Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Suunto Vector Wristop Computer Watch > Thomas Vickers > Long Term Report

Suunto Vector Wristop Computer Long Term Report

July 27, 2006

Tester Background:
I grew up in the piney woods of southeast Texas. Camping was a quick trip into the mosquito-infested woods behind the house. My style has evolved and over the last 4 or 5 years, I have begun to take a lighter weight approach to hiking gear (I still use sleeping bags and tents, just lighter versions). While I have flirted with lightweight hiking, I feel that I am more of a mid-weight hiker now. My philosophy is one of comfort, while carrying the lightest load possible.

And the testing is over:
I wore the Suunto Vector Wristop Computer every single day of the testing period. I normally wear my watch at all times and it was easy enough to switch out the Vector for my normal watch.  The band that came with the watch fit my arm and this was great for me. I tend to have small wrists and there are a lot of watch bands that I cannot adjust to a small enough size to fit my wrist.  Not having to find a new watch band as soon as the Vector came out of its box was a very good sign.  
   
Time Mode:
The time mode has been the one feature of this watch that I have used in great depth.  Everything from the stopwatch to the countdown timer has been of great benefit to me, especially when cooking. I mentioned it in my last report, but I really have to restate the fact that I am absent minded and tend to lose track of how long food has been soaking (prior to cooking) or how long it has been on the stove once I got the water to boil. Simple camp tasks pull me a way and before I know it I am faced with soggy, over soaked beans, or even worse, burned food.  The countdown timer on the Vector has really made this much less of a problem for me.  I set the timer to the amount of time that I need, start cooking and walk away knowing that when the alarm goes off, it is time to run to the stove.  Basically, this function helps save me from myself when it comes to cooking on solo trips. There have been several occasions when I have dropped my fishing pole and ran back to where I was cooking when the Vector beeped to warn me that my food had been boiling long enough. 

I reported last time that I didn't think that was loud enough on the Vector, especially when I was indoors.  Outdoors in a tent or hammock (basically in the woods away from it all) I felt that the alarm was loud enough, mainly because it made a noise that didn't fit into the background of the forest.  After some research and discovery, I also found out that the speaker/opening for the alarm is on the back of the Vector.

I then decided to take the watch off and see if this made any impact on the loudness of the alarm.  The research was quick and easy and the answer was simple; not wearing the watch made a huge impact on the ability of the alarm to wake me up.  On several occasions I set the alarm and left it on the nightstand.  In the morning, the alarm never failed to wake me up when I used it like this.  I did the same thing while sleeping in my hammock and I noticed that it was quite a bit louder even outdoors.  To make a long story short, the alarm noise level is just fine if I don't wear the watch.  It doesn't matter if I am indoors or on the trail, the Vector will wake me up without any problem when used this way.  If I wear the watch though, I tend not to hear the alarm sometimes and I feel that this is due to my wrist muffling the sound of the alarm.

The only issue that I have with using the Vector as an alarm clock without wearing is that when I grab it out of a gear pocket on my hammock, I have no idea which way is up (especially when I am groggy and it is dark outside).  This means that I usually have to push several buttons before I can get the watch to illuminate itself.  This also means that I am not usually in the watch mode that I want, but a few pushes of a button and I am usually back to where I want to be.  Sometimes it just doesn't pay to be groggy in the woods.

Altimeter Mode:
Due to the nature of my local geography, I just don't change altitude that much.   One thing I did notice that I liked was that I could set the watch to the Altimeter mode, see the time and altitude, and still use my GPS on its map screen.  This wasn't a huge help in the flat lands of Texas, but in rougher terrain it would be very helpful to have the altitude reading without having to switch screens on my GPS.  I also found that it was useful to have this mode active when I was looking at my Topo map.  It was easy to glance at the Vector to see the altitude and then compare to where I thought I was on the map while checking the topographical lines.  Now it is flat and there are not that many lines on my local map, but, it was nice to have my hands free to hold the map (no GPS) and still be able to get the altitude information at a glance. No fumbling with the map while I zipped through GPS screens while using the Vector.  Just one push of a button, a glance at my wrist and back to the map. 

