Suunto Lumi - a piece of junk

When my old Finnish built Suunto X3 HR watch/altimeter died this spring after years of abuse I decided to buy another and the Suunto Lumi seemed to fit the bill, offering all the functions I wanted.

Alas within a couple months the altimeter had started to go wrong (I was getting crazy readings on the altitude log). Suunto boast a 7 day repair service with free collection and delivery. In fact the collection and delivery ended up costing me 16 euros and the repair took nearly 3 weeks. The watch arrived this afternoon and it is a 'new unit' as replacement for the faulty one. But this one doesn't work either (same fault as the last one plus the compass is 110 degrees out and won't recalibrate). What kind of company would send you a new faulty watch as replacement for a old faulty watch? Clearly one with no internal quality control.

After some research on the net, I find out that "Lumi" and it's brother the "Core" are the first two Suunto models to be fabricated in China, further both are plagued by problems. Even the Suunto watch forum has posts from hundreds of disgruntled owners. Someone has even suggested a class law suit against Suunto as these products clearly do not work and from the frequency of many identical problems it may well be the Finnish design which is at fault and not the Chinese assembly (in fact the build quality appears excellent). I'm only on watch number 2, but some people have had upto 6 replacements and are yet to receive one which functions.

Apparently manufacture of the Lumi has been discontinued, but the masses of watches which have already been manufactured are still being sold to an unsuspecting public. The Core has undergone some internal changes to try to reduce the number of problems but there are still loads of the older watches out there with retailers as Suunto didn't do a recall, so buyer beware.

I'm going to send mine back to the retailer I bought it from - facewest - and hope that they will refund me. This is definitely a product that doesn't do what it says on the tin.

Thinking of buying a watch/altimeter? I'd give the Suunto Lumi and the Suunto Core a miss.