Navigation and pausing
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Reading through all the opinions here I guess it is really a matter of personal preference…so the ultimate solution? Let the users customize the buttons…everywhere. Hmm, Suunto?
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@ondrejm regarding aid stations, gos does not go that crazy and forgeting to unpause is more of a concern at ultras in my opinion. Stopping watch at traffic lights is just crazy
in my opinion, that actually inflates your actual pace, while you never know what your pace would be if you would not get that minute of rest. One’s pace is what a pace is including stops.Suunto Race S (Titanium Canary)
Suunto Vertical (Titanium Solar Forest) -
@aiv4r Well, my experience is that during a 100k race and like 6 aid stations, you easily get something like 2-3k extra just for sitting down at aid stations… if V2 is better in this respect, great.
As for the traffic lights, yes and no, it is an unintended pause, but it is just my habit and thing that I do almost instinctively…
Nevertheless, having the consistency in the watch handling is for sure important, isn’t it?
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@ondrejm said in Navigation and pausing:
So… just got a Vertical 2 and went for a first run with navigation. Love the map, the speed but…coming from Garmin I am used to be able to pause the activity from ANY screen. However, this seems to be impossible with the Vertical 2.
this was something i immediately found coming from garmin also. pausing/unpausing is the most basic action on a gps watch and i was so used to just doing it ‘blind’ when coming to a road crossing or whatever. with suunto it was this whole process where i had to look at my watch, exit the map screen (sometimes several button presses), then pause, then resume, go back into the map. it’s dangerous, even - takes your eyes off the road.
and this was on the race s, where they had the extra button!! thankfully they eventually updated it to not do that on the maps, but i believe the problem remain on the zonesense and some other suuntoplus apps. in any case, i’d already returned the watch (for this, and other reasons)
at the very least all this stuff should be configurable, but i think the overall problem is that suunto doesn’t have enough buttons on their watches, or at least their UX doesn’t work around that limitation successfully.
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Autopasue does not solve the problem?
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@tomahawk5000 i did try that but unfortunately not because:
a) autopause doesn’t seem to work great on any watch. unreactive, etc. it’s one of those things that even if it works well 90% of the time, it’s that 10% that becomes maddening. and if it’s just one button press who cares anyway!
b) when you finish a race or workout or whatever you won’t necessarily be stationary so autopause wouldn’t work, but you will want to pause your watch to end the activity. with suunto (in these situations) you have to faff around looking at your watch. -
@ondrejm said in Navigation and pausing:
Reading through all the opinions here I guess it is really a matter of personal preference…so the ultimate solution? Let the users customize the buttons…everywhere. Hmm, Suunto?
And just adding to this, maybe what would be initially easiest to implement is the choice:
- long press on the middle button brings the previous screen as it does now
- long press on the middle button brings up the given page menu (i.e. Navigation menu on the Map and Profile screen), cycling through screens is one-way only, top button pauses activity, bottom button zooms (map or profile)… this would please both camps I believe
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@ondrejm Generally, it all comes down to a fundamental flaw of Suunto watches – too few keys.
One real solution is the ability to customize them by the user, similar to configuring their own screens for custom sport modes.
Ideally, in addition to displaying information on the screen, at least some of the keys could also be configured. -
@maszop Agreed. However, the digital-crown enabled watches do have the same amount of controls as the Garmins do (crown movement up and down substitutes the up and down buttons on the left on higher-end Garmins). So for me, a shame that Suunto didn’t use digital crown for Vertical 2 or equipped Race 2 with a flashlight…
I also agree that the customization would be a solution, just a bit afraid we won’t get it anytime soon…
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I’m in the “don’t mind it / got used to it” camp, so not that relevant. But, coming from 5 button watches down to 3 I don’t want to ever go back to 5. Life is much simpler with 3.
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@ondrejm The crown has its drawbacks in certain conditions and that is why the Vertical does not have it.
