Review of Ambit2 Battery and Altimeter

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• published: 16 Feb 2014
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The most FAQ on the internet about the Ambit 2 is "Doe's the battery last long?" After owning the Ambit2 for 5 months I can say that the watch has never had a dead battery. It is quite easy to recharge in the field and in power saving mode with the GPS set on low accuracy I have a mountaineering activity running for 4 days, during the activity I stop on a remote jungle trail to plug the watch into a portable USB battery pack. Then on the 4th day of the trek the watch amazingly still has almost a full charge. I shut down the GPS at the 24hr mark of the activity and then 5 days after that at the top of a high-rise building in Manila show that the watch is still at 70% power. Suunto claim that if the GPS is not in use the battery can last for up to 30 days before it requires recharging. I recharge mine on average roughly every 2 weeks. We also expose a flaw with the watches altimeter, it seems to need calibrating much more than other altimeters and for some reason can be particularly inaccurate at the summit of higher mountains. Despite this annoying flaw I still have great confidence in it's reliability as a navigation tool. The first scene is at the top of the crater of Bulusan Volcano, Philippines. The parts of the video filmed in the jungle are on Palawan Island as we climb Mt Mantalingajan over 4 days. The final scene is on the rooftop of Millenium Plaza Hotel in Makati City, Manila. Visit my CHANNEL to see more reviews of this amazing MAN'S toy!!! https://www.youtube.com/user/bushchannel CAPTIONS TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO The watch says 1503, the Garmin GPS 1560m. There they are together. Fritz, by your records the summit is 1565m. 1565m is the correct altitude. The Garmin GPS is now reading 1564m and Suunto watch 1507m. The most frequently asked question on the internet about the Ambit 2 is does the battery last? Here I have a mountaineering activity which has been running for 12 hours and 14 minutes, the current altitude is 613m and I have 60% power left. Over the next couple of days I'll show you how you can have the watch running on low power and in fact have the same activity operating for 4 or 5 days. At this point in the activity the watch is indicating my speed is 2.7kmph, in a moment you'll see that changes to zero, thats because the GPS is shutting down intermittently to save power. The GPS is actually off at the moment thats why its saying zero speed. It's now about one minute later and you can see that the GPS is now reading a speed of 2.4kmph, bare in mind we are in the mountains in the jungle. Power is now 59% and this activity has now been going for 13 hours. So we're now packing up the campsite on the morning of day 3, the watch still has 46% power, hopefully you can read that it's very foggy. And up the top of the screen here you can see the pause icon, overnight I've paused the activity to save power, this activity I've got running is 22km distance, But I've still got 46% power and the activity is now started again. See down the bottom there the activity has now been going for 17 hours and 46 minutes. I've got the GPS running on low accuracy and because every night when we stop to camp I pause the watch again, that allows me to save power, during the night the watch will be using almost zero power. Hopefully you'll see that we will be able to continue this activity for 5-6 days. It's now about 30 minutes later and obviously the battery metre is not always accurate because now its saying 4% power but I'm charging it with this portable battery which I bought for $40, USB charger. It weighs about 50 grams. The battery symbol is flickering which means it's charging, its now 5% power, lets see if we can get a full 100% charge. It looks like the GPS is still running even whilst charging! Just got the watch in this plastic bag because its raining. We're in the jungle. Heres the good news in terms of Suunto watches, we have 100% power. The activity has now been going for 20 hours. Altitude is 1350m. Its raining!!! Its now 6:52am day 4. We're at the final campsite. Here's the info, its now 21 hours into the activity, during the night we had the watch paused again which again shuts down the GPS to save power. We have 94% power. Finally were at Mantalingajan summit, the activity has been running almost 24 hours. And the watch is reading altitude 1978m, 90% battery left. The Garmin GPS is actually reading a more accurate altitude again 2065m, almost exact. The 2 altimeters together, but to be honest I'm more impressed with the watch because it's a lot tougher, water proof and still has all that battery power. Activity stopped and saved. Its now 5 days later, on the rooftop of a hotel in Manila. The watch still has 70% power!!!