Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]

Audaxjoe

@GiPFELKiND I more or less have I went across Spain early this year and missed one region and ended up with a black map ‍️ Trying to make sure I don’t make the same mistake again.

But there must be a better way of selecting region… A map you can just click regions on maybe.

However in the grand scheme of things I can see why it isn’t prioritised.

Egika

@pilleus yes, you can download the federal state of Sachsen in a whole.
Very easy.
But otherwise I agree and Suunto is currently looking at different ways to select the maps to load.

Shrek3k

@pilleus the circle around the location seems nice-ish … but as I prepare my vacation at home it does not help me that much … so I had to learn a lot about the naming convention if some European nations.
The German maps are mostly downloadable as compelt federal states, which is rather easy for a german (most probably not for non-germans who won’t know the difference between Saarland and Schleswig-Holstein). Only a few regions are aub-divided, probably because of the terrain etc. But I think, too, that a graphical selection on a map would be helpful … for each nation.

soisan

@pilleus said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

The selection of map sections is still a challenge. In Germany, I can’t download any of the federal states in their entirety.

The truth is that you can download 13 of the 16 federal states in their entirety… Only Baden-Württemberg, Nordrhein-Westfalen and Bayern are divided in smaller parts…

pilleus

@soisan

The problem is that it’s a challenge to find the maps in an unknown area or country. Why is there no possibility to search for a city? Or to download the area the cursor is set on a map? Or the GPS is located?

For me it’s a poor solution to handle the administration of needed maps.

pilleus

My bike tour is planned from Regensburg via Salzburg, Innsbruck, Reschensee, Meran, Gardasee, Verona to Venedig.

The total area is shown on the map I attached out of Suunto app.

Tyrol (if I choose it) is shown as a part of the route. Why not the names of all needed parts of the map around Tyrol so that I can download these maps without searching for the correct names? These parts are provided by Suunto, but I need to search and find out the correct names to download.

Or just the option to download all needed parts of the map shown on the screenshot?

Egika

@pilleus yes, there are different ways to define map regions to download.
Tiles, circles, rectangles on a map, maps needed for a planned route and others.

As written above: Suunto is currently working on this.

soisan

@pilleus Why are you telling me all this? I just pointed out that the mentioned part of your post was totally wrong.

Stefano M64

@Egika said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

Suunto is currently working on this.

I don’t meant to be boring, but hope that someone is also working on checking the map accuracy.
As already reported, the SA seems to be using a layer of OSM that contains a lot of artefacts:
SA on left and, OSM with “Cycle map” layer on the centre (showing both the same wrong feature), and the OSM with “Tracestrack Topo” on the right, which shows the correct topography:

The Dolomite area is full of this kind of errors (read: fake depressions), which are present only on the “Cycle Map” OSM layer. In some places these artefacts completely distort the real topography, causing the maps shown by SA to be wildly inaccurate.

pavel.samokha

I’ll quickly comment on some raised issues, but if you want to continue discussion on any of it - please create separate topic.

Limited update schedule. Due to cost/resource/validation reasons. Known and should be improved in the future.
Inconvenience of region selection for some countries, especially as a destination. Known, hopefully will have graphical way to select in the future.
Elevation contours is not perfect in some places? This is a complex subject. Suunto uses globally available digital elevation models (DEM) for watch maps, Suunto App uses Mapbox data (no idea what exact elevation model do they use, but anyway it’s not related to watch maps updates). While improving elevation model (specifically for route building) is important topic we’re unlikely to have resources to verify and fix specific places everywhere in the world.

Again, please here comments only related to the update. If you have any suggestions or issues you want to report - it should be in the dedicated topic, existing or new.

pilleus

@pavel.samokha

Sorry for capturing your thread with this discussion. May be you can move it to a new topic. 🫣

Stefano M64

@pavel.samokha said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

This is a complex subject. Suunto uses globally available digital elevation models (DEM) for watch maps, Suunto App uses Mapbox data (no idea what exact elevation model do they use, but anyway it’s not related to watch maps updates).

it is definitely odd for me that watch and SA have different map sources, since they are parts of the same ecosystem: a Suunto user draw a route in SA and then send it to the watch, but nobody can tell if the maps shown by the two (watch and SA) are the same in that area … WOW(1)!