Barometer Mode:
There is no way to describe the habit that I have developed while wearing the Vector. If the wind blows, the weather changes, or just when something happens outside, my eyes stray to the barometric pressure graph on the Vector.  I have yet to decide just what happens outdoors when the pressure rises or drops, but without a doubt, I glance at the pressure graph more than I do the time display on the Vector.  I am sure it has serious uses, but for me, it is just plain cool to watch the clouds roll in and turn to someone and say, "The barometric pressure has been dropping for the last three hours."  This is still the coolest function of this watch.

The other part of the barometer mode that I have found useful is the thermometer.  In my last report I described my crude system of determining the real temperature versus what was displayed while I wore the watch on my wrist.  As the summer grew hotter, I discovered that there was much less of a discrepancy between the real temperature and the temperature that the watch displayed while I wore it. On most days the temperature stayed around 97 F (36 C) while I was wearing the watch.  When I would take it off to see what the temperature was, the thermometer usually went up by 3 to 5 degrees.  So in the warmer weather, the "on my wrist temperature" was much closer to the real temperature.  While not completely accurate, it still gave me a good idea of what the temperature really was without taking the Vector off my wrist. 

Compass Mode:
I have discovered that I can calibrate the Vector without the manual. It is really that easy and I think that this is important because it is recommended that I calibrate the compass before I put it to serious use.  I have also discovered that the compass can be used while on my wrist, if I am very careful. For me this meant standing perfectly still and making sure the level bubble was indicating level (as level as it could be).  

I did not put the compass to too much use, but this was not the fault of the Vector. I am rather compass and compass navigating illiterate, so many times I was rather confused by the digital compass. A simple needle seems to work best for me.

What I did like was that it was easy (even for me) to decide on a heading to follow and use the Vector's compass to do this.  While I wasn't that successful while using the compass mode while moving, it was very nice to not have to dig a compass out of a pack, pop it open, then try and get a heading.  It was stop, pull the wrist up, level the wrist, and read the Vector.  I am sure there are better ways to use this mode of the watch, but for a compass idiot, the Vector's compass wound up being pretty easy to use, once I had practiced with it a bit. 

Test questions answered:
Usage:
1.  Does the manual help or hinder me in my pursuit of using this item effectively while participating in outdoor activities? The manual is a huge help. It is clearly written, easy to understand, and full of photos/graphics to help explain how to use this item. I found it to be very user friendly.

2. Do I have to have the manual with me to be able to run the various functions of this watch? No, at least not once I had familiarized myself with the modes that I would be using. I found that most features required one run through with the manual to figure out and if I used them more than once I didn't have to keep returning to the manual for instructions.  Features that were used very little required more frequent trips back to the manual, but this was user issue rather a problem with the Vector or its manual.

3. Does the manual help me easily understand how to access and operate the varied modes of this item?Yes, see #1 above.  It is very user friendly and well organized.

4. Is there a way to adjust certain measurement units from metric to imperial? Yes. The time can be changed from 24 hour to 12 hour, the temperature can be measured in Celsius or Fahrenheit, and altitude in feet or meters.

5. Can I access all the functions of this item while wearing it? Do certain functions require that the watch be removed from my wrist in order to gather accurate data? I found that I can access almost all of the watch functions and use them while it is on my wrist.  The only times that absolutely required the watch to be removed was to get an accurate temperature reading and when the compass needed to be calibrated.

Time Mode:
1. Can I figure out how to set the time on this watch? What kind of options are there for time keeping? (12 hr/24 hr?) The time was easy to set and once I had done it once with the manual, I was able to do it a second time without.  The Vector does provide for 24/12 hour time keeping based on the user's preference. I used it exclusively in the 12 hour mode.

2. Can I set the alarm? Is there more than one alarm available? Does the alarm wake me up? The alarm is very easy to set and I don't think that I even had to rely on the manual to figure out how to do it.  There are actually three separate alarm times that can be set.  Usually I set them at five minute intervals so that if I deactivated the first alarm, then the others would function as a snooze setting and make sure I woke up.  I found that while wearing the watch, the alarm was harder to hear. On the trail it woke me up, but inside my house it tended not to wake me up. The solution was to take the watch off, but leave it nearby.  The alarm was definitely loud enough when the Vector was not being worn to wake me up no matter what the circumstances were.

3. How easy is it to use the countdown timer? Not just easy, but extra easy. I like the fact that once a time was set into the countdown timer, the Vector defaulted back to this time when the countdown was over.  It was one of my most used and favorite functions of the Vector, especially when I was cooking on the trail.

