Navigation and pausing
-
@MKPotts On most pages it is one press. If on map it is two. (Middle button long press) People seem to be looking for a problem!
-
@ondrejm said in Navigation and pausing:
Top button adjusts zoom… how often do you actually do it in activity?
I adjust zoom very often during an activity. I like to see further ahead, but unfortunately trails are no longer visible or not visible well at higher zoom levels so I keep changing zoom levels frequently.
Middle button just cycles between screens. Fine. But do we really need long press to go to the previous screen?
Yep, I use long press almost as often as short press to go back and forth between screens. I got used to navigate screens in both directions when using Garmin watches and continue doing that when using Suunto.
What I’d really prefer is to have 5 buttons like other brands have and like Suunto used to have in the past with Ambit. Then we wouldn’t have this nonsense with pause or lap buttons not working as expected on some of watch screens.
-
@Audaxjoe
It isn’t two if you’re on the map page and are following a route. You also have to skip past the elevation profile. That is three presses. If you have a SuuntoPlus active that doesn’t let you pause you also have to skip past that. I outlined this in my first post.
Needing multiple button presses to go back a screen on the 9PP when on the map page makes no difference to me. But I don’t consider that people who raise that are “looking for a problem”. -
@aiv4r Well, there for sure is one…when you go inside (say during ultramarathon at an aid station), the GPS will go crazy. And if you don’t pause your run at traffic lights for example, your pace will be off…certainly in any gpx export, etc…
-
@sky-runner Ok, I get all that…as you say, for me it is mainly a matter of consistency. I got so used to not having to think what to do to pause an activity or do anything standard (such as going back) that it throws me off when it works somewhere and it doesn’t somewhere else…I guess that Race 2 would at least partially be a solution, but then I would lose a bit of battery life and the flashlight…
-
@MKPotts On map page following a route it is one long press to take you back to the previous page then you can pause it.
On the V1 anyway. Not sure about other watches.
-
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?
-
@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?
-
@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.
-
Autopasue does not solve the problem?
-
@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
-
@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…
-
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.
-
@ondrejm The crown has its drawbacks in certain conditions and that is why the Vertical does not have it.
-
@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.
-
@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.
-
@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.