While improving elevation model (specifically for route building) is important topic we’re unlikely to have resources to verify and fix specific places everywhere in the world.

none at Suunto cares if thousand of his costumers by opening the SA will find wrong maps in one of the most frequented area along the Alps … WOW(2)!

I don’t think that this is good for the Suunto’s reputation, but if this the policy of the company I surrender, will no more bother the forum about that.

Sorry for the OT.

Egika

@Stefano-M64 said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

@pavel.samokha said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

While improving elevation model (specifically for route building) is important topic we’re unlikely to have resources to verify and fix specific places everywhere in the world.

none at Suunto cares if thousand of his costumers by opening the SA will find wrong maps in one of the most frequented area along the Alps … WOW(2)!

Sorry for the OT.

Still OT, but this is clearly not what Pavel wrote.
Not caring for map accuracy in a busy place in the Alps is definitely not the same as not being able to fix specific places everywhere in the world.
Please don’t reframe the statement into something else you can then be upset about.
Thx!

Stefano M64

@Egika said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

Still OT, but this is clearly not what Pavel wrote.

I apologize, didn’t want to be unkind or “reframe” what Pavel stated.

the plain fact is that the maps provided by Mapbox are proved to be (very) wrong in some areas and that is - in my opinion - a problem for Suunto and its costumers. We are no more in the old times when maps were drawn by hand and then often very approximate, nowdays people are used to completely rely on them, wrong maps should not exist.

SergioB

Hy everyone! Is there a way to know at which interval contour lines are plotted for each map zoom level?
I mean, e.g. at the 1km zoom level of the map, are contour lines plotted every 25m or evey 50m? Same applies when I change zoom level.
This could be helpful to roughly get some elevations in the nearby of where I’m hiking, e.g. to decide the most appropriate path to follow

thanasis

Hi all,

I seing some deviations on the contour lines on the map with the reality and I digged a bit about it.
It seems that the app (and the watch) at times, has inconsistent data with the current OpenStreetMap data in terms of altitude indicators.

As an example I checked on the measurement of a POI I am doing some construction work and I know the altitude because of the topographic measurement being 504m.

Suunto Vertical calculated it (biking there) at 513m,

OpenstreetMap on the Suunto app shows the contour being ±530 (see screenshot)

OpenstreetMap on their site shows a different picture with the contour lines being significantly different to suunto’s (and strava) data and quite accurate to ~504m

I then tested the measurement of my Apple Watch ultra at the topographic point which was spot on at 505m (on my wrist)

Mff73

@thanasis
As far as I know, contour lines are a dedicated layer on each and every map, and the source of its data can be multiple.
Suunto uses map box maps, based on OSM data for the content but maybe not for the contour lines (aka altitude sources), OSM itself doesn’t have these data and is drawing contour lines from…
Some offline maps used by some other apps are using third party altitude data to draw their own contour lines (like openandromaps using sonny lidar data).
After that, there is the drawing and the data used behind for the routing and calculation…

thanasis

@Mff73 said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

@thanasis
As far as I know, contour lines are a dedicated layer on each and every map, and the source of its data can be multiple.
Suunto uses map box maps, based on OSM data for the content but maybe not for the contour lines (aka altitude sources), OSM itself doesn’t have these data and is drawing contour lines from…
Some offline maps used by some other apps are using third party altitude data to draw their own contour lines (like openandromaps using sonny lidar data).
After that, there is the drawing and the data used behind for the routing and calculation…

OK thanks for that. In this case the map box maps are somehow off . I also checked measurements in other POIs of the city and indeed that data seem a bit off as well.

so i guess that there isn’t much that one can do or expect in this regard right?

Stefano M64

@thanasis said in Maps Partial Update Rollout, July 2025 [Limited Countries]:

OK thanks for that. In this case the map box maps are somehow off.

so i guess that there isn’t much that one can do or expect in this regard right?

Sadly they are not as good as one would expect, and being one of the most prominent features of the new models, that’s very disappointing… inaccurate maps should not exist in 2025