Backlight sensitivity curiousity - S9P

BakxM · 26 Sept 2021, 12:27

Hi,
Since days are getting shorter and more and more evening bike-rides end in twilight or darkness, I notice that the backlight switching of my S9P is a bit off to say the least.

When attached to the handlebar in front of me, when darkness sets in, the switching of the watch is about every 2 to 3 seconds from bright to savemode. I can imagine that going through a bump in the road might trigger the backlight. But this is a consisent behaviour with alternating every 2-3 seconds and not being even on that. So one time it’s 3secs, after that it might be 1 sec any which way.

Haven’t noticed this behaviour in daylight during summer time.
When just lying around on a desk, this works as expected and only turns on when I pickup the watch. Same goes for wearing it on the wrist.

Did I miss out on a particular setting or is this a bug ?

Cheers, Marcel

surfboomerang · 26 Sept 2021, 16:19

@bakxm Just a wild guess… Could it be that you’re riding under street lanterns or other light sources?

BakxM · 26 Sept 2021, 20:52

@surfboomerang nope, it’s not that dark yet for the street lanterns to be on.

Did a quick check during the afternoon ride around 17h (still plenty of sun out), but I can’t seem to notice any difference in the backlight when there’s normal daylight.
Will try to make a more exact time when this is starting in relation to sunset time. Though it might be dependent on cloud conditions as well I guess.

lamp21 · 29 Sept 2021, 02:41

@bakxm
similar issue.

For my case, running in the evening with darkness. I raised my watch on my wrist, but the backlight doesn’t come up as expected. I have to do it a couple of times to get the right angle for the light to display.

Not sure if I’m doing the correct “gesture” to turn on the light.
my settings from “Raise to wake” is set to “Exercise only”.

BakxM · 3 Oct 2021, 20:39

Did an all-dark bikeride tonight. New firmware, but still same problem.
Backlight keeps turning on/off during the ride and because it’s on the handlebar, that’s pretty annoying

Could be that the bumping of the bike is turning on the backlight, but I can’t find a good pattern for that based on the small bumps in the road and its asphalt all the way.

Will try to ride with a pre-defined work-out (Cycling - Basic) in the watch this week, as the one I normally use is a custom-made work-out.

Any advice on how to proceed ? Open supportcase ?

BakxM · 5 Oct 2021, 19:03

same result , backlight turning on/off during the bikeride with different intervals every 1 to 2 secs.

herlas · 5 Oct 2021, 21:49

@bakxm guess it wasn’t designed to work on the handler bar, I’ve experienced the same with S9B and S9P, backlight doesn’t have a pattern while on the handler bar.

While running, my experience is that raise to wake is very tricky to get working in current software for S9P, guess it hasn’t had it’s second iteration, who knows

Brad_Olwin · 5 Oct 2021, 23:26

@herlas I have found that a quick raise of the arm fairly effectively turns the backlight on. Slowly raising your arm often does not trigger the backlight so it has not been tricky but does require that the accelerometer recognizes you are raising your arm.

herlas · 6 Oct 2021, 00:17

@brad_olwin yeah I’ve tried some of that, still need practice to get it consistent , also when running in complete dark, I’ve seen my wrist light up while doing my normal running arm motion.

surfboomerang · 7 Oct 2021, 20:45

@bakxm I think I found the issue.

It looks like the Raise-To-Wake feature isn’t really triggered by a certain arm swing pattern, but more with a sudden movement in any direction. The backlight even turns on if I move my wrist away from me instead of towards me.

Today I noticed that if I level the watch (face up) and very shortly lift it up and down keeping the watch level, the backlight also turns on. This is the same movement when you mount the watch on your bike with a handle bar mount and your bike is a little bit shaking because of the road.

The movement you have to make is very light so this could explain the watch is constantly turning on and off the backlight. Try mounting the watch on your wrist and don’t touch the handle bar with that arm. I think the backlight will stay off then

Maybe Suunto will address this is upcoming firmware…

BakxM · 4 Dec 2022, 22:39

Just a short note on a very old annoyance
This issue is fixed since last weeks fmw update.
Backlight now stays off when watch is positionend on handlebar, during bikeride.

Much appreciated, but wondering if this was an actual RFC or by accident .