Not everyone has a good grand to spend on a GPS-connected watch, but with the latest style from Suunto, the cost is coming down.
Wearables can give you the gross on notifications before you check your phone, but they can also be handy ways to check where you’ve been walking, running, and generally just doing some exercise.
Grab a smartwatch and there’s a good chance it’ll monitor how many steps you take, achieving those activity goals, but if you need something to track where you go, you may want something a little more connected, so to speak. That’s especially true if you plan to go for a walk or run without your phone, because while many devices can use your phone as a GPS tracker, you can also find wearables with the GPS inside.
One problem with GPS-based wearables is the price: that connection in such a small device doesn’t typically come cheap, fetching a high price because of the tech inside. Take Suunto’s 9 Peak last year, a watch that commanded a serious thousand dollar price for the stainless steel model and pushed a little more for the titanium model.
This year, Suunto is getting some of that down with a variation a theme, launching the 5 Peak, a style that trades the alloy and glass design for one made with plastic and stainless steel, but still keeping the technology up there.
The Peak 5 will include five positioning technologies, covering GPS, Glonass, Galileo, Beidou, and QZSS, with up to 20 hours of connection in performance more or 40 in endurance mode, while switching off the GPS should reveal up to 10 days of life.
GPS connectivity is but one part of the watch, with lots of sports modes, heart-rate tracking, and a feature to work out how many grams of fat and carbs you’ve exercised off, while the watch itself also does the typical wearable thing and tracks steps, calories, and sleep. It also offers music controls, handy for folks still planning on running with their phone, but without the urge to get it out to change tracks.
And it manages to come at a different price, too, cuttin the thousand dollar minimum price tag of the Suunto 9 in half at $499 in Australia.
“The introduction of the Suunto 5 Peak builds on our ever-growing portfolio of sport watches available to Australian consumers, and brings some of our key performance tracking features into a sub $500 GPS Sport watch for the first time,” said Damian Commane, Head of Suunto in Australia and New Zealand.
“Our new design makes it more visually appealing than ever before, and consumers can have peace of mind that as they explore the beauty of the world around them, they are wearing a watch that is made from 100% renewable energy from a company committed to sustainability,” he said.
Also quite interesting is the weight, with a 39 gram weight helping to keep the Suunto 5 Peak streamlined and light, and not imparting too much of a dent on your activities.
You’ll find it in stores this month, available at The Good Guys, Officeworks, Myer, and Costco.
