Suunto

In 1932 the company's founder, Tuomas Vohlonen, a surveyor by profession, applied for a patent for a unique method of filling and sealing a lightweight compass housing made entirely of celluloid and filled with liquid to dampen the needle and to protect it from shock and wear due to excessive motion.

In 1935, Vohlonen was granted a patent on his design, and it went into mass production a year later as the wrist-mount Suunto M-311. Although it was not the first portable liquid-filled compass, Vohlonen's design was compact and lightweight, enabling it to be easily worn on the wrist. With minor changes, the M-311 was later adopted by the Finnish Army as the M-34.

The company was entered in the trade register on February 4, 1936.

During World War II, Suunto introduced a compact liquid sighting compass, the M/40, for artillery officers and other users needing a precision instrument for measuring an azimuth. The company grew rapidly after the war, supplying compasses and other navigational instruments to both civilian and military markets.

After Tuomas Vohlonen died in 1939, his widow Elli Vohlonen ran the company until 1952, when she sold it to Paavo Kajanne, Aarne Mahnala and Veli-Jussi Hölsö, who also owned Redox Oy. At the very end of 1970s they sold the company to Niemistö family, and in the beginning of 1990s Sponsor Oy bought the company and listed it in a stock exchange in 1995. In 1999 Amer Sports bought the company.

In 1996, Suunto Oy acquired Recta SA, a Swiss compass manufacturer.

In the late 1930s Suunto Oy was located in the backyard building of Laivanvarustajankatu 8, Ullanlinna, Helsinki. In 1959 Suunto moved to Itämerenkatu 52, Ruoholahti, Helsinki. In 1969 the company moved to Juvan teollisuuskatu 8, Juvanmalmi, Espoo. Suunto Oy's headquarters moved to its current location in Valimotie 7, Tammisto, Vantaa in 2001.

Compass products

Suunto makes a wide variety of magnetic compasses, including the A and M series for general navigation, the Arrow series of compasses for competitive orienteering and KB (KäsiBussoli, engl. hand bearing compass), MB (=MatchBox) and MC (=Mirror Compass) lines for those requiring a professional-quality hand bearing compass. Suunto also produces the Recta lines of compasses, including DT baseplate series based on Suunto designs, the DS series of mirror sighting compasses, the Recta Clipper micro compasses, and the famous DP 'matchbox' series of military compasses invented by Recta in 1941. In 2009, Suunto discontinued the Swiss-made Recta DO series, moving all remaining production of Recta compasses from Biel, Switzerland to its production facility in Vantaa, Finland.

After acquiring Recta AG in 1996, Suunto incorporated the Recta Turbo 20 global needle system technology originally patented by Recta SA into many of its own compass designs.

Since 1967, successors of M-40 have been offered as KB line, which consists of high-quality hand-bearing surveying compasses and inclinometers that are accurate to fractions of a degree. Traditionally made of a solid block of machined aluminum, each KB compass contains a magnetized dial with calibration markings printed along its outer edge. A magnifying lens (KB-14) or prismatic sight (KB-77) is mounted at one end of the instrument with a crosshair providing a view of the disc, containing both forward and reciprocal bearings. In operation, the user divides their field of vision with the instrument, using the device's lens or prism to precisely measure the bearing of the object in view. Suunto has since discontinued production of the KB-77. A newer model, the KB-20, utilizes a housing composed of high-impact plastic to allow the compass to float if dropped into water.

Global Needle System

The Suunto Global Needle System acquired from Recta as the Turbo-20 needle design, the conventional magnetized compass needle is not used. Instead, the compass needle and magnet are built as separate units functioning independently from each other. The needle is fixed at its pivot by means of a double bearing, while the magnet rotates on a pivot with its own jeweled bearing. When attracted by the Earth's magnetic field, the separate compass magnet absorbs the vertical force of the magnetic field, so that the inclination angle of the magnetic field (magnetic dip) cannot tilt the needle, and the needle can no longer move in a vertical plane. This provides accurate readings of magnetic north in all magnetic zones of the world. The design also permits accurate readings with the compass tilted at angles of up to 20 degrees, while the use of a strong magnet causes the needle to settle extremely quickly, facilitating fast and accurate bearing/course measurements. This allows a user to obtain fairly accurate compass bearings even when moving, such as when hiking or traveling in a canoe.