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@aiv4r said in Navigation and pausing:
@ondrejm regarding aid stations, gos does not go that crazy and forgeting to unpause is more of a concern at ultras in my opinion. Stopping watch at traffic lights is just crazy in my opinion
Right. During a race the timer must never stop for two reasons - the risk of forgetting to unpause is very real, especially in longer races, and what I want to see is the race elapsed time which continues to tick even when I am at an aid station.
What Garmin has in “Ultra run” sport mode is an optional rest timer. The way it works is that when arriving at an aid station you press the lap button and a small popup comes on top of all data screens that shows elapsed “rest” time at the aid station. It reminds you to not linger and keep going, but it isn’t an actual pause - the recording continues and distance and pace, and other metrics are unaffected even if you forget to stop the rest timer. To finish the rest you press the lap button again. Then the rest is recorded as a lap, and it is clearly marked as rest when you look at the activity in Garmin Connect. I really wish Suunto had something like that.
I should say that I never pause my watch even during training runs. Instead I rely on Strava to automatically remove non-moving time.
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@sky-runner said in Navigation and pausing:
@aiv4r said in Navigation and pausing:
@ondrejm regarding aid stations, gos does not go that crazy and forgeting to unpause is more of a concern at ultras in my opinion. Stopping watch at traffic lights is just crazy in my opinion
Right. During a race the timer must never stop for two reasons - the risk of forgetting to unpause is very real, especially in longer races, and what I want to see is the race elapsed time which continues to tick even when I am at an aid station.
What Garmin has in “Ultra run” sport mode is an optional rest timer. The way it works is that when arriving at an aid station you press the lap button and a small popup comes on top of all data screens that shows elapsed “rest” time at the aid station. It reminds you to not linger and keep going, but it isn’t an actual pause - the recording continues and distance and pace, and other metrics are unaffected even if you forget to stop the rest timer. To finish the rest you press the lap button again. Then the rest is recorded as a lap, and it is clearly marked as rest when you look at the activity in Garmin Connect. I really wish Suunto had something like that.
I should say that I never pause my watch even during training runs. Instead I rely on Strava to automatically remove non-moving time.
The Suunto Ultra Walk/Run S+ will track run, walk and stopped times for you. Those are recorded in the app now as metrics as well. A solution that works for me.
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@Brad_Olwin said in Navigation and pausing:
The Suunto Ultra Walk/Run S+ will track run, walk and stopped times for you. Those are recorded in the app now as metrics as well. A solution that works for me.
I know you have suggested this before, but the goal is not to automatically record cumulative run, walk, and stop times, but rather keep me aware about each individual stop with the goal to not waste too much time at an aid station. The extra benefit of the rest timer function is to later see the stops as laps. The latter can be achieved with the regular laps function, but I usually don’t have lap specific data fields configured, especially with Suunto where I am limited to only 3 data screens. The fact that the rest timer shows a small popup with the elapsed timer is especially important. It is sort of similar to how Suunto shows the pause. But, of course, I’d never pause my watch during a race.
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@sky-runner The times are shown in the S+ app so you can have cumulative times in aid. I personally use it after the race as I try to be in and out of aid as quickly as possible.
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@maszop What are the drawbacks? I thought if you just use it as a button its the same like the middle button on Vertical. Or is it not?
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@VoiGAS Several layers of clothing, thick gloves, etc. Buttons are much more practical in this case.
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@maszop So the buttons on the Vertical are working different than the ones of the Race? Sorry, I never used a Vertical and really don’t know
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@VoiGAS said in Navigation and pausing:
@maszop So the buttons on the Vertical are working different than the ones of the Race? Sorry, I never used a Vertical and really don’t know
the point is, that with a rotating crown, the crown is used exclusively to zoom the map.
Something pretty much impossible, in winter with multiple sleeves and gloves. So the map will either zoom unintentionally from contact with clothes or difficult to operate with gloves.
So me and others cannot use the crown in these cases and prefer a button-only watch.
