Medical
Power-efficient, long-lasting wearables: how Suunto improved system performance with Tuxera
Challenge
Suunto needed a dual-memory wearable architecture, but slow block erase operations on NOR flash limited responsiveness and forced regular transfers of logs to eMMC.
Solution
Integrated Tuxera embedded file system stack with out-of-the-box support for both NOR and eMMC, adding idle erase to remove the NOR erase bottleneck with minimal integration effort.
Result
NOR flash performance improved 80-100x, giving faster access to records without custom data-flow logic, on a modular platform built to carry into future watch generations.
Suunto, the Finnish maker of premium sports watches, set out to build a next-generation wearable platform that delivers a fast and responsive user experience, reliable access to performance data for aspiring and professional athletes, and a dual-memory architecture that balances power efficiency with data availability. The goal was to create a high-end platform that could support Suunto’s long product lifecycles while meeting the performance expectations of competitive users.
Navigating the complexities of dual-memory design
To meet its performance and power requirements, Suunto’s architecture used NOR flash for short-term, low-power storage of UI assets and recent logs, alongside eMMC for long-term data storage of content such as maps and old exercise records. That split introduced key challenges. Erase operations on NOR flash were slow, which affected responsiveness, and the data flow was complicated, requiring regular transfers of logs from NOR to eMMC.
These issues directly impacted user experience and introduced engineering overhead.
“We faced some challenges with the actual usage of NOR. For example, the erasing of chip blocks was quite slow with NOR flash memories. The idle erase support by Tuxera was really valuable for us in optimizing the data storage access performance.” Mikko Hiltunen, Head of Embedded Software at Suunto.
Accelerating performance with Tuxera’s embedded file system
Suunto selected Tuxera’s embedded file system stack to streamline storage operations and improve system responsiveness. The solution offered out-of-the-box support for both NOR and eMMC, along with idle erase support that improved NOR flash performance by 80-100x. Integration effort was minimal, which accelerated development timelines, and records became faster to access without the need for complex custom logic.
“The cost of developing our own file system stack is massive, in the range of 6-7 figures considering the development, implementation, testing and optimization. Once Tuxera solved our challenges, we wanted to keep the stack for next major platform rebuilds.” Mikko Hiltunen, Head of Embedded Software at Suunto.
Enabling a scalable and modular platform for future growth
With Tuxera’s technology at the core, Suunto launched a modular and scalable platform for its professional sports watch lineup. Simplified integration brought faster time to market, system performance improved, especially for data-heavy use cases, and engineering efficiency increased because teams could focus on user-facing features while Tuxera managed data flows. As a result, a high-performance wearable platform was developed to evolve with future product generations. This allowed Suunto to align platform design with performance and time-to-market goals.
Ready to speed up your wearable platform?
Storage should never decide how your product feels. Tuxera embedded file systems handle NOR flash, eMMC and the data flow between them, so your team can spend its time on the features users notice.
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