And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...

[sartoric]

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

Charger cable is thankfully present, but WiFi is not open.

What do you mean, that you don’t know WiFi password?

[MeazzaS9]

@Olaf-Gottschalk If it’s really necessary, try making a hotspot with your mobile phone

[Todd Danielczyk]

@Olaf-Gottschalk very easy fix if you have the cable and your phone.

Use your phone as a hotspot, set it to 2.4 GHz and set that in your Suunto app as your wireless network. I’ve done this numerous times and it works well.

Have a coffee while it downloads

[wakarimasen]

@Kramble said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@cjanevate I most often do, but the anger towards product designers is hard to compensate.
It would be SO easy to do right, but no… Let’s make it a pain…

So basically, you go in the mountains for a trip, you forgot your map at home and it is your dentist’s fault ?

That’s funny

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Kramble said in [And it happened

So basically, you go in the mountains for a trip, you forgot your map at home and it is your dentist’s fault ?

This is proof enough for me that fanboys are thinking they are always right to shoot when somebody dares to explain how bad some things are… ‍️

It’s none of your business, you are wrong, you are not at all willing to discuss anything at the right level - why are you even here? To tell Suunto how wonderful their products are?

Can’t believe how some people tick …

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@Todd-Danielczyk thanks! I have tried this at the very beginning of my journey with Suunto and it didn’t show my phones Hotspot WiFi, so I never tried again.

Today, thanks to your advice, it worked!

This is the workaround I needed.

(But still - if I were responsible, I would not want my customers to go that route as it is just a matter of design and architecture to just let the connected phone send over the data required no matter WiFi or whatnot.)

[Olaf Gottschalk]

@sartoric said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

Charger cable is thankfully present, but WiFi is not open.

What do you mean, that you don’t know WiFi password?

Haha. Very funny. No. Most public WiFis require you to accept terms & conditions before it opens Internet connectivity. If you know how to do this with a watch, feel free to tell us…

[Todd Danielczyk]

@Olaf-Gottschalk you can use public wifi in the same manner, but port the watch to your Hotspot. I just leave my default saved network as my phone Hotspot.
Doesn’t matter what network I connect to with my phone: public wifi, secure wifi, mobile network. The Suunto sees my phone connection regardless.

Connect to public wifi, open up your Hotspot and connect as mentioned in my previous post.

I do this all the time in hotels when I’m traveling and need a map.

*it works the same way my work laptop does. We need secure VPNs to access files and certain software, which requires the extra step of setting up a secure Hotspot

[Kramble]

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@Kramble said in [And it happened

So basically, you go in the mountains for a trip, you forgot your map at home and it is your dentist’s fault ?

This is proof enough for me that fanboys are thinking they are always right to shoot when somebody dares to explain how bad some things are… ‍️

It’s none of your business, you are wrong, you are not at all willing to discuss anything at the right level - why are you even here? To tell Suunto how wonderful their products are?

Can’t believe how some people tick …

Take it easy dude, it’s just a joke, yes I am a Suunto fanboy , but not a blind one. I know Suunto is far from perfect, they have some real stuff to fix like the sync or the beadcrumb issues for example.
And I really appreciate that some other fanboy tried to help you.

[Todd Danielczyk]

@Kramble fanboy here🫡, always wiling to help out.

In all seriousness, the helpfulness of the forum members (including testers and Suunto employees) is one of the reasons I’m a fan of Suunto. I can usually get my questions or problems resolved quickly by their input.

[Audaxjoe]

I must admit I do find some humour in the situation! But also some sympathy.

I have a long trip planned in the summer, 2000 or so KM from Zagreb back to Rotterdam for the UK ferry, by bike.

I normally use a bike computer for navigation on ride like this, but with the amazing battery life of the Vertical thought I’d use that, at least for a backup.

Trying to fathom what bloody maps to download is a real pain, I’m crossing ten countries, some are easy just one map, but others like France and Germany you need a degree in European Geography to know which maps to download…

I think I have got them all but wouldn’t be surprised if I end up with no map somewhere… There is no shortage of memory on the Vertical, it would be so much easier say France and Germany was divided into two or three maps. Or just one…

So I imagine in the summer I’ll end up somewhere with no maps…

[sartoric]

@Audaxjoe said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

There is no shortage of memory on the Vertical, it would be so much easier say France and Germany was divided into two or three maps. Or just one…

Or better … multi selection and “download all” option for the country.
I guess we’ll get it, sooner or later

[Audaxjoe]

@sartoric Yes that would work. But why they need to divide country without providing a map of the maps I don’t know. Even using current system but chosen from a map would really help
It like the team who have implemented it seem to think people don’t travel

[A Former User]

Map management on the Suunto Vertical and Race is a nightmare.
Why can’t I just choose to download an entire country? Or even better, just let me download all of Europe in one click like I can do on Garmin’s watches.

I just finished downloading all of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark on to my Vertical. To do so I had to let it sit for about 10-15 hours on the charger next to my router… Hopefully I won’t go traveling across Europe this summer.

