Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin

Navigator

Cant believe what I just read in the email from Suunto are they MAD !!!
I’ve an Ambit and Ambit 3 Peak and consider them the best ‘adventure’ watches made and always recommended them to anyone that asks for my advice.
So now from next year in the eyes of Suunto the Ambit can be considered a piece of junk as wont be able to upload or download to it and with the Peak am expected to fiddle on some mobile device to hopefully upload routes and download tracks where now I can do it on my 17" laptop and charge at the same time.
So very very disappointing.
I certainly wont be buying anything branded Suunto in the future. Garmin here I come

sartoric

Ambit 3 can be paired to Suunto App … but as you’ve already decided … farewell

Shrek3k

What a pity to see you leave. I hope you have already owned a Garmin - I owned/used a Fenix 3, when it was new - as I might predict, that you will not be impressed by the hardware quality, including positioning during activities and HR reliability, you might enjoy the flashy software with lots of updates and social functionalities and the support by quite a lot of apos/websites. For ne nevertheless, the advantages were - after some deep disappointments because of the less than mediocre (raw) data quality - insufficient. I would like to hear about your experiences, who knows maybe you will reconsider, maybe you will be extremely happy with your new toy! However, enjoy being active with whatever watch you use while being at it!!!

Navigator

@Shrek3k
Yes, my wife’s got a FORERUNNER 10 and has proved faultless. The positioning accuracy is not as good, perhaps by a couple of meters, as my Peak or original Ambit but the terrain we use when out training is deeply valley’ed and heavily wooded and am surprised we get any GPS signal at all.
As regards HR it seems Suunto are going to IR/optical in preference to chest strap and I’ve never used an IR system that’s reliable from any manufacturer. I always use a chest strap whether it be with my Polar or Peak.
The reason I love the Peak is the long battery life and know when I come to replace it that could be an issue but if I cant get the data directly from and to the Peak from my laptop that’s a compromise I’ll have to make. With the abolition of Movescount it also makes my standby Ambit a piece of junk

Brad_Olwin

@Navigator The Ambit 3 is supported, albeit not for apps. Rather than complain loudly and bitterly here or buy a newer watch as seriously Ambits in another 1.5 years will be fairly out of date…go to another manufacturer but please quit wasting our time. Some of us here like our hardware and want to see the mobile app improve…bye…

@Brad_Olwin yes, it’s a staple of every forum that every post must appease the tastes of the moderators. Else, it is a waste of time.
Get off your horse

witchcraft

@Brad_Olwin Rubbish! - My Ambit is fully functioning cost £500 customisable and does exactly what I want. Leaving aside that it was a 50th birthday present from my wife, why would I change something that works. The new Suunto/Garmins can show my text messages and have a colour screen, not much of a reason to change. A watch lasts longer than 5 or 6 years in my experience especially one that costs that much.

@Brad_Olwin said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

“…seriously Ambits in another 1.5 years will be fairly out of date”

it’s not about the ‘out of date’ based on a purchase time but it’s about rendering perfectly working and functioning devices like the Ambit’s useless with a lunatic software development without proper backwards compatibility

the only thing that is outdated here in Suunto’s ‘digital future’ is the 15year code codebase from Sportracker rebranded in 2017 as Suunto App and promoted as way head for 2020

it’s a backstep to a closed device centric app system rather an open and device independent web platform as movescount was and this is the case for Ambit1/Ambit2/Ambit3 (that you still can purchase today on Suunto’s website), T3/T4/T6, Quests, GPS Trackpods and a range of dive computers like D4i, D4i novo, D6i, D6i Novo, D9i

and NO Ambit3 are not ‘supported’ as you can’t changing and customizing sport modes, planning routes and uploading them, transferring POI’s…

witchcraft

@Tobias-F Spot on

Egika

Sorry. Don’t get the point.
At the moment Movescount is fully working with the Ambit and Traverse series of watches.
When it will be shut down some time in the future, the platform replacing it will be totally different from what you have now as beta versions.
This “sometime in the future” will be not before summer 2020. That means in 1.5years or later.
Lots of water to flow down the rivers doing this period of time.

I am sure the new platform will support those watches fully by that time. No need to rant about the future without knowing it.

Thanks

witchcraft

@Egika Except the email we received yesterday specifically didn’t NOT indicate support at all for Ambit/Ambit2 and told us we could only ‘enjoy’ seeing our existing data on the new app.

