The Red Bulletin April 2020

VENTURE
Equipment
WEAR
The golden
compass
Suunto 7 smartwatch
First, a quick lesson in speaking Finnish: the
word Suunto means ‘direction’ or ‘bearing’.
The name was adopted by the Nordic sports
manufacturer in reference to its founder
Tuomas Vohlonen’s 1936-patented liquidfilled
M-311 wrist compass, but it could
equally apply to the company’s drive over
the past 84 years to seek out inventive
portable solutions to sporting and adventure
needs. The 1998 Suunto Vector is the
perfect example of this: the first outdoor
watch with a built-in altimeter, barometer
and compass, it was arguably a ‘smart’
watch before the term even existed.
With the Suunto 7, the brand has now
fully embraced the modern smartwatch era,
incorporating tried-and-trusted expertise
in sports and instrument watches into a
timepiece that can also order you an Uber.
Suunto’s watch combines the functionality
of Google’s widely used Wear OS software
– which gives access to millions of apps –
with 70 sports modes (from running and
cycling to surfing and skiing) and GPS,
Glonass and Galileo tracking. All this is
housed inside a reinforced polyamide
‘adventure-proof’ case that’s water resistant
to 50m, with a toughened Gorilla Glass
touchscreen. And there’s a compass in
there, too, keeping Vohlonen’s original ethos
on the right track. suunto.com
With the Suunto 7, the
brand has embraced the
modern smartwatch era
2
TIM KENT TOM GUISE
5
80 THE RED BULLETIN