Suunto t3c Heart Rate Monitor and Fitness Trainer Watch Black Polished
You’re sweating, your heart is racing, and all your hard work is starting to pay off. What’s your next move? If you’re smart, you’ll take the guesswork out of your training with the Suunto t3c heart rate monitor watch. Bundled with a Suunto comfort belt, the t3c lets you accurately monitor your real-time heart rate, average heart rate, and calorie consumption. The watch also tracks your real-time Training Effect, a quick and accurate measurement of how hard your body is working at any given moment. By knowing your Training Effect, you’ll enjoy a more intimate understanding of your body’s workout “sweet spot,” an essential tidbit if you want to achieve your targets without setting yourself back by under- or over-training.
The Training Effect works intuitively: The watch first notes the info from your personal fitness profile, and then analyzes your physiological progress and translates the data into a simple one-to-five scale. For example, if you want to improve your aerobic fitness at a moderate tempo, you should exercise until your TE meter reads between 3.0 and 3.9, two to four times per week. To improve your aerobic condition more rapidly–but without the risk of over-training–you should push yourself harder once or twice per week, so your TE meter reads 4.0 to 4.9, with a few recovery sessions in the TE 1.0 to 2.0 range. The Training Effect is relative to each individual. While a novice runner might achieve a TE of 4.0 on a four-mile jog, a professional runner might have to complete an uphill marathon to get the same reading. In other words, both runners will have to exercise hard to achieve a TE of 4.0.
The Suunto t3c also offers interference-free digital ANT transmission, making it easy to pair your heart rate monitor with the HR belt and an optional Suunto training pod. Training pods are small units that attach to such items as a running shoe or a bike to calculate your speed, distance, and even pedal revolutions per minute while you exercise. Pods are ideal for athletes who aren’t satisfied with half-hearted training efforts, but really want to monitor their training routines down to the last detail. Finally, the t3c includes a training logbook that compiles your progress and personal stats. You can even conduct a more thorough analysis of your workouts by using the Suunto Training Manager Lite software.
Specifications:
- Color: Polished black
- Stopwatch: Yes
- Max number of split times in memory: 50
- Timers (interval and warm-up): Yes
- Average heart rate: Real time
- Training effect: Real time
- Calories: Real time
- ANT digital coded signal: Yes
- Memory capacity: 15 logs
- HR limits and HR zones: Yes
- Suunto heart rate belt: Compatible, sold separately
- Suunto comfort belt: Included
- Suunto memory belt: Compatible, sold separately
- Water resistance: 100 feet
- Selectable metric/imperial units: Yes
- Menu-based user interface: Yes
- Dot-matrix display: Yes
- Backlight type: Electro-luminescent display
- User-replaceable strap: Yes
- Software: Suunto Training Manager Lite
- Low battery warning: Yes
- User-replaceable battery: Yes
- Button lock: Yes
- Compatible with pods: Yes
- Watch: 12/24 hour
- Calendar clock: Yes
- Dual time: Yes
- Daily alarms: 1
Manufacturer’s Warranty
Two-year warranty
About Suunto
Suunto was founded in 1936 by outdoors man and a keen orienteering enthusiast, Tuomas Vohlonen, who had long been bothered by a problem: the inaccuracy of traditional dry compasses and their lack of steady needle operation. Being an engineer with an inventive turn of mind, he discovered and patented the production method for a much steadier needle, better readings, and a new level of accuracy. By 1950 the company was exporting compasses to over 50 countries around the world, including Canada and the United States. In 1952, Helsinki was hosting the Olympic Games, and the torches carried to light the Olympic flame were Suunto products. The next step was improving the stability and accuracy of marine compasses. The first marine compass, the Suunto K-12, was launched onto the market in 1953. In 1957, Suunto started manufacturing hypsometers, which measure the height of trees.
In the 1960s, the compass range grew further and Suunto introduced its first diving compass–initiated by the divers themselves. A British sports diver attached a Suunto compass to his wrist and found that the device also worked underwater. Thanks to his feedback and initiatives, the new business category was found. Suunto’s exports and business grew steadily and Suunto then focused on combining its strength in precision mechanics with new skills in electronics. Accuracy, reliability, and ruggedness have been Suunto’s key values from the very beginning of the company history.
