For trail running and diving: The Suunto "Ocean" should master both
28/1/2025
Translation: machine translated
If you're active in sports and like diving, you know the drill: You need a dive computer as well as a sports watch. And you quickly accumulate more technology than you would like. Suunto wants to solve this problem with the "Ocean". And offers a fully-fledged diving and sports watch in one.
Diving computers and sports watches used to be relatively different gadgets. The former are primarily used to ensure your safety under water by showing you the depth, duration and possible decompression times. They also warn you if you are ascending or descending too quickly.
Modern diving electronics score points with additional functions such as wireless monitoring of air and other breathing gases, dive profiles and apps for an electronic logbook.
Suunto "Ocean" wins ISPO Award
Diving computers had little in common with sports watches that monitor your heart rate, athletic performance and recovery. This is now changing drastically
At the international boat show "Boot" in Düsseldorf, manufacturers such as Suunto and Garmin presented new watches that combine sports and diving functions. And thus appeal not only to occasional divers (like other watches with diving functions, such as the Apple Watch), but also to ambitious recreational divers.
With the "Ocean", the Finnish manufacturer has now succeeded in combining a high-quality diving watch and a modern sports watch in a single case. A few weeks earlier, the "Ocean" was honoured with an award at the international sports trade fair ISPO in Munich.
Source: Siri Schubert
"The 'Ocean' brings together Suunto's 90 years of experience with dive computers and our 25 years of experience with sports watches," says Filip Skrlec, Marketing Manager for the DACH region in an interview at Boot. The sports watch software corresponds to the Suunto "Race S", which, in contrast to the Suunto "Race", is said to offer improved heart rate measurement.
The sports watch features include 95 different sports profiles, offline maps, multi-band GPS, recovery measurement - in short, everything that modern sports watches currently offer. On the outside, the watch is suitable for everyday use, sports and diving thanks to its sapphire crystal, stainless steel and Amoled display. It is water-resistant to 100 metres. The vibration alarm warns you if you surface or submerge too quickly.
The battery is designed for up to 60 hours of diving. According to the manufacturer, one battery charge lasts for 50 hours during sports with GPS tracking.
New dive function shows underwater routes
One new feature that Marketing Manager Filip Skrlec particularly emphasises is the ability to create 3D routes of the dive. "The function is still in the beta phase and will be continuously improved and further developed," he admits.
However, it should already be possible to create routes of the dive in the app using the GPS data of the entry and exit as well as the depth profile and distance measurement. This is useful for photographers, for example, who can use the route to better document where they have photographed certain marine life.
Source: Siri Schubert
In addition, the "Ocean" offers a range of dive modes for scuba diving and freediving as well as wireless tank pressure monitoring (gas integration) with the so-called PODs, which are attached directly to the tanks. The watch can be set to different breathing gas mixtures. If you want to programme the watch even more individually, it has a Bühlmann 16 diving algorithm with gradient factors and configurable ascent profiles.
The "Ocean" is available in the colours black and sand. It comes with various 22-millimetre wristbands that you can adjust to your arm, wetsuit or drysuit thanks to different lengths.
Header image: Siri Schubert
Siri Schubert
Senior Editor
Siri.Schubert@digitecgalaxus.chResearch diver, outdoor guide and SUP instructor – I love being in, on and around water. Lakes, rivers and the ocean are my playgrounds. For a change of perspective, I look at the world from above while trail running or flying drones.