Suunto t6c Heart Rate Monitor

by Suunto

Product Features

• Comprehensive physiological analysis on PC
• Real-time Training Effect and EPOC
• Altimeter for hill and attitude performance
• Customizable screen layout for individual information needs
• Suunto Comfort Belt for improved fit and measurement

Product Description

T6C Your personal sports laboratory - Suunto t6c is a professional-grade tool for monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing your training. Reaching your goals can be tough. It takes the right tools, knowledge, and guidance to be able to improve with each training session. Use your Suunto t6c and Suunto Comfort Belt with the included Suunto Training Manager PC software to get a detailed analysis of seven physiological parameters, with accuracy previously available only in sports laboratories. This detailed analysis breaks down nearly every aspect of your training so you can make adjustments of how to train more efficiently in the future. Easily check your real-time Training Effect for an accurate measure of how hard your body's working, and quickly adjust your workout as needed. The Suunto t6c also gives you a read-out of your EPOC - your excess post-exercise oxygen consumption level - which lets you measure and adjust your training loads to ensure that your body is safely getting the most from each workout. Use the altimeter to monitor your climbing or hill performance to know how your body will react when training at various altitudes. Securely pair your Suunto t6c and Suunto Comfort Belt - through interference-free digital ANT transmission - to monitor your real-time heart rate and calorie consumption, or pair it with an optional Suunto POD to measure your real-time speed, distance, or cadence. Reaching your goals can be easier - analyze your workouts with pinpoint accuracy and develop an optimal training regimen with the Suunto t6c.

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• ASIN: B004N5DN0W
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #103,064 in Sports & Outdoors (See Top 100 in Sports & Outdoors)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An HRM with many capabilities, and just a few minor setbacks, December 19, 2008

By 

Mark Witt (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suunto t6c Heart Rate Monitor (Sports)

I've had this HRM since Summer of 2008 and it's been a great fitness tool. I purchased two of the accesories for the watch, the suunto food pod (later edition) and the suunto bike pod. Both pods have worked flawlessly in sync with the T6c and I highly recommend them if you jog or mountain bike. The T6c has its pros and cons, i'll jump right in and explain them:

Pros:
- able to browse through 6 settings during your workout(For example, I use duration, Current Heart Rate, Calories burned in one screen and Distance, Speed, Avg Speed in the 2nd screen (using either one of the pods)). You can also browse to the Time interchangeably with the two aforementioned screens.
- amazing graphical software (Firstbeat ATHLETE) is available for purchase and compatible with the T6c. Also a con, which i'll explain.
- comfortable fitting heart rate strap makes it hardly noticeable during exercises
- Workouts can easily be uploaded to PC with included USB cable link.

Cons
- The backlight is useless. If you browse through the suunto forums, you'll find the backlight gives many people trouble. For my watch, it doesn't work PERIOD. If you workout at night and need to view the watch at night frequently, you may want to reconsider this watch if that is one of your purchasing factors.
- The software that comes with the watch Suunto Training Manager is subpar in my opinion. You can view line graphs and all of your uploaded stats, which is nice, but the layout and interface of the program is sloppy and unorganized. Firstbeat ATHLETE however, is beautiful compared to STRM. It has beautiful graphs and many combinations of results you want to see. The downside is that this program costs 80 dollars! There's a free trial that you should try out and see for yourself how much better it is. Hopefully Suunto will do some updates on their standard software!
- There are times where the HRM strap will have trouble transmitting to the watch. For example, i'll get a flatline during workouts where it won't output my current heart rate. I did find a solution that works well. Use electrode gel before you put it on your chest, this helps with the readings (much better than spit or water).
- Cost. The pods are $50-$100 = $150. The Firstbeat ATHLETE program is $80. The watch is about $300. That's $530 i've spent! Ugh.. Still, it's been worth it!

In all, as a prior owner of the Polar F6, i'm blown away by this heart rate monitor. I have yet to try the GPS pod, but i'm a little nervous as many have had trouble with signals. Since I have the food and bike pod, however, I won't really need it. I love the open endedness of the watch, and how you can customize what you results you want to see. It's definitely a breakthrough in heart rate monitors. Now if they can just fix that stupid backlight it'll be nearly perfect!

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the two best HRMs on the market, January 21, 2009

By 

Jan Musil (Coopersburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Suunto t6c Heart Rate Monitor (Sports)

As I stated in the title I consider the Suunto T6c one of the two best HRMs in the market. The other great HRM is Polar RS800cx. And you may have hard time choosing one over the other. That is why I ended up using both in my training and racing.