Today, Suunto is a leading designer and manufacturer of sports instruments for training, diving, mountaineering, hiking, skiing, sailing, and golf. True to its roots, Suunto is today the world’s biggest compass manufacturer. Prized for their design, accuracy and dependability, Suunto sports instruments combine the aesthetics and functionality of watches with sport-specific computers that help athletes at all levels analyze and improve performance. Headquartered in Vantaa, Finland, Suunto employs more than 500 people worldwide and distributes its products to nearly 60 countries. The company is a subsidiary of Helsinki-based Amer Sports Corporation with the sister brands Wilson, Salomon, Atomic, Precor, and Mavic.
User Ratings and Reviews
4 Stars Great, good looking and full of features
I bought this product because of the many features it had, compared with fx Nike’s heart rate monitors, but also because it looks good! I haven’t been disappointed. The features are really good, reasonably easy to use and especially the ability to view workout summaries 6 month back, ave. heart rate, calories burned etc. are really useful and a good incentive to do better.
I haven’t bought any of the pods, so I do not know about the GPS functionality, nor the food pod.
The only minus I see is the durability of the screen. It does easily get scratched, but so far its a minus I am ok living with taken the price and functionality into consideration.
4 Stars Great!
I used this HRM for past 2 days in spin class. Picked up my HR in a studio with many people using HRM (mostly Polar) without any issues. I love the feature of having bars which shows HR in BMP and the TE. I have 2 Polar which were waste of my money (see my other reviews for my woes with Polar). I have a reliable Timex but it didn’t show HR in %. Usually in spin class, intructors give target HR in %. So I was looking for a HRM which showed in %. Love this watch. I am keeing my fingers cross that I’d still love this watch in 1-2 yr time.
I was actually going to buy the T1C but the orange color was too tacky for me. The ladies version of T3C is in green. I preferred and got the brown (men’s version) which looked almost black.
3 Stars Good watch, easeiy scratchable
Good watch, easily scratchable though. After a day, the metal attach was already scratched.
But for the rest, just fine. The problem with those watches, is durability. We’ll see.
Resident of the rest of the worl, take care for duty fee, they are not cheap.
3 Stars great look, high maintenance
Although this certainly has to be the best looking heart rate monitor on the market it is a little “cumbersome” when it comes to sizing and figuring out it’s features. You have to cut it to fit your wrist (hopefully it fits well it is unsettling to cut your new band) and then reassemble…it is not as easy to access information as a simple Timex/Nike HRM and the instructions can be a little tedious. My opinion is that if you are looking for a visually appealing HR monitor as your first priority and user friendly as your second then this one is fabulous…if your desire includes a different set of priorities I might reconsider.
4 Stars great on the inside, cheap on the outside
I would actually like to give this watch a 3.5 star rating because of the value, but the watch itself deserves 4 stars.
THE GOODs: very accurate HR monitor. has logs to track performance. trainer mode is great at improving performance (I’ve been using it for about 6 months now and much prefer it to heart rate zone method). very light and non-obtrusive. chest strap is the most comfortable i’ve ever worn
THE BADs: dial is extremely difficult to see in any low light conditions and with an added face/dial shield (xtra $12), becomes difficult to see in bright sunlight (which is most of the time here in San Diego) - virtually impossible if wearing polarized glasses. backlighting is way way underpowered. like most other readers, i felt the quality of materials on this particular style/model to be really cheap - face is plastic that seems xtremely scratch prone, band is cheap feeling semi flexible/hard rubber that looks cool on promotional ads but in real life looks and feels kinda cheap and also scratch prone. In order to sync it with your computer to track your performance for more than a couple weeks you need to buy a Suunto PC Pod for minimum $75 + shipping!!! just to be able to sync with my computer. Most of these negs are mere annoyances but do require a high level of patience and understanding to overcome.
All in all a good HR monitor watch but not impressed on the value. If I were to buy it again, I would definitely get a different style but would stick with the t3c model. And just do yourself a favor and order the protective face shield at the same time you order this watch cause you’re not gonna want to risk scratching it up permanently.
