Crash/fall detection
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@miniforklift Someone - in a different post on this forum - was suggesting Strava Beacon integration with Suunto as a possible easy solution to the issue (re: live tracking and emergency alert to pre-defined contacts). So I emailed stava and I was told that “Beacon is available on Garmin, Apple Watch, and Galaxy Watch 4 at this time. Beacon is not available on other platforms or device.” I am not sure there are a sufficient number of Suunto users to justify adding integration with Suunto. Moreover, Strava Beacon allows live track ( so does Komoot actually) but not incident detection.
Nevertheless, I completely agree it would be an incredibly useful features. Right now I am running with my S9P on one wrist and my vivoactive 4 on the other. I look ridiculous; however, after recent updates, vivoactive 4 became very very good in avoiding false positive when it comes to incident detection (Anyway, even in the case of false positive you have 15 seconds or so to abort the emergency assistance message).
I believe I would not be the only one to find this function useful on suunto as well; am assuming there are a large proportion of users that, during outdoor activities, are anyway under cellular coverage. -
@giacomo-laffranchini what would be the benefits of using the beacon on a watch instead of a phone?
Just to save some time and battery? -
@dmytro that is a fair point. I would personally like to have some kind of live track and incident detection/ emergency alert ( manual or automatic) native on the Suunto. I don’t think beacon on phone has any kind of incident detection and alert.
I was not advocating for beacon on device, bit I seem to perceive that it might be the only viable solution.
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@giacomo-laffranchini I too would appreciate crash detection, but as far as live track goes, I use Google maps which is quite good as it also shows your Smartphone charge level.
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@brad_olwin
Garmin has the 945 LTE to get around carrying your mobile, but it requires a seperate subscription, and it can only be used for the fall detection.However you can also buy their inreach and connect that to your devices, and it can send out your emergency data in case of a fall, and as satellite covers pretty much anywhere.
However seems as thought Garmin’s fall detecting is much better when going at speed, so works super well (too well actually as can trigger from an emergency stop) on a bicycle, but not as good when walking/running - but I suppose as long as you are concious it is super easy to trigger from the watch.
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@jamie-bg I have an inReach and use it almost every weekend of the year as there is no cell service where I run in the summer and ski in the winter.
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@brad_olwin Do you use your inRech solo or with a watch?
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@patrick-löffler It works well with the phone app (Earthmate). I have the mini and it is not good for typing. I do not use a Garmin watch so it is not possible to use with Suunto or any other brand.
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@brad_olwin Thank you very much Brad. I’m constantly thinking about getting one. I just need to have some good reasons to actually invest into one. Hiking in the European Alps and Dolomites, there is actually surprisingly a lot of cell phone coverage these days.
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@patrick-löffler said in Crash/fall detection:
Hiking in the European Alps and Dolomites, there is actually surprisingly a lot of cell phone coverage these days.
There just won’t be any the D-day when you really need it
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@jyrileppanen Yes, I know this is a very old thread, but I think it is worth discussing because there doesn’t seem to be a lot of attention from Suunto regarding this topic.
Let me tell you my case:
During the first Corona Lockdown here in Germany in the beginning of 2020 I had a bad crash on an evening ride with my mountain bike. I was on my own and laid somewhere in the woods with three broken bones in my lower back. I managed to get back on the bike and get home, but the pain was horrible.
Shortly after that crash I switched from my beloved Suunto 9 to a Garmin Fenix 6s because of the crash detection. I have to say, I liked the Garmin Ecosystem. You are able to adjust anything, even the watch faces… crazy
But luckily I’m a little nerdy with my watches and I never liked the look of the Fenix. It looks like a piece of military equipment. So after a Year I switched back to Suunto and bought the 9 peak, which is so much more beautiful as a watch. Ok, so far so good. I ditched the crash detection for the look of the watch… yes, that’s stupid, but like I said… NERDY. When Garmin Epix Gen2 showed up I bought this one because of the beautiful AMOLED Display. I bought the steel version which does not look like a piece of military equipment. Really loved this watch, but with the last software update of the Garmin Epic Gen 2 a few month ago the crash detection for mountainbiking was banned because of to many false negative cases. So if you wanted the crash detection you had to use the regular bike riding profile but by using that you missed a lot of data that usually came with the mountain bike profile (grit, flow).
So here I was standing again with a watch with no crash detection, so I checked the Suunto Homepage yet again and saw the Race. The look of the watch, the display and the price stroke me like lightning… so I bought it. Using the watch now for the last weeks. I love it. The look and the quality is brilliant for this price point. Of course there are a few things I will miss from the Epix: completely customizable watch faces, more screens in the sports profiles and the amount of date you get, just incredible. The slim ecosystem of Suunto, especially the APP is much more user friendly. Within the Garmin Connect App I got lost an a regular basis.
So, finally back to the topic: Will there be some kind of crash detection in the near future? I think the hardware should be able to handle it so it’s just a matter of software. Or at least a feature like the life tracking that starts automatically when you start an activity.
What are your experiences?
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@HoBart
I support the request for crash detection and I have also suggested it in surveys.
my wife and I share phone location and we know where we go riding and by when we should be back home.
if either one of us is late, we check the location.
this is our work around for the moment until Suunto develops a watch with crash detection and automatic emergency call.
will it be developed? no one knows, but with the recent steps Suunto took, there might be a chance
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@freeheeler, @HoBart I like the idea of incident detection. On many of the Garmin watches, you can also hold a button and this results in an emergency message being sent to your contacts (same as incident detection, but manually triggered). I think it is a worthwhile for women especially, and may even drive them to purchasing a Garmin vs a watch that does not have this feature. A manual trigger doesn’t run into the same false alarm issues as automatic incident detection.
While maybe this isn’t an “essential” thing, it is worth considering.
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Crash or incident detection, this is a big +1 from me. I’m often running alone in places that are hundreds of miles from home on routes I haven’t ran before. Something like this would be fantastic, maybe the SuuntoPlus Safe app could simply be tweaked a little as it seems like that’s already in the right ballpark
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big +1 from me too, and with satellite communication now available in the newer iPhones, the limitations seem to be disappearing