Here are few things you will love on the T6c:

1. Solid build that can withstand pretty good amount of abuse during training and racing
2. The HR strap is extremely comfortable
3. Watch display can be customized to let you display what you need most during the training or races. There are two displays with three lines each that you can configure. Two top lines are fixed and on the third line you can cycle between various workout values you pre-define. Very flexible for any workout or race
4. It is very easy to 'program' simple guided workouts in the watch even in the last minute before you start training
5. Availability of EPOC/TE on the watch during the workout. Note that the EPOC/TE requires you to setup your parameters correctly in the watch to get benefit out of it - parameters like VO2max, HR max, activity level. If you are having hard time determining these values I suggest you to take advantage of Suunto Sports discussion forums (Google them). People there will be happy to help you.
6. The watch is capable of automatic switch between various pods - from bike pod to run pod. This is especially important for triathlete or multisport athlete. Not so much for cyclist or runner.

Things you may not like as much:
1. The Suunto software that comes with the watch while sufficient to analyze the workouts is not as flexible as software from other HRM manufacturers.
2. The back light flickers when you switch it on during the exercise mode. Not a big deal and you can get used to it, but it may throw you off at first.
3. The guided workouts have only following timers - warm-up, interval 1/2 and countdown. These do not work well for more complex workouts like ladder intervals. So you will need to remember how to do the workout or keep notes with you. Again not really a deal breaker.
4. The HR reading will not work in water - but you can work around this with the Suunto Memory Belt and later merge the memory belt log with watch log. Which may be important if you keep track of you lap times.

If you look for software coach function (same that is built into the Suunto T4/T4c) you will need to purchase FirstBeat Athlete software for about 80 USD. It is a good investment ad the software provides additional views and analysis capabilities not available in Suunto software.

If you want to see comparison of the T6c and RS800cx you can view it here. It is way too long to post it here.

[Well amazon does not allow the URLs in reviews - so I suggest that you Google this: "Polar RS800cx or Suunto T6c that is the question"]

I like to use the T6c for running training and triathlon racing. I use the watch with Suunto Foot Pod and Suunto Road Bike Pod.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Works great and my workouts are better, February 22, 2009

By 

Dr. Natural "naturopathic physician" (Santa Fe, NM) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Suunto t6c Heart Rate Monitor (Watch)

I have had the fusion for about a week now - perhaps it's premature to write a review, but I can't find any sticking points to keep me from loving this watch/HRM.

I am not a "pro" or even a "die hard", but I wanted to take my athleticism to a new level. I had dinked around with several Polar models, and even a Nike because that's what the local running store sells. It took me a long, long time and alot of reading to get up the courage to enter the market at this price point, but I gotta say I am glad I did.

I was considering the Forerunner but the idea that you had to charge it every couple of days was off-putting. Still, the Suunto was a big investment, especially given the ambiguous reviews here on Amazon. I swallowed hard and did it eyes wide open.

You know something? Not one single negative thing listed in these reviews happened. The backlight isn't that bad - I can read the watch clearly at night in bed. The software isn't that bad - I did buy the FirstBeat program and I like it better, but not to the detriment of the equipment. How much information can you really use? I'm not in that league. There is a seamless connection between all the pods I use (several at the same time if you include the heart rate belt - how DO they get that thing to be so accurate and so THIN and comfortable???). And when I run on the treadmill I can check my heartrate with the handgrips and they match to the beat.

There is only one minor caveat - I am pretty good with technology but not good at reading the instructions. I got stuck and decided to call customer support and was on hold for about 15 minutes - long enough for me to read the instructions (duh!) and solve the problem easily myself and hang up before somebody answered. But I knew that might be the reality before I bought the watch and you should too. Still, I got everything right without help.

And here is an irony - it's the watch and the excitment about going to the next level that inspires me to run even more, rather than vice versa. See, I was having a blast training hard but when I actually got to LOOK at what was going on, it turned out I wasn't nearly as efficient as I thought I was. So, I go home now, scope it out, and adjust my workout according to the results, and see what happens. I go in this stepwise fashion and my workouts are better.

All in all, it was really worth it to me. I hope I didn't jinx it by writing such a glowing review so soon, but in my experience, if things are going to go wrong with electronics they go wrong pretty fast. So far they haven't and I don't expect they will.

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