System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1

Jamie BG

@Brad_Olwin I don’t disagree with you Brad, however when you look at the market there is a gaping hole/niche that is just waiting for someone to fill it. And as others have pointed out - the company that finds the best solution to that gap is going to coin it.

The suunto 7, apple watch, Garmin Vivoactive/Venu come the closest to filling that gap - a combination full smartwatch with good fitness. And i agree - out of of those i do think the S7 is the closest to filling it. And while my climate isn’t an issue and the exercises I do make it unlikely I will resort to a chest band (but that may change, and then I would buy the suunto one in all likelihood - as I like to match my hardware), I fully understand why people need an external HR band, also lets face it that for HIIT training the built in HR reader is woefully inacurrate.
But would also agree that suunto app should have 24/7 HR reading built into it (preferably with option to set frequency), and sleep tracking, but should also enable ability to use external HR (as pointed out google fit and a couple of other apps cater for it).

Aleksander H

I’ve always wondered why Google didn’t make sensor support a native feature of Wear OS. With native support for ble hrm devices, apps on the watch wouldn’t even need to care about bluetooth. They would just query the relevant api for heart rate, and Wear OS would take care of the rest. They could have done the same for other sensors as well making life as a developer much simpler. It’s not like music apps have to implement their own support for bluetooth headphones.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Aleksander-H there is .

Of course there is native and even google FIT can record via that.

Aleksander H

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos really? I thought that support was only via the google fit app, not natively in the Wear OS platform.

Just to emphasize, by native I mean native support for bluetooth based hrm, not just the sensor on the back of the watch.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Aleksander-H the stack is there afaik. Other app ie ghostrunner use that.

Now it depends on what you talk about “native”

Currently the main and power hungry processor of the s7 handles the BT Stack. So when you use BT your watch’s processor is being used all the time resulting to some battery toll.

Aleksander H

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos interesting. This is more complicated than I thought. Guess I’ll go do a little digging in the wear os dev docs. Thanks for correcting me :).

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Aleksander-H FYI there are actually apps on the S7 that can also broadcast. So you could use the S7 to breadcast it’s OHR to another watch or platform for HR.

More over for others to know here, we as Suunto/Movesense have run the sensor (EGC) on S7 as a separate app

https://www.movesense.com/news/2020/06/connecting-movesense-to-suunto-7-smartwatch/

Read and enjoy

Mi_chael

Update in progress…!

067A82F7-AF6C-41BC-9B7C-735E63E7C9BA.jpeg

Aleksander H

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@Aleksander-H FYI there are actually apps on the S7 that can also broadcast. So you could use the S7 to breadcast it’s OHR to another watch or platform for HR.

More over for others to know here, we as Suunto/Movesense have run the sensor (EGC) on S7 as a separate app

https://www.movesense.com/news/2020/06/connecting-movesense-to-suunto-7-smartwatch/

Read and enjoy

That’s incredibly cool (can’t believe I just said cool)! Thanks for the link! I used to do android dev work a couple of years ago, but haven’t touched it in a while. Might build a few terrible apps for Wear OS when I get the time.

fazel

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos crimany…so Suunto maintains/develops Movesense, Garmin purchases Firstbeat, yet Firstbeat choses Movesense to develop their sports monitoring platform. WUT?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@fazel

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also Garmin HRM’s use those pins to attach the module that is a Suunto patent.

Idk man. This whole thing is silly. hehe

fazel

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos this actually puts me at ease to some degree. The whole Garmin/Firstbeat partnership worries me with regard to some of the metrics used by Suunto watches. I was wondering if there was any way to partner with Whoop if Garmin played hardball, but this makes it seem like everyone’s happy to capitalize on each other’s expertise…

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@fazel I dont think you should worry. Garmin makes money from selling the FB features. Why stop it?

There is also polar…

fazel

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I was more worried about increased prices for competitors like Suunto. But yeah…

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@fazel for now your watch will be ok. Lets see what happens with your next watch the s7 (?) and others…

brotzfrog10

@pavel-samokha I don’t believe what I said was as false. I never said updates wouldn’t happen or they the watch wasn’t burning developed. I said it seemed to me Suunto wasn’t sure what customer this watch was targeting, when if they had just included their full Suunto watch app they would of had the best smart watch/fitness watch combo on the market. They didn’t and they haven’t updated the sunnto training part of the watch since launch (just keep updating the maps portion) but the sunnto training app is no closer to what sunnto 5 or 7 offers them when the 7 first launched which is a shame. Had they just done that I think it would be the best smart watch on the market. It’s a huge missed opportunity and I think the price decrease on the 7 reflects the missed opportunity as you only lower it by $100 if sales are extremely soft.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@brotzfrog10 having being a bit involved at the launch of the S7 it’s not that you are not right…

But the s7 was targeted to the SmartWatch market, the people that read Android Police for example and other XDA members. People who do not care so much lets say todo a set of intervals or record with a heart rate belt, because they will never buy one.

That is the launch of the product and not how / where it will evolve to.

At launch the team got the top 3 feature requests and issues and in those issues and requests there was nothing in regards to what you mention.

To be fair, wanting a product to become what one would like/love is different from what its made for.

But you are right on missing a market, as you described it, but is that market a big audience? Bigger than Android Wear enthousiasts and soccer moms? I dont think so.

pavel.samokha

@brotzfrog10 what I mean is that I believe what you said here

@brotzfrog10 said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

It’s also been a year now so if something as simple as external sensor support was coming it would have been added already. Sportygo and even google fit for wear os already have sensor support so it’s not a limitation of the operating system. It’s simply a choice by sunnto which sadly makes no sense

is wrong.

brotzfrog10

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Yes I think the market would want that simple option of connecting Bluetooth accessories. You cut off a rather launch group of fitness watch people because of not even having the option to connect BT accessories. Two biggest smart watch/fitness watch brands by sales are Apple and Garmin as I’m sure you know. All their devices (save for the lesser selling bands by garmin) have sensor connectivity. Suunto should be looking to compete with those brands as those are the watches people are buying. Wearos should just be a means to that end. The goal shouldn’t be to have a great selling wearos device as it’s such a small market share and not a major driver of smart watch sales. Android users aren’t rushing out to buy smart watches. The sales data is pretty clear on that. Regardless though even google fit which is built into all wear os devices has BT sensor connectivity. Plus attaching the Suunto name to a watch draws in a certain type of customer as well, one who is looking for an outdoor performance watch. Sunnto should be building on their brand name not undercutting what they are know for. It would be like Nike doing men’s suits, in that it wouldn’t make sense with what the brand is known for. Just like your point about soccer moms. How many soccer moms are looking for a Suunto watch or a smart watch at all let alone the size of the S7?

fazel

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I briefly did some Google Scholar searching on HRV. The academic research is free to use. If I were Suunto, I’d be consuming and condensing the findings of this work in preparation for creating/testing my own algorithms. I’d take a similar approach with the Google OS. I wouldn’t want to be dependent on anyone. The 9’s UI is solid IMO. We can haggle over smaller points, but I think the platform is there to build on.