Ambit4

chrish

Absolutely! I would totally give up any number of features on the S9 related to training, etc if a second watch/os/firmware/model was necessary to produce those features and keep the watch performing up to Suunto internal benchmarks. Don’t know that I would want it to be an Ambit3 Vertical or Traverse rehash, both had pretty meh GPS accuracy and poor battery life. But yea, something along those lines.

My dream watch doesn’t need a HR monitor. When I had my SSWHR Baro, I frequently didn’t keep it tight enough while hiking/backpacking for it to get a good read anyway.

My dream watch core features would be the following…

Good to Great GPS for navigation accuracy. If it can do it w/ less accuracy fine, but every GPS watch that I’m aware of requires the watch to go into ‘best-ish’ mode when navigating.
POI/Waypoint navigation as a crow flies
POI/Waypoint navigation ‘on route’
Route navigation
Elevation profile and navigation (of the route)
Elevation profile and navigation (as a crow flies)
Altimeter, Barometer, and Storm Alarm
Bluetooth POI and route mgmt from my phone w/ onboard maps (no cellular connection required)
Typical ETA/ETE calculations when navigating
Sunrise/Sunset
Compass with bearing lock
Battery life on the order of an A3P or Coros, or better if we are wishing big and asking for something that’s not gonna happen

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some things if I sat here and pondered longer, but I can most likely take or leave almost everything else. That includes smartphone features, notifications, etc.

chrish

@André-Faria

totally agree, i think the A3P hardware could handle what is necessary and then some for what we are talking about here w/ regard to an Ambit4. But to @Brad_Olwin’s point, with the onboard HR monitor and all the stuff going on behind the scenes, and the totally overhauled OS that resides on the SSU/S-series watches over what was on the A3P, the A3P likely can’t handle all that’s going on. It was my understanding, and maybe I’m wrong, that with the Spartan platform and forward, Suunto moved to a JavaScript based or Java based OS…my guess is that’s a huge CPU drain compared to what was going on on the Ambit/Traverse platform which was much lighter weight and probably a nightmare to manage.

I understand why decisions like this are made…but I don’t have to be happy about it

Suunto basically started from scratch is my guess. Maybe even dumped an entire development group in the process. And what they’ve accomplished in this amount of time is great, impressive in some regards.

BKtoo

I love my Suunto 9baro, as I was in my Ambit peak 1 and 3. I use the watch for mountain hikes and training. The S9baro and Suunto app is a winner for my use and I’m glad I upgraded from Ambit 3 peak to S9bar

lexterm77

@chrish

I dont think Ambits had auto mem management, in that case it is really pure old school pointer programming. Back when programmers needed a large working memory because systems had small memory and processing power could not fit mmu but those had high efficiency, as opposed todays offloading programmers brain burouts with large managed but unefficient systems that eat battery just to run garbage collectors in memory.

chrish

@lexterm77

ha! yep, good chance that’s the case. I imagine coding for an Ambit was quite the adventure in ‘old school techniques’ in many respects. I’d love to take a crack and some custom work if Suunto would release the details on the protocol w/ the Ambit series. I spend my days, or have from time to time, managing memory and CPU usage in stuff that’s gotta run fast and lite.

lexterm77

@chrish said in Ambit4:

@lexterm77

ha! yep, good chance that’s the case. I imagine coding for an Ambit was quite the adventure in ‘old school techniques’ in many respects. I’d love to take a crack and some custom work if Suunto would release the details on the protocol w/ the Ambit series. I spend my days, or have from time to time, managing memory and CPU usage in stuff that’s gotta run fast and lite.

Mind I add, an old school programmers had a mind set of an ultra runner. You literally need to complete hundreds of thousands of tedious steps correctly to complete the job. And nothing will stop you from falling over the cliff.

Aleksander H

@lexterm77 said in Ambit4:

Mind I add, an old school programmers had a mind set of an ultra runner. You literally need to complete hundreds of thousands of tedious steps correctly to complete the job. And nothing will stop you from falling over the cliff.

Personally I rarely commit finished code at work without falling off a couple of cliffs along the way first .

Fenr1r

@lexterm77 @chrish @Aleksander-Helgaker If xkcd has taught me nothing else, it is that you cliff walkers are the real heroes of our age.

I salute you all.

Of course, I might have misunderstood the jokes.

@Fenr1r you made my day

freeheeler

@Fenr1r
so true!!

chrish

@lexterm77 @Aleksander-Helgaker

I have fallen off quite a few cliffs in my past. But it’s been awhile. 25 years ago my phone rang and it was a DBA who not so politely asked me what the hell I was doing and could I get out of his database. My memory and CPU usage had crashed the big iron mainframe that was running a claims processing system.

But I’d be way better off left to coding against my Ambit3 connected to my computer. Nobody’s day impacted but me.

lexterm77

@Fenr1r

It goes without saying that if you stick long word into wrong place, consequences shall arise.

Fenr1r

@lexterm77 Is there no place for “antidisestablishmentarianism” in programming? Sad.

lexterm77

@Fenr1r said in Ambit4:

@lexterm77 Is there no place for “antidisestablishmentarianism” in programming? Sad.

Neiter does pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.

Fenr1r

@lexterm77 Ouch.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

Sounds like one wants a Pentium again.

Maybe an s 10 with the emulation of ambit software ?

Fenr1r

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Tease.

Aleksander H

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Ambit4:

Sounds like one wants a Pentium again.

Maybe an s 10 with the emulation of ambit software ?

lexterm77

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos

I need to run VMs to keep half factories going, not a bad idea to run VM legacy Suunto watches on S10

@Aleksander-Helgaker said in Ambit4:

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Ambit4:

Sounds like one wants a Pentium again.

Maybe an s 10 with the emulation of ambit software ?

If we have dosbox, why not ambitBox?