Egika

@witchcraft
Original poster has an Ambit3 and rants about its future support…

cosme.costa

@Brad_Olwin said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

@Navigator The Ambit 3 is supported, albeit not for apps. Rather than complain loudly and bitterly here or buy a newer watch as seriously Ambits in another 1.5 years will be fairly out of date…go to another manufacturer but please quit wasting our time. Some of us here like our hardware and want to see the mobile app improve…bye…

Here I think that you are a bit mistaken, as @Tobias-F said you still can purchase the Ambit3 in Suunto’s webpage and Suunto’s announcement states that you will have less functionalities in the future than the one that you have now, which, at least in Europe, I do not know if its completely legal. If I buy an A3 and before the 2 years I loose functionality is quite probably that I will be able to get a refund or a replacement for a new compatible watch, and I am from Spain where customer protection is quite limited imagine if i live in Germany where customer protection is bigger.
On the other hand, what is the problem with the old devices?? Why I need to change a product if it is still functional? Isn’t Suunto advertising “Built to last”… I can accept that you do not give more updates to the old devices nor the MC but keep it where it is or you find a solution for them or you contact them and try to make and arrangement and exchange with advantages the incompatible devices for compatible ones.
Not yet two years ago I bought and A3 VERTICAL because I wanted a reliable outdoor watch without smartwatch capabilities, something that will last at least 6/8 years if not more. In with situation would be now?I would be forced to exchange the watch or have limited functionalities after 3.5 years? Lucky me, it was faulty and I could exchange it (adding a bit more money) for a Spartan Ultra, but this is my personal case.
I do agree with you that this is the first announcement and instead of complain bitterly and “burn our suunto watches” we should be constructive and push Suunto as much as we can, and in all the channels, and I still believe that eventually will all have a solution.

Droro

@cosmecosta if they have any business awareness they should offer any verified customer of an older watch a heavily discounted trade in for the watch of their choice.

@Egika said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

the platform replacing it will be totally different from what you have now

Suunto said yesterday very clearly that everything older as an Ambit3 will not be supported and set to obsolete, they also didn’t say they are working on sportsmode/customization/routes/POI coming to Ambit3/Traverse, in such news release they would have shared this one as good point or at least mentioned to ‘be planned’ as they did not do in the announcement so probably there is a reason for doing so

in my opinion so I seriously doubt they are working on this one … but you are right hope dies last …

@Egika said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

Original poster has an Ambit3 and rants about its future support…

right, in fact I have invested 9 Suunto watches and use in circulation besides two Ambit2, Ambit 3, Vertical, Traverse, TrainerWHR, T3, Quest … trust me I care about this brand and was committed to it, that changed with yesterdays hit to the face…

Brad_Olwin

@witchcraft I have a T6c and a GPS Trackpod but don’t use them much. The BLE connected watches including A3 should work. It is 1.5 years away at a minimum. So my point to the OP was rather than immediately state they are done with Suunto to try to be constructive.

tcdev

I’m with you @Navigator, at least as far as Sunnto is concerned.

I have an Ambit2 and absolutely love it. It has been bullet-proof and after 327 activities it still looks brand new.

To say that I am piXXed off about this is an understatement! When I bought this watch nowhere did it say that it was good for only 5 years, and that I would have to throw it away simply because Suunto couldn’t be bothered maintaining their web-based software. I don’t even want to upload my data on a mobile device; I bought a watch to avoid using my phone for anything related to my activities!!!

You can rest assured I won’t be buying another Suunto product ever again. You suck.

tcdev

@Tobias-F Exactly.

I wonder who on here that are defending Suunto’s actions would have bought a Suunto watch if, at the time, they said it would stop working in 5 years time???

Not one of them, I can guarantee that!

Brad_Olwin

OK so here is an example of being constructive. Personally, I think it is not ok to have an Ambit3 that only has partial functionality. For the 2 and below I think there will be 3rd party solutions. But, if you have a 3 and they are still being sold they should be fully operational. Note, this is my personal opinion. So, instead of saying I am moving to another platform I could say: “I want to stay a Suunto customer.” “What can you (Suunto) do for me to help transition to a fully functional watch?” I do not think it is unreasonable to ask loyal customers (those that have products that will sunset, but we won’t know for 1.5 years) for Suunto to provide a discount to purchase a new watch. Suunto does not want to lose customers and I am sure if enough individuals with older Suuntos that are clearly built to last ask, it would be in Suunto’s best interest to maintain as large and as happy a customer base as possible.

I hope what is above helps as I totally understand how anyone would feel, now there is no issue but in the summer of 2020 there is a plan for an issue.