There are different categories of gear for Outsiders. There are things that make your outdoor adventures easier, like the Leki Hemp One Vario trekking pole. Things that are yummy, like offerings from Best Day Brewing. Then there are things like the Suunto 9 Peak Pro that make you wonder how you ever lived without them.
The Suunto 9 Peak Pro is one of those things that continues to amaze me with features I’m still discovering and a battery life that makes me rethink all things rechargeable.
Suunto, headquartered in Finland, released the 9 Peak Pro in October of 2022. I got my hands on one and soon realized a short review just wasn’t possible. I had planned to give it a few good workouts and write about it. However, the more I used it, the more I pushed it, the more I discovered about it, the more I liked it.
After almost a year of testing in multiple sports, I’m still finding it’s extremely tough, has more features than I can comprehend (I’m still learning things it can do), yet it’s one of the thinnest (0.4 in/10.8 mm) and lightest GPS sport watches in its class. It tracks daily steps, heart rate, sleep, calories, stress and more. It looks good in almost any setting and won’t dominate smaller wrists.
About the 9 Peak Pro
Suunto 9 Peak Pro is designed to be long-lasting and repairable to minimize waste and the impact on the environment. Made with the highest grade of materials, Suunto threw everything at it to test its mettle – ice, sand, drops and shocks, pressure, and salt. Athletes around the world tested it and it met the military standard of toughness. Wear it climbing Everest, use the new snorkeling mode to track your depth, record your bike commutes and see how much CO2e you saved, or pair it with smart-casual dress and head out for dinner. Extremely sleek, extremely versatile.
“The Suunto 9 Peak Pro was engineered with a new, more powerful chipset architecture that boosts the performance to a new level while having the best-in-class battery life compared to similar sized products on the market”, said Vice President of Product Sami Männistö. “The new user interface, with bigger icons and digits, as well as the use of white and color background elements make the watch easier to operate and read during sports, allowing sports enthusiasts to focus better on what they do best.”
Suunto 9 Peak Pro GPS
The Suunto 9 Peak Pro can connect with up to four satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, BEIDOU) and up to 32 individual satellites simultaneously. This results in greater accuracy when exercising in challenging GPS conditions, like below tall buildings or deep mountain valleys.
Are You Kidding Me With This Battery?
Suunto claims the 9 Peak Pro offers the best battery life of any Suunto watch yet, with three battery modes: Performance, Endurance, and Tour. Suunto says the battery lasts for 21 days in daily use before requiring a charge, 40 hours in Performance mode, 70 hours in Endurance mode and 300 hours in Tour mode. I wouldn’t know. I gave up trying to count days. When you don’t have to think about charging for days on end, it just works. So there.
And I don’t even know how Suunto managed this feat – extremely fast charge times of 100 percent battery in 1 hour, or 10 hours of training time after charging for 10 minutes. How is this possible? It just is.
Suunto 9 Peak Pro Key Features:
- Ultra-thin: 0.4 in/10.8 mm (excluding HR dome). Screen size: 1.2 in.
- Weight: The titanium model weighs 1.94 oz (55 g); steel model weighs 2.26 oz (64 g)
- GPS watch with the lowest carbon footprint in the market: total life cycle CO2e emissions only 16.5 lb (7.5 kg)
- Fully carbon compensated in a reforestation project with Verified Carbon Units (*validated by the international verification program ensuring the quality of carbon offsetting projects) via Tree-Nation
- Tested to the highest military standard of toughness (*MIL-STD-810H).
- Daily activity tracking: steps, heart rate, sleep, calories, stress and more
- Extremely fast charging: 100 percent battery in 1 hour or 10 hours of training time after charging for 10 minutes
- Barometric sensor
- Wireless software updates
- Made with sapphire glass, stainless steel, and two models with grade-5 titanium
- Waterproof down to 328 ft (100 m)
- New snorkeling sports mode that tracks activity data down to 33 ft (10 m)
- 97 sport modes to choose from and the ability to create custom modes
Ninety-seven sport modes. You do it, the Suunto 9 Peak Pro tracks it.
My Evaluation
I began 2023 with a goal: to finish in my first triathlon. The Suunto 9 Peak Pro was the perfect companion for the journey. I used it every day. I mean every day. For 10 months. Every run, bike, swim, and walk on the treadmill.
Once I got the hang of how to start and stop my activities, I started tracking my improvement in the app. The app gave instant feedback on my workouts. The activity tracking kept me honest and pushed me onward, especially on days I just didn’t want to get out and push myself again.
Particularly useful in my tri training was the multi-sport mode. I could track the swim, bike and run legs of my tri training as individual sports in one tri activity. I could actually see my times, physical effort, and heart rate in each leg of competition. It even tracks transition times.
Then I went to Florida and gave it the underwater test in September. Snorkel mode? Check. It tracked it. Mutiple times. While the 9 Peak Pro isn’t a dive watch for SCUBA, I wore it on two dives down to a depth of 35 feet. I put it in snorkel mode and used it to log my time under and checked my heart rate during the dive against my tank usage. Very cool to see the correlation.
But Wait, There’s More …
Combined with the Suunto app and a huge array of partner services, the Suunto 9 Peak Pro gives users a plethora of route-finding options, turn-by-turn guidance and advanced training tools. Discovering and creating routes is easy with Suunto app’s heatmaps, 3D maps and road surface map layers.
Also new to the Suunto app, which is compatible with iPad and Android tablets, users can pre-structure their workouts and follow the plan during a session. And, should you ever need it, a new avalanche map layer that indicates areas of avalanche danger makes it easier to plan alpine trips. And on returning from an adventure, users can share their trip with friends and family as a 3D animation.
The Suunto 9 Peak Pro is available in six different versions, four models built with stainless steel ($549) and two models built with titanium ($699). A wide variety of accessory straps are available to allow it to reflect a multitude of personal styles.
The Final Verdict
I think it’s obvious. The Suunto 9 Peak Pro delivered more than I expected or could imagine from Day 1. And it’s still doing it.
