblings, and it's a very neat addition.  Knowing heart rate information can be an extremely powerful tool for performance, recovery, and health in general.  It's amazing the information that can be found by tracking heart rate.  Fitness, recovery, illnesses, stress - all kinds of things.  There are a number of books on the subject, but the bottom line is that it can offer a lot of information to those who want it.  Given this, the Advizor is one of the easiest to use incarnations of a heart rate monitor that I've used.  Incredibly quick to pick up a signal, incredibly consistent, and incredibly accurate.  The Advizor is far superior to a dedicated heart rate monitor that I also own.  The chest band is as comfortable as most, but it's still noticeable and not particularly pleasant.  I find that on a dayhike or fitness hike I don't mind so much, but backpacking is not something I like to do all day long with the monitor on.  There are a lot of features and logs to explore here that I have not done yet.  I look forward to delving further into the tracking system in my long term testing.

Other Features 

The "big" features are surely the altimeter, barometer, compass, and heart rate monitor, but the "little" features often prove to be the difference between usefulness and frustration.

The temperature feature is marginally useful.  For on-wrist use, it suffers the same problems most watch thermometers do - they record very high due to body heat and sun exposure.  The Advizor is very handy during overnights if it's taken off the wrist.  I've found that the temperature reading is almost identical to a small zipper thermometer and likely accurate as temperatures were right around freezing and it was easy to see if it was right.  I'm leaving on a fishing trip tomorrow and will use the Advizor to measure water temperature.  I plan to report how well it works for this in my long term report.

The Light is well thought out in my opinion.  After starting (hold the top right button in for a second or two) it will stay on as long as I'm navigating through features.  On almost every other watch I've used, the light  is timed to go offer after a few seconds.  This presents a navigation problem since the button for the light is typically shared with other features and turning the light back on usually messes up the process I was working on.  This is just another example of how user-oriented the Advizor is.

Non-Computer Features

I'd mentioned in my first report that I'd hoped to find the longer wrist strap.  So far I've had little luck.  Apparently not all Suunto Wristop Computers use the same wrist band attachment system, so extension straps and other accessories are model-specific.  I keep running into references to the Advizor as a newer product and therefore find few accessories available.  I'm guessing that some of the other Suunto watch accessories would work for the Advizor, but so far haven't made it down to a shop to try out things one-by-one.  I do prefer a softer band, so part of my long term testing will include use with an after market Velcro band just to test compatibility.  

There are also apparently watch face protectors.  I must admit that I'm pretty paranoid about big face scratches.  I protect the screen on my phone and my pda, so some form of protection for the Suunto would be nice.  I'll look into the options for this as well.  To date there are not scratches whatsoever and everything works as new - I'd be checking into this purely for my own interest and to report on what's available.  
 

SuuntoSports.com Notes

Suunto describes their Wristop Computers as having 3 dimensions: The Sports Instrument (the watch), The Software (the watch functions and interface), and SuuntoSports.com (the companion website).  My report has - and will continue to - focus on the actual Advizor and its use, but a few comments on the website are fitting here.  My first impression was that a lot has gone into creating this website.  It's fully designed in Flash (an HTML version is available) and is very professional in appearance.  It's broken up into 3 primary sections: 1) My Suunto, which focuses on a specific instrument, its capabilities, and a personal profile and tracking and log functionality 2) Communities, which allows users to share information about their use of Suunto products and 3) Forums, which are further separated by sport category and specific activity.  My experience with SuuntoSports.com has been superficial, but I find its usefulness for my needs limited.  For instance, much of the My Suunto section that would be a great tool is based on watch-to-PC connectivity.  Some of the Suunto's products have this, but the Advizor does not.  The Communities section shows no groups for "backpacking" and only a few for "hiking" which are area or watch specific (none for the Advizor, however).  My impression is that runners and divers would find much more to use on this website.  I will continue to explore it during the last stage of testing and see if I can find a niche for either backpacking or the Advizor that proves helpful.

Final Notes

Overall I'm still really impressed by the Suunto Advizor.  It works extremely well in most functions, is very simple to navigate with just a few memorized button patterns, and it just feels like a quality product - hard to describe this objectively, but there's a solidness to it that gives it an "it was actually made for the outdoors" feel.  For such a complicated piece of technology, it really is pretty straightforward once I learned the basic system.  The compass is a bit of a disappointment, but the phenomenal altimeter and heart rate monitor more than make up for that.  The more rudimentary functions like the time and the light  are all cleverly done.  Multiple data are always visible at once, meaning less time fussing through modes and subcategories - a nice feature when I'd rather be hiking than playing with electronics.  I look forward to testing the Advizor further during the height of the Northwest backpacking season!

4) Suunto Advizor Remaining Test Plan
 
Typical trips will range from 1500 feet (460 meters) on valley trails to over 12,000 feet (3650 meters) on some volcano climbs if my schedule allows it. The bulk of testing will likely be in the middle of that range. Temperatures will likely range from the mid 20sF (-5C) to the mid 80s F (30 C). I will definitely use it more in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness of the Cascades. Other areas will be determined by the sluggish winter melt and my schedule. I currently have overnight trips roughly planned for late June (tomorrow!) and two in July.  August and September usually offer me the most free time, so they will see a number of outdoor trips as well.  Heart rate monitor features will continue to be used often – likely 3-4 days per week on trail walks and fitness hikes. I plan on wearing the Suunto Advizor watch almost daily until testing is complete. 

I'll be testing the Suunto Advizor with a focus on the following questions: 

1) Does it continue to work? Does it continue to give accurate and consistent elevation and barometric readings? Does the compass performance improve?

2)  Can the barometer be counted on to help make the big decisions like turning around on a climb or bagging a trip? 

3) How easy to use and accurate are the more obscure features and the log features?

Thanks to BackpackGearTest.org and Suunto for the opportunity to test the Advizor!

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