[Vertical 2, 2.53.42] Map and Navigation features are greatly improved but there are still a lot of old issues and also new bugs introduced in the latest update

[Gunnar]

@Joaquin having such a document at the release of such a big update would be great. At least it was not available in this forum.

[maszop]

I think Suunto should do a better job themselves – precise presentation, description, and instructions. Same thing happened with the Vertical 1. For a long time, potential buyers could mostly find reviews of the very limited launch software – before the updates that turned it into a completely different watch. Quite a weird strategy.

The latest updates are potentially excellent marketing material. Particularly given the low number of new releases and the existing models on the market.

[Egika]

@maszop right.
Have you seen Janne’s extensive videos of the new features in January and then last week?

[Joaquin]

@Gunnar full agree…we are working for the future

[Joaquin]

@dreamer_ Since you mentioned another brand that also uses climb guidance, I took the time to take a few photos for you.

Here you can see how we display routes with waypoints and how other brands present them. I am not here to say who does it better or worse, only to show how we approach it.

One thing I really appreciate is having five dedicated screens for Climb Guidance. This allows you to always understand exactly where you are on the climb and what still lies ahead.

The customizable data field is also a real differentiator. At any moment I can display heart rate, gradient, estimated arrival time to the next waypoint, remaining ascent to the next waypoint, ascent or descent of the current segment, and much more depending on the activity.

That is why I mentioned this earlier today. Suunto Climb Guidance is not perfect and there is always room to improve. We should always push for better. But honestly, the new Climb Guidance is already an incredibly powerful tool.

You are going to enjoy it a lot

[dreamer_]

@Joaquin said in [Vertical 2, 2.53.42] Map and Navigation features are greatly improved but there are still a lot of old issues and also new bugs introduced in the latest update:

@dreamer_ Since you mentioned another brand that also uses climb guidance, I took the time to take a few photos for you.

Here you can see how we display routes with waypoints and how other brands present them. I am not here to say who does it better or worse, only to show how we approach it.

One thing I really appreciate is having five dedicated screens for Climb Guidance. This allows you to always understand exactly where you are on the climb and what still lies ahead.

The customizable data field is also a real differentiator. At any moment I can display heart rate, gradient, estimated arrival time to the next waypoint, remaining ascent to the next waypoint, ascent or descent of the current segment, and much more depending on the activity.

That is why I mentioned this earlier today. Suunto Climb Guidance is not perfect and there is always room to improve. We should always push for better. But honestly, the new Climb Guidance is already an incredibly powerful tool.

You are going to enjoy it a lot

Thank you so much @joaquin . At this moment I’m very convinced about Suunto’s approach about being FAR superior than every brand of the market.

I have a bit of doubt with just one thing, and that is the profile between checkpoints I posted (AID stations). That is the most important Climb screen in my opinion. When you are in an ultra race with many hours in your legs , that is exactly what you’d like to see. Altitude/descent and profile until the next checkpoint. That’d make everything just perfect.

And a little minor improvement too. If you look at the comparison shots, the checkpoint dots should be smaller to avoid overlapping when there are many. Everything will be cleaner with just that slightly minor change.

But I need to test It yet (and play with the zooms to see everything), thought.
Pretty excited about this guys. This is very good work.

[Joaquin]

@dreamer_ said in [Vertical 2, 2.53.42] Map and Navigation features are greatly improved but there are still a lot of old issues and also new bugs introduced in the latest update:

Thank you so much @joaquin . At this moment I’m very convinced about Suunto’s approach about being FAR superior than every brand of the market.

I have a bit of doubt with just one thing, and that is the profile between checkpoints I posted (AID stations). That is the most important Climb screen in my opinion. When you are in an ultra race with many hours in your legs , that is exactly what you’d like to see. Altitude/descent and profile until the next checkpoint. That’d make everything just perfect.

And a little minor improvement too. If you look at the comparison shots, the checkpoint dots should be smaller to avoid overlapping when there are many. Everything will be cleaner with just that slightly minor change.

But I need to test It yet (and play with the zooms to see everything), thought.
Pretty excited about this guys. This is very good work.

Thank you so much for the thoughtful feedback, I really appreciate the level of detail in your observations.

In the example I shared this situation happens mainly because the route contains a very high number of waypoints. In that specific test route I placed 16 waypoints in just 18 km, which is actually far more than what you would normally see in a real race course. I intentionally exaggerated the number to stress test the system.

Even in those situations you will still be able to clearly see all the key information from your current position to the next waypoint or aid station. Distance, ascent and descent remaining, and the elevation profile up to that point are all visible and easy to interpret during the activity.

About the waypoint dots, you are absolutely right that when there are many checkpoints close together they can overlap visually. In normal race routes this tends to be less noticeable because there are usually fewer checkpoints, but your suggestion about slightly smaller dots makes sense and would definitely improve visual clarity.

As I mentioned before, the system is not perfect and there is always room to improve. Personally I would also love to see the waypoint name displayed in the blue data field in the future. That could make aid station navigation even clearer during ultras. Let’s see how it evolves.

In any case I am really happy to hear you are excited about it. Enjoy testing it and playing with the different zoom options. I think once you try it during real activities you will see how powerful it is.

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

Now this is great post. Thank you for all the feedback.

[sky-runner]

@Joaquin Since you seem to be connected to the Suunto development team, I wanted to share one additional piece of feedback about the elevation profile and climb guidance - the colors.

What I find inconsistent is the coloring scheme that I suspect is based on cycling climb categories rather than the slope grade %. That may make sense for cycles because that have gears, in which case climb categories represent the amount of work, but these colors may be quite misleading for running and other similar activities. I’ve seen many examples where an easily runnable 3% uphill slope is shown in red color just because it is longer, but at the same time a fairly steep 12% grade slope can be shown as yellow just because its length is just below the threshold to make a higher grade category. That is often misleading, especially in longer distance races where even short but steep climbs are not runnable. Furthermore, by design yellow ascents can never be long because once they get longer the multiplication of distance and grade brings them into the red category.

Here is what Garmin does - when you look at the end-to-end profile, it is broken into major climbs and descents, and the colors represent the climb categories. But once you zoom in, there are a few more colors (shades) and they now represent the grade, so in a single climb you may see multiple colors to give a more exact information. Those different colors are not separate climb segments but rather visual representation of grade within a single longer climb or descent. I find that fear more usable that Suunto’s approach. Also, Garmin’s approach mostly avoids slicing rolling terrain into dozens or sometimes even hundreds of tiny short ascents, descents, and flat sections - those segments are often so short (sometimes around 100 meters) that the watch can’t even track them correctly.

[pavel.samokha]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos yeah, @sky-runner always provides valuable input. The problem is no time to read all feedback