4. How easy is it to use the stop watch and its related functions? The stop watch was also easy to use.  It was easy to start, stop, and to reset when I needed to.  Best of all, I liked the fact that if I left the stop watch running and went into another watch mode, the Vector kept reminding me that the stopwatch was still running by flashing the words "stop watch" as long as I was in any mode other than the stop watch mode.

Compass Mode:
1. How difficult is it to calibrate the compass?  The compass was easy to calibrate and after the first time, I never had to return to the manual to figure out how to do it again.  This was a definite plus for the Vector because it allowed me (and was recommended) to calibrate the compass quickly and easily before each time I used it.

2. What is the leveling bubble used for? The leveling bubble allowed me to make sure that the Vector was as level as possible so that the compass could be used accurately.  It was difficult to use the leveling bubble and compass while wearing the Vector on my wrist, but not impossible.

3. Can I read/interpret information from the compass easily? I have to say no, but I do not feel that this is a flaw in the Vector. Instead I feel that was due to my inexperience using a digital compass. I did not use this feature too often, but the more that used it or played with it, the easier it became for me to figure out what the compass was telling me. 

4. Will I be able to set a heading with the compass and then use it and the map screen of my GPS to navigate my way to geocaches accurately? How easy is it to use the Vector and an GPS at the same time? This turned out to be a little trickier than I had expected, especially when wearing the Vector on my wrist.  I was able to get the heading to the waypoint from the GPS, and then try and follow that heading using the Vector. While not easy, it was useful, especially when I got turned around reading the map screen. I just had to remember what direction I was supposed to head in and check that on the Vector while the GPS jumped around and drove me crazy. So it is possible, but not the easiest way to do business.

5. Can I set the declination of the compass for my local area? Not just yes, but easily as well. (Then again, how many people are big enough geeks to have topo maps of their local area?) I imagine this feature is a lot more valuable when traveling outside of a familiar area and the declination is more important.  

Final thoughts:
I have put the Suunto Vector through a lot of abuse over the past four months. I wear my watches constantly and this means that they suffer a huge amount of wear and tear.   Despite my best efforts, I have not scratched or dented the Vector in any   way. Cosmetically, this watch looks pretty good for having been on my wrist for four months.  At this point I would normally have expected the crystal to be scratched and soap scum from my showers to have fouled up the rotating bezel.  I was completely surprised when I went to turn the bezel the other day and it rotated as smoothly as it ever had. 

In my last report I had discussed removing the watch band and wearing the Vector on a lanyard.  I thought this one over for a long time and decided that I really prefer it on my wrist and so I never went so far as to put the lanyard plan into action.  After the test period (and during it) I found it most useful to wear the Vector on my wrist.   Even when I was sleeping in my hammock, I preferred it there because if I had to use the illumination feature, I knew just which button to push. If it was stored in a gear pocket, I had four possible buttons to push before I found the correct one.

One last thing that I really like about the Vector was that while the illumination feature is set to stay on for a couple of seconds, I found out that the watch will actually stay illuminated as long as it is being used. If I just activated the light and checked the time, it went back out quickly. If I activated the light and began to access the watch functions, it stayed lit till I was done.  I liked this because it allowed me to quickly check the time at night without wasting battery life, but it also allowed me to use all the functions of the Vector in the dark without worrying about the illumination cutting off.

The only real issue that I have had is loing one of the screws which attach the Vector to its band.  Apparently the band is secured by a hollow metal tube that is threaded on one end.  The screw fell out of one of the tubes/pins that hold the band in place sometime during the long term test phase. I still don't know how, when, or why, but the band never separated from the watch and I would never have noticed it (no loss in functionality) if I hadn't been going over the Vector carefully to check on the wear and tear.

When I started this test I was afraid that the Suunto Vector was going to be a neat gadget that either forced me to change my hiking habits to use it fully or just not very useful at all.  I am very happy to report that it is neither.  The Suunto Vector packs a ton of useful tools into a decent sized package.  Almost all of these tools are accessible while the Vector is on my wrist and best of all, it fit right into my hiking style. In fact, it allowed me to combine the functions of two separate items (digital thermometer and watch) that I normally use into a package that I wore on my wrist.

Reviews > Electronic Devices > Watches > Suunto Vector Wristop Computer Watch > Thomas Vickers > Long Term Report