Model Name: Suunto 3 Fitness Watch
Price: $199 (or $229 for “All Black” and “Gold” colors)
Use: running (indoor/outdoor), biking, swimming, and training
Battery Life: Up to 40 hours (in training mode without GPS)
The Suunto 3 Fitness is the multisport watch that you’ll actually want to show off—whether you’re out with friends or smashing a mile split. Suunto’s latest timer delivers a fully-loaded fitness tracker that also works as your own personal fitness coach, generating training plans and prompting you to nail your runs and workouts. Wrapped up in a sleek, bezeled face and five stunning colors, one look will tell you that it’s time to ditch your old, clunky ticker.
A Personal Trainer at Your Wrist
After inputting your basic information like age, height, and weight, the 3 Fitness generates a basic training plan for the week, broken down into workouts and rest days. In Personal Training mode, you can view your prescribed workout, which will vary from day-to-day. First on the agenda from my new coach was 20 minutes at moderate intensity, which I did as a run. Within the first few miles, I was getting vibrating reminders to “Speed Up!” and “Slow Down!” to keep my heart rate in the target zone. When I finished, I ranked how I felt using a 5-tier smiley face scale, and watched as the 3 Fitness began refining my training plan.
The watch generated an estimated recovery time, scheduled in a rest day, and gave me my Fitness Level that I could monitor to ensure I was improving. Based on data like estimated VO2 max and resting heart rate, the 3 Fitness can actually tell if I’m getting fitter. But like any good coach, it knows we’re not perfect. When I missed a workout, the watch revised my training plan to keep me on track by nixing my upcoming rest day and upping the intensity of my next session.
Workout Logs and Training Insights
One of my favorite features is the watch’s Logbook that stores the details of your workouts—from the basics like time and distance to other useful data like estimated recovery time. Scrolling through the log book, all this data is ready at any time, right at your fingertips.
I also liked the insights that the watch provided outside of training sessions. Pushing the bottom-right button twice displays your current status based on heart rate and movement—inactive, active, recovering, and stressed are just a few that have popped up on my screen. I found that occasionally checking these readouts throughout the day really helped me be more mindful to how I was feeling. After feeling frazzled from a long meeting, I read “stressed” on the screen and was reminded to take a few minutes to regroup and chill out.
Sleep Tracking, Heart-Rate Monitoring, and Distance Tracking
With one caveat, the 3 Fitness has exceptionally accurate health-tracking sensors. When I estimated my sleep time at about seven and a half hours, I woke up to a full sleep quality report that clocked seven hours and 28 minutes of snoozing, along with time spent in a “deep sleep” state. The heart-rate monitor was also impressive for its accuracy—nailing my resting rate down to the very beat after I checked it manually.
The only thing that wasn’t especially accurate was the watch’s distance tracking. Using manual calibration, the watch significantly overestimates step count, and is very sensitive to everyday movements. However, once I calibrated the watch using the tethered GPS feature in Suunto’s smartphone app, my readouts got a little more accurate. My step counts each day always came in a little high, but after comparing my runs across two different run-tracking platforms, the GPS was accurate within a few hundredths of a mile.
Final Impressions
The Personal Training feature alone makes the Suunto 3 Fitness an awesome pick for anyone needing a little more guidance in their workouts. It’s also ideal for those wanting a way to track their progress as they advance along their fitness journey. Seeing the watch’s data in real time keeps you accountable to your plan—just like a trainer at the gym. And the more you use it, the better it gets, as the watch learns more about you and how you train.
Morgan is a gear editor who has been with Runner’s World since 2017. She started as an intern ghostwriting The Warmup, a bygone version of the daily RW newsletter. Now, she tests and reviews anything you might find on runners’ feet-from crew socks and compression boots to carbon-plated super shoes.
A lifelong runner and shoe geek, Morgan has been chasing the perfect pair of kicks since she joined her grade school cross-country team. Since then, she ran as a Division I walk-on for the cross-country and track & field teams at the University of Delaware, where she studied English and Biology. She has one full marathon under her belt, and has raced more halfs and 5Ks than she can count.
