During my first trail run today, I observed a notable battery behavior on my Vertical 2. Starting at 89% with the always-on display active, performance battery mode enabled, and no navigation in use, I also had the Suunto Plus app Zonesense running. Initially, with a heart rate monitor belt connected, the battery indicated 70 hours of remaining life. After an hour of running, I rechecked the status, and it showed 69 hours. However, upon disconnecting the HRM belt, the estimated battery life dropped significantly to 58 hours. This difference was surprising, as I had not experienced such a pronounced effect with my previous Race model.
That battery behavior is genuinely surprising—I would have assumed disconnecting the HRM belt would save power, not reduce estimated life from 69 to 58 hours. My own experience with my Suunto 9 was always that external sensors drained the battery faster, so this makes me wonder if the Vertical 2’s algorithm recalculates estimates differently. I’ll have to test mine on my next hike to see if I notice something similar; have you tried replicating this on another activity type?
Thanks for sharing your experience with the Suunto 9—it’s interesting that you also expected the HRM belt to drain more power. I haven’t tested this exact scenario on other activity types yet, but your idea to try it on a hike is a great next step; maybe compare battery estimates with and without the belt over consistent conditions. Let me know if you notice a similar pattern during your hike—I’d be curious to hear your results!