Several navigation issues (feedback)

[dreamer_]

Hello,

After testing the Race 2 and buying the Vertical 2 Titanium (a watch that I’m finding very improved when comparing to the previous generation), I wanted to share some feedback.
Please, keep also in mind that english is not my first language.

Map downloads are slow

While downloading a map is something that someone is not going to do everyday, the very first thing you notice is how slow is the map download in Suunto. You need to download a whole region in your country and if you live in a border area of that region, you are downloading 2 or 3 regions (like in my case). Coros and Amazfit implementation is perfect for this, where you just select a part of the map you select to download. I don’t consider this an important issue but this is also something to note.

Turn-by-turn notifications current design and issues

One of my (very big) suprises is that we still have the implementation of the previous generation through Komoot for the turn-by-turn notifications, while others (Coros and Amazfit) introduced their own implementations like, I think, 2 years ago (which are now very improved with several updates) . While Suunto’s approach works, and considering now the other’s have their own implementations, this is totally a bad design:

• It means that users are forced to register in a 3rd party social network if they want the turn-by-turn notifications. The contrary means a feature lost. This should not happen and it also limits the functionality. Some users will not ever know their watches have this feature because or the 2 plattforms design.

• The process of uploading a GPX track to Komoot to have then the track synced into Suunto’s app, is slow and convoluted. The user needs to do a manual intervention in 2 plattaforms to just upload a track to the watch to have the indications.

• Garmin, Coros and Amazfit can import directly GPX tracks and have turn-by-turn notifications. No modifications needed, nothing.

• We are delegating something into an external company. That means that if their service is not good, or if their systems are down, Suunto has afectation.

Said these things, I have tested several tracks. What I’m finding is that while it’s (very) true notifications are better than in Coros or Amazfit (Suunto has also roundabouts, U-turns and forks), my experience is the notifications are not as reactive as in Coros or Amazfit.

I mean, once you are approaching a turn (or a roundabout, an U-turn or a fork), it’s like the notifications are sometimes late remaining even not only inside the turn but also several meters after the turn. I’m finding things like after a roundabout the watch is saying there are still 15 meters left, which is totally wrong. And I’m also finding the contrary with notifications lost several meters before the arrival of the turn.

And the thing is that I have tried the same GPX tracks in Coros, Amazfit, Garmin and Suunto and it seems that only Suunto has these issues with the precision. Since Suunto delegates the turn-by-turn logic in Komoot, we also don’t know if this is an issue generated by bad Komoot algorythms or how Suunto interprets the tracks downloaded by Komoot.

In any case, it is not only a performance consideration but the explained points. And the thing is that considering Garmin, Coros and Amazfit can do these notifications without something like Komoot, it seems very clear Suunto should reconsider a redisign of all this logic. Users will appreciate it, and Suunto will not have the issues genetated by others (if that is the case).

At the end this is a suboptimal and a convoluted design. In my opinion software works better when the things are simple. Simplicity, when possible, should be a design goal and any accidental complexity should be avoided. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle

Missing turn-by-turn on/off toggle in the watch

In the route section in the application, we can see this:

Which means that the track is sent to the watch with turn-by-turn on or off. This is again a bad design issue. The track should be sent always with the turn-by-turn indications, leaving that on/off option in the watch (without the need of reuploading tracks using the phone). Garmin, Coros and Amazfit do have that option in the watch.

Missing voice navigation notifications

Turn-by-turn voice notifications are missing. These are useful in a trail run when you are running in technical paths and you don’t want /can’t look at the screen.

Climb notifications

There’s already a very good thread here by @sky-runner. I made very small appreciations that were answered by @joaquin with very nice feedback. While Climb Guidance is a fantastic thing Suunto has, some improvements are still left.
I’m referencing the dedicated thread, which in my opinion, is very good:
https://forum.suunto.com/topic/15016/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/

Auto-reverse:

When you change the direction you are running while using a track, I’m finding the watch is not as fast as it should reversing all the indications. I’m not sure if this is because of the Komoot implementation but I tested this, and the watch skipped 3 turns after changing my direction. Fastest is Garmin which, after changing your direction, notifies first an “Out of the route” and a bit later reverses all notifications according to the new direction.
This should be improved.

Auto-Routing / routeable maps:

I understand auto-routing should be improved. I don’t consider this so important at this moment when there are other things to consider before, but there’s work here to be done.

While it’s true the watch’s screen is too small for planning routes, there are several interesting use cases that the watch should be more clever. Actually, Garmin and Amazfit can accomplish these scenarios:

• Auto-routing. This is very new in Amazfit (introduced last month). It does work but paths are not ofter as optimal as Garmin’s yet. I.E, you found a road cut and you are taking another path. The watch automatically calculates a new real path to the point you want to go. I tested this in the Ultra 2 and the thing is it works.

• Just a a click on a POI icon in the screen and calculate a route using real paths. Same for the waypoints of your track when loaded (I.E when you are out of the route and want to go to that waypoint or just a part of the track or whatever part of the screen (I.E, a mountain, lake…)

• Calculate automatically a route. You can tell the watch to calculate let’s say a 20km round route from point A to point B and using real paths. Sometimes watch’s screen is enough (see examples before) if the watch is capable to create the route without your intervention. The thing is this actually works.

I left this to the end, since (at this moment) I think it’s more like a “nice to have” . I think navigation will evolve with these kind of things but, for now, I think there are other things to have a look at.