And yes, all of Europe on any Garmin watch with map support is just ONE map for the entire Europe, which maybe takes 10-15 minutes to download and sync onto the watch!!! Quite different experience.

[Audaxjoe]

@neonix yes that was my experience with Garmin and also Wahoo. You really don’t have to think about the maps they are just there.

And obviously with Garmin you can load custom maps and overlays.

Still prefer my Suunto Vertical however ️ And when the maps are on the Suunto they are super smooth and always seen to point in the correct direction. I think the mapping is great, just so complicated to load!

[duffman19]

@neonix said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

Why can’t I just choose to download an entire country? Or even better, just let me download all of Europe in one click like I can do on Garmin’s watches.

Just a guess here, but I believe that Garmin’s maps are all vector based, while Suunto’s (and Coros’) are image based. So when you download Suunto’s maps, you’re actually downloading a large image file for every zoom level. That’s six zoom levels (I think?), so six images per area downloaded.

Vector based imagery is much more efficient size-wise. For instance, an entire USA vector map on Garmin is ~4GB, where just one state on Suunto is ~4GB.

The downside of the vector-based map system is that it must redraw the map every time you rotate the screen or zoom in and out. This is where the Suunto maps have the edge in that they are simply displaying a background image with far less processing.

[A Former User]

@Audaxjoe said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@neonix yes that was my experience with Garmin and also Wahoo. You really don’t have to think about the maps they are just there.

And obviously with Garmin you can load custom maps and overlays.

Still prefer my Suunto Vertical however ️ And when the maps are on the Suunto they are super smooth and always seen to point in the correct direction. I think the mapping is great, just so complicated to load!

Agree! The Garmin topo maps are OK/good, but I rarely bother to use them because they are so slow and sluggish on the watch. And small trails are like 1 pixel wide and difficult to see. Zooming in and out and panning is so slow. The usability of the maps on the Veritcal is superb by comparison, it’s just sad that they miss on-device routing and names of lakes and paths and pre-loaded POI’s. And the map management is horrible.

[A Former User]

@duffman19 said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@neonix said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

Why can’t I just choose to download an entire country? Or even better, just let me download all of Europe in one click like I can do on Garmin’s watches.

Just a guess here, but I believe that Garmin’s maps are all vector based, while Suunto’s (and Coros’) are image based. So when you download Suunto’s maps, you’re actually downloading a large image file for every zoom level. That’s six zoom levels (I think?), so six images per area downloaded.

Vector based imagery is much more efficient size-wise. For instance, an entire USA vector map on Garmin is ~4GB, where just one state on Suunto is ~4GB.

The downside of the vector-based map system is that it must redraw the map every time you rotate the screen or zoom in and out. This is where the Suunto maps have the edge in that they are simply displaying a background image with far less processing.

Maybe allow us to choose what zoom levels to download then? I don’t need all zoom levels personally. Garmin’s maps were initially designed for car GPS units and stuff, and it shows, they are horrible slow and sluggish to use on a watch. But they do have preloaded POI’s, on-device routing and stuff like that. Pro’s and cons with both!

[cosme.costa]

@Olaf-Gottschalk said in And it happened again... Forgot to download a map...:

@Kramble said in [And it happened

So basically, you go in the mountains for a trip, you forgot your map at home and it is your dentist’s fault ?

This is proof enough for me that fanboys are thinking they are always right to shoot when somebody dares to explain how bad some things are… ‍️

It’s none of your business, you are wrong, you are not at all willing to discuss anything at the right level - why are you even here? To tell Suunto how wonderful their products are?

Can’t believe how some people tick …

Sorry to intrude here but I disagree here with you and most of your posts.
When you went on your trip you knew beforehand how your watch works related to maps, didn’t you? So, instead of saying that the designers are very bad you could ask for some help and then open a request for improvements in this area.

Most of your posts are only complaining, saying that all done is bad and even saying that is done on purpose. But here you are, still using Suunto. If you are so good designing things why you do not send your CV to Suunto?

I would like to see you as designer with limited time and resources. Do you know the limitations of the hardware or patents that Suunto faces with their products? For your comments I see that you never have worked in a company doing designs or products with a defined specs and budget.

IMHO you should chill out a little and enjoy the views in your trips.

[Audaxjoe]

My view on the maps are I don’t mind the slow sync, it annoying but no real big deal.
The maps themselves are brilliant, when I lift my wrist they are clear and updated very rapidly and looking in the correct direction.

I would just like when I have to down load a map it was clear what region I need. This could be done by putting the downloads on a ‘map’ to click. Or simply allowing a download all button as mentioned above.

I have came from Garmin, and although on paper the maps are better, things like names etc on the map and so much choice of mapping, in my experience the speed and smoothness of the Suunto maps are far more user friendly when you need them.

If only it was simpler to choose the regions… Owe and the contours coming back when you zoom out would be lovely