SuuntoPlus Guides bring new, dynamic features to Suunto GPS watches

New SuuntoPlus Guides offer athletes personalized, real-time guidance from their favorite sports services right on their Suunto watches – and for the sports services it offers a way to bring their product developments to a wearable device without big investment.

Whether you want to follow a trainingplan, structured intervals or perhaps a race nutrition plan, SuuntoPlus Guides are here to help. 14 different companies from strong, established training services to new, exciting start-ups have already built their own features in Suunto watches – and more is on the way. These features are available for all Suunto 9, Suunto 5 and Suunto 3 watches.

One of the key benefits is the automatic sync of structured workouts and interval sessions from training and coaching platforms like TrainingPeaks, Nolïo, I-Run Club and Ultra Trail Coaching to Suunto wacthes. Once your coach has planned a session for you (or you have done it yourself), the workout syncs to your watch automatically for real-time guidance on the right day. Some of the services, like Humango and AI Endurance, add artificial intelligence and machine learning to make the workout just what they need to be.

In addition to training, SuuntoPlus Guides help you perform your best on race day. For the Golden Trail World Series running events, Suunto has built race guides that will feature key information about the race routes. To boost training motivation, apps like I-Run Club and GoJoe bring their training tips and challenges to Suunto watches.

The way partner companies integrate with SuuntoPlus Guides is ground-breaking: It allows them to build features cost effectively and quickly in wearable devices.

“The content from our partner services is pushed to Suunto’s cloud API and automatically synced to the user’s Suunto watch to be enjoyed during sports. This structured content defines in a simple manner what information is shown, when it is delivered and how it is displayed. Suunto converts this content into a feature available during the workout. This model allows these apps to seamlessly push the guidance, motivations, tips, and tricks into our watches,” says Janne Kallio, Suunto Ecosystem Lead. “We are excited about the truly positive feedback that we have received from our partners about this new technology."

“SuuntoPlus Guides is a huge step forward for software companies such as AI Endurance to connect with their users without having to engineer our own wearable solutions. The implementation possibilities are endless and Suunto provided valuable assistance to help us finish the development in no time. One example of how we use the Suunto Guides in a creative way is ramp tests to determine an athlete’s exercise thresholds via heart rate variability data,” says Markus Rummel from AI Endurance.

“Our service provides an adaptative training plan to runners. Exporting the planned workouts to Suunto watches makes life easier for our users, they save time and are sure to do the correct workout. As soon as we learnt that Suunto would offer this possibility, we started to develop the feature, and it was quite fast to do it thanks to the Suunto team’s support,” says Guillaume Adam, co-founder of RunMotion Coach.

“The GoJoe app transforms boring solo exercise into something social and motivational, by connecting your Suunto watch with the global community of ordinary joes and giving you fun and meaningful updates whilst you exercise,” says GoJoe co-founder Will Turner.

At launch Suunto is bringing out SuuntoPlus Guides with 14 different companies: