System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1

[olymay]

@brotzfrog10 The moderators, testers, and developers are more connected with Suunto than you or I are and are more likely to know Suunto’s plans and intentions.

It doesn’t matter if we agree or not, we should always do so with respect and manners.

I happen to agree that the S7 shouldn’t be marketed at the casuals and soccer mums, as it is too big and expensive for them (and they are all blinkered to Samsung, Apple, or Fossil anyway). I believe it should be aimed at the fitness enthusiast who wants the features of a Suunto/Garmin/Polar but also wants a proper smartwatch, and doesn’t want to switch devices during the day to get this (I say this from a selfish standpoint as this is exactly the bracket I fall into ).
It could be a a killer watch, but as this is the first WearOS device Suunto have ever made, maybe they went in softly softly gently gently to start with, test the water as it were.
Maybe there will be more added to the S7 soon, or there will be a follow up device that really nails it. Only Suunto knows.

For the time being, I honestly love my S7, even more so after the recent update. And I will keep my fingers crossed for external sensor support in the Suunto App soon

[Bulkan]

Ey guys can we focus in the update more than in what you want for the watch? there is a topic for that. (in case of sensor support)

Thanks!

[Nigel Taylor 0]

Just following up on my first impressions, as I’ve ran 4 or 5 times under this update now (with NO problems at all).

I’m generally using “Best” and I’ve followed a route with Waypoints every time (cos I like doing that - force myself to not just pick the same old street loops automatically all the time)…
…Getting about 12% per hour drain - with maybe an average of about 8 Waypoints being notified (I think this pops it out of low power mode?), plus roughly 10 auto lap notifications per hour…doesnt seem to make much difference to me whether I enable Airplane mode or not (I don’t run with Phone).

I’ve tried one WALK with ‘Good’ GPS and I think that was about half as power hungry per hour, but I’d like to test that more before concluding.

A few requests I’d like to see, all pretty minor really >>

1. The “next Waypoint” alert should be enabled/disabled via an option. I can understand why some people would want notifying how far away the next Waypoint is immediately after passing one, but my use case for them is that this info is NEVER something that has been useful or of interest. I like the ‘pre warning’ you get about 100metres before, and I like the warning AT the notification, but then to get a beep maybe 3 seconds later telling me that in 897metres there’s a left turn isn’t very useful to me!

2. I assume this has always been like this, but the ‘lap’ counter that pops up on the auto lap notification doesn’t seem to be particularly well defined. It’s “too white” and I can barely read it.

3. Similarly pretty poor UI decisions seem to have been made with some tiny numbers particularly on the map screen. The scale marker (200metres etc etc) is TINY…I think it should be larger all the time, but definitely should grow temporarily at least when the + or - scale button is pressed. There are some tiny numbers that appear on this screen also, that I’ve no idea what they are as they’re definitely too small to read mid run!

4. The “get ready to start” screen, where you can swipe down to reveal the map prior to starting an activity…can this map also take advantage of the compass, rather than being fixed to North Up ?

5. Some spurious leading 0’s could be removed for readability. When running in min/km, then its very rare to be going slower than 9m59s/km…yet there’s ALWAYS a leading 0 displayed. It makes knowing whether the number is a 5:xx/km or 6:xx/km quite difficult to determine when running at night (I KNOW when its 4:xx/km!). Would prefer the 0 to be dropped and fatten the font (would also like to see the elapsed time down the bottom grow in size a bit if possible).

6. More Waypoint types PLEASE! (arrows especially!).

7. Ability to add existing POI’s directly into a route - I’ve worked out in a certain click-sequence I can see at least one standalone POI when I go to the routes screen…so it becomes a hint of where to click to create one actually in the route, but I don’t know what I click to do that. It would be good to be able to enable a ‘POI layer’ when editing routes.

Thats about it really. It all feels super reliable and stable to me. The Waypoint alerting thing is so good that after the first two runs I did, I’ve not even looked at the actual maps - although they’ll definitely come in useful when I start to head back out to trails and less familiar routes once we’re “allowed” to start returning towards more normal behaviours.

Next this weekend I think will be time to test a few runs on ‘good’ GPS and also with no route following, and monitor battery usage…I suspect I’ll see improvement when not following routes, due to my current approach of using Waypoints and getting 3 “non low power” notifications per change of direction (when I want just 2!).

[Nigel Taylor 0]

Oh yeah…

8. I think the off route notification should be about half as far as it is.

It seems it’s about 100m as the crow flies, but in real terms that can be quite far away.

Again, ideally a configurable…50m/100m/200metres…but I got a feeling that half the current distance would still filter out any bad GPS moments, but also notify early enough to prevent going too far wrong.

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@nigel-taylor-0 agree with you here , have done a few more runs and by the time I get notified, the 100m is like a bit too far stating the obvious for me.

For me I get 6% battery drain per hour following the route with a few waypoints. I run with phone though and using the Good GPS option.

Good to see that even with not running with phone and using Best option, that the battery drain is what you’ve stated. Still fairly decent battery life. And the standby drain overnight is pretty minimal so with a run or two, I’m still getting bang on about two days of Smartwatch usage.

Pretty happy myself with it all.

[Aleksander H]

@hughesy-and-annalise is battery drain different with a phone connected? I thought the Suunto app used the builtin chip regardless? In fact, I would have thought battery drain would be worse with a connected phone what with pushing notifications and such.

[Brad_Olwin]

@aleksander-h said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@hughesy-and-annalise is battery drain different with a phone connected? I thought the Suunto app used the builtin chip regardless? In fact, I would have thought battery drain would be worse with a connected phone what with pushing notifications and such.

Correct, S7 in Airplane mode if you are carrying a phone, you will improve S7 battery life.

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@aleksander-h not worse at all mate, as @Brad_Olwin said if you leave it in flight mode it will get slighter better battery life. Notifications i receive after my run though, which is strange, perhaps because the Suunto workout app is at the front of the watch running. Or i just don’t notice the notification because i’m dead from running haha.

[Brad_Olwin]

@nigel-taylor-0 I think if you were on a bike you would not want the waypoint closer as you would be moving much faster. Probably set at the best compromise for now.

[Nigel Taylor 0]

@brad_olwin said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@nigel-taylor-0 I think if you were on a bike you would not want the waypoint closer as you would be moving much faster. Probably set at the best compromise for now.

For going off-route? Yes that would make sense.

Then maybe a better solution would be to retain 100metres off course alerting for cycling activities and drop to 50metres (or potentially less) for running?

(the ‘pre POI alert’ should maybe be variable based on activity too…if running then getting a pre-alert about 30 seconds ahead of a POI is plenty of notice (if you’re using POI’s/Waypoints as reminders for direction changes) - whereas on a bike that might be quite late - if you have to consider changing lanes in traffic etc).

[Nigel Taylor 0]

@brad_olwin said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@aleksander-h said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@hughesy-and-annalise is battery drain different with a phone connected? I thought the Suunto app used the builtin chip regardless? In fact, I would have thought battery drain would be worse with a connected phone what with pushing notifications and such.

Correct, S7 in Airplane mode if you are carrying a phone, you will improve S7 battery life.

Is this significant?

ie - S7 in Airplane mode if you are NOT carrying a phone, will that make a difference??

I’ve not ran for more than hour since getting S7 as I was kind of in a downtime so its difficult to tell for sure - I don’t run with phone, and I’ve tried to do various combos of airplane mode / not airplane mode etc and I don’t really see any difference - its something like 10-12% per hour regardless (and same even if I have 10 to 15 Waypoint notifications inside that hour). I kind of expected there to be noticeable difference going Airplane.

(I’m on BEST mode - planning on a couple of experiments with GOOD this weekend).

[Jamie BG]

@hughesy-and-annalise - you didn’t notice. If connected to data, notifications since the latest update, now come in and show as preview (if that is your notification setting) and will then disappear to notification queue, and be available there.
You can action preview when it comes up.

In 2 minds on this - as quite like that didn’t disturb at all other than a vibration…But probably the correct action.

[Jamie BG]

@nigel-taylor-0 You should notice a bit of a difference - its probably around an extra 3hrs of cotinous tracking activity. But yes across an hour session can be difficult to note as is around 1% which you will not always notice:
as could be timing (i.e. battery percentage ready to drop as launch app, so lose a percent straight away)
and especially if using maps etc, as their impact on battery is much higher.

Much higher impact tends to be use between Best and Good setting on GPS.
Will also notice it much more if usually use Best GPS and connected to phone, and then move to Good GPS and GPS only mode (i.e. not connected to phone).

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@nigel-taylor-0 yep, if you are carrying phone flight mode turns off some more things in addition to the antennas that you keep on for Bluetooth, so what @Aleksander-H is saying is correct - this is how WearOS watches work.

as you said though, yeah switching to Good from Best should give a lot more battery life. Depends on how much accuracy you want I guess. Good works ok for me, but YMMV.

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@jamie-bg Guess you can’t please everyone, some folks will like that it doesn’t disturb them at all (visually with a preview) at a critical moment when they’re checking their wrist, others will feel the vibration and wonder who messaged them or whatnot. For me, i’d rather it show the notification preview

[Brad_Olwin]

@hughesy-and-annalise said in System update – PXDZ.201119.005.A1:

@jamie-bg Guess you can’t please everyone, some folks will like that it doesn’t disturb them at all (visually with a preview) at a critical moment when they’re checking their wrist, others will feel the vibration and wonder who messaged them or whatnot. For me, i’d rather it show the notification preview

I like being free of distractions when I am running, helps me avoid lightning and critters, so far several moose and many bears…no music, no notifications, just nature out there waiting to get me.

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@brad_olwin Sure, but can it help you avoid the wife who’s now suddenly messaging you incessantly, because you forgot to buy milk and bread on the way home from work earlier that day.

[Jamie BG]

@jamie-bg 7% for 1h15 tracking walking (touch to wake, AOD on, suunto app, GPS mode, fused tracking), actual track 55mins, was paused for 20min, outside whole time.

[Hughesy and Annalise]

@jamie-bg matches my 6% for my 1hr run i get with the same settings basically. Pretty good if you ask me.

[Jamie BG]

Created a route last night with quite a few waypoints - approx 15, so come quite close, some further apart.
apart from where the route crossed with a couple of waypoints (announced all of them out and back), the route navigation did an awesome job, and especially love how I my edited waypoint title now comes up. And while in some cases an advance notification of 100m can be far too early for running/walking, can see how good it may be for cycling (or faster sports).

Battery - only checked the map once, but was interested to see how much the waypoint announcements cost me in terms of battery life (18 waypoints + 18 pre-announcements - I noticed every waypoint announcement woke the watch out of the coprocessor i.e. thicker data lines).
Went from around 5.3%/hr (19hrs continous battery tracking) to around 7% /hr (14hrs continous battery tracking) [Settings - suunto app, GPS only mode, Fused tracking]. Of course these are only estimates as noted battery percentage prior and post tracking - so if on the cusp of a battery percent change this could impact the numbers.
This suggests that a route with a high number of waypoints may consume more battery life, and is possibly something to consider - number of waypoints in relation to hours planning to track.