Suunto Ocean Unboxing

[JohnNumberz]

Picked up a Suunto Ocean to see if it can replace my apple watch for day to day and allow me to use my daily driver watch to be a daily diver...

be kind, i'm new to this youtube thing!

 

[Germie]

I have seen this watch today for the first time, including a tankpod. It is quite small. It is nice that you can see where you have been diving (it tracks the way you take).
But it can only be used to 60m (7 bars). So then it is a very limited watch with dive options. This means it is no technical dive computer, even not if you can choose multiple gases etc. I am also curious if there is no '505' if you do something that the watch does not expect as this is a real problem with other Suunto computers.

I have also seen the Garmin Descent, and what I like from Garmin is that it also can be used as technical dive computer including trimix and ccr.
And above water, you can use Garmin Coach. You get training programs for a goal you want to set with 'a real person'. And if you don't use the Coach, you get training suggestions. With Suunto you have to pay another 290 to get this on your watch.

My Garmin descent has been to 70m depth on my wrist in warm waters to see if it was still tracking my heartrate. But this will not be possible with the Suunto one.

Another thing I am worried about is the depth sensor. I have a D5 which showed me within 2 years after purchase UNDER water DURING a dive a 'fatal system error, contact your Suunto dealer', something I have never seen with HW or Shearwater. I got a new one under warrenty, but the did not give me a new screenprotector, so they want to save every cent they can.

The thing I do absolutely not like from the Garmin Descent is that it is quite hard to get it from dive modus to running or so. You need to do the manual, this means it is not really user friendly. Even not if you already have a Descent. I have tried to get the demo model in a shop to running suggestions.

So if there was a watch not too expensive that can mainly do running/cycling training including suggestions and also can work till 100m as divewatch (air/nitrox, so for real deep dives it will act as a bottomtimer, I don't want to see a '505' then every computer or watch is a nogo), I would think about it.

But at the moment I stick with Shearwater for diving and Garmin as a sportswatch.

I hope that in the futere there will be a great sportwatch which can be used as real dive watch without complex user manuals. So like a normal Garmin that you can choose diving like you can diving running/cycling/walking and then can put in parameters. And if you forget that it starts diving as soon as you are under 1m. with the last used parameters. But at surface that you don't see any tank symbols anymore and that it looks like a normal watch again.

 

[JohnNumberz]

update to my unboxing

 

[Howl Yes]

update to my unboxing

Suunto told me, in a chat, the compass in dive mode is coming in the next software release.

 

[GS-111]

Picked up a Suunto Ocean to see if it can replace my apple watch for day to day and allow me to use my daily driver watch to be a daily diver...

be kind, i'm new to this youtube thing!

Bought Suunto Ocean & Pod to replace an ageing Suunto D4i & SPG as a wristwatch sized dive computer and pressure gauge.

I don’t want the sports, GPS and health tracking stuff and so turned off everything like that I could find in the menus. It took about 30 minutes to load a few of the maps and I haven’t bothered to look at them since. I set the dual time for my home zone and on flying I used the “airplane mode”. On landing and connecting to my iPhone again the time zones changed as expected.

For diving I changed the safety stop to 4 mins (conservative from the default 3) and the start of dive depth to 1m (from the default 1.2m) and added a 100 Bar pressure alarm (a 50 Bar alarm is preloaded and quite rightly can’t be deleted). Unlike earlier RGBM Suunto computers it runs Bühlmann ZHL-16C with a default GF 40/85 and I see no reason for me to muck about with that.

I have now completed 21 dives on different Nitrox mixes. It takes just seconds to change the EAN value after checking the gas before a dive. The Pod connected every time and stayed connected without fail. At the end of dive the watch synced the dive log to my iPhone when they were close together again.

The battery lasted all week on a 19 dive liveaboard. The AMOLED screen is easy to read in poor viz and at night. The core information is just what you need to see and I found the coloured circles around the dial, which are duplication of data, not for me and turned them off before each dive. The choice of Tank Pressure or “other stuff” is easy to navigate with single button presses while diving. The alarms work well underwater and did not seem to bother other divers, and the safety stop count down and changes from NDL to Deco time and back again are seamless.

As a dive computer for Air/Nitrox on single tanks or manifold twins for divers who don’t use a compass (whether they carry it or not) it is excellent. So that is well over 90% of all dives and divers (though I'm sure that ratio is wrong for ScubaBoard readers). It is not suitable for side mount (independent twins), trimix or CCR and does not claim to be – and it is about half the price of computers that are.

 

[GS-111]

Suunto Ocean software version 2.36.18 provides a compass heading in dive mode. One more data item that can be cycled through in the lower part of the diving display by pressing the lower button.

The software loaded to my computer automatically (from version 2.34.42), when turned on next to my iPhone running the Suunto app. Happened in the background. Then took about 10 minutes to install on the device itself once I pressed the update option..

So, like any compass - you may not know where you are, but you do know which way you are facing in relation to magnetic north. And of course, don’t forget to ask a passing fish for this year’s declination value if you want to use it with a map.

 

[Diogao13]

Suunto Ocean is an incredible hardware, able to compete with the bests.

However, Suunto decided to make it an entry level watch using a very limited software. Suunto sells a lot of non-dive watches, their main business, their main focus.

I still hope, but it seems they will not deliver an advanced dive watch in the future.

 

[tonsofquestions]

Honestly, the features (and price) here make it seem more comparable to the new Fenix 8 and it's rec dive options than the much more powerful Descent.
Which fits with the "fitness watch for the most common use" theme.

Perhaps if it does well they'll expand to more extensive software package, but I suspect they want more confidence for sales.

 

[GS-111]

Suunto Ocean’s latest software (version 2.38.42 released Dec/2024) adds an optional compass view around the dive data. There is the functionality to set and follow a bearing in dive mode. Also, to set a declination value for your dive should you wish to change from the default of magnetic north.

You can still choose any value for the gradient factors for the Bühlmann ZHL-16 settings. However, there is now also a choice of pre-loaded suggestions for low-aggressive (45/95), medium (default 40/85) and higher conservatism (35/75) models. Which I think is a sensible addition.

As with the first update, the software loaded to my computer automatically (from version 2.36.18), when turned on next to my iPhone running the Suunto app. Happened in the background. Then took about 10 minutes to install on the device itself once I pressed the update option.

As I said in reviewing the first version of the software – this is a good dive computer for Air/Nitrox on single tanks or manifold twins for divers. It is not suitable for side mount (independent twins), trimix or CCR and does not claim to be – and it is about half the price of computers that are.

 

[JohnNumberz]