GPS on/off

[Gregor Sluga]

Hi, fresh owner of suunto 7.

Is there any way to turn off the GPS durnig the outdoor acctivity ?

ex. Hiking into mountains, I don’t need the possition all the time, but I like to observe altitude, ascent, descent, heart rate,…

goal: preserve some battery life

Thank anybody for the tip.

Gregor

[Egika]

@gregor-sluga To record an activity with HR, altitude and time, you can use the Indoor Climbing sport mode.
It does what you need.

Cheers

[Gregor Sluga]

Thank you 1000 times.

Gregor

[A Former User]

@egika
Am I wrong or is there no way to customize indoor climbing? There seems to be no current elevation data available, only elevation gain…
That said, I would love to see the barometric elevation and be able to calibrate it!

[Egika]

@g-q You are right, it seems as Climbing cannot be customized without GPS.
If you need a custom sport mode without GPS you can start with any other indoor activity (like Yoga, Treadmill, etc) and add current altitude. Have not tried it myself, so please feel free to report back if this works.

[A Former User]

@egika said in GPS on/off:

and add current altitude

if I’m not wrong that’s not possible too :(.
Yep, all small shortcomings that could make the S7 better and better

[A Former User]

@g-q @Egika

if I’m not wrong that’s not possible too

Exactly, you can’t.

I don’t know for what can’t take the altitude from baro sensor This is maybe the reason because we don’t have altimeter/barometer Tile on the S7?

[A Former User]

@flypg perhaps concerns about battery consumption using the baro sensor

[Egika]

@g-q Interesting finding.
In general the barometric sensor does not use much battery, so it could easily be used.
I can think of two reasons here:
a) no-one thought about this before
b) Since there is no manual calibration of the altitude in the Suunto Wear App, if has to rely on the FusedAlti information from GPS. That means. no GPS=no alti…

[A Former User]

@egika said in GPS on/off:

In general the barometric sensor does not use much battery, so it could easily be used

I said this based on an existing XDA Alti/Baro app that queries baro every 5 minutes. At that rate I had around 2% battery drain in just one day. What happens if we increase to say 1s? If I’m not wrong the algorithm used in the Suunto Core has a rate of 30s

[isazi]

@g-q you are right, there is a request for that in this forum, and the same thing has been requested to Suunto. Hopefully it will be possible in the future.

https://forum.suunto.com/topic/6614/more-sport-modes-for-customization/

[A Former User]

@isazi Oops sorry missed that thread. Yep it would be cool!!!

[Gregor Sluga]

So we hope for an update…

[A Former User]

@g-q

I said this based on an existing XDA Alti/Baro app that queries baro every 5 minutes. At that rate I had around 2% battery drain in just one day. What happens if we increase to say 1s? If I’m not wrong the algorithm used in the Suunto Core has a rate of 30s

Maybe, but also at 1seg on this calculation you get around 4hs and also the altitude it’s available on others Sport Modes, I think that can be more related to that @Egika said about no GPS/No reference, but I really I don’t know.

[Jamie BG]

@g-q the only issue with this is how will the watch know whether the barometer change is due to elevation or due to actual change in weather?
Generally they figure this change out by using the GPS to determine whether you have moved or not. And even then as you can see from numerous complaints from all users of all watch brands - it doesn’t always work great unless the watch is also pulling DEM data too.

[Egika]

@jamie-bg this is already working well in Suunto watches. GPS information is not necessary. It is basically about thresholds in pressure change over time.
If the prssure change is slow -> weather change
If the change is above a limit for some hours -> storm alarm
If the pressure change is above a limit within a shorter time -> altitude change

This could be very well implemented in S7, just it is not.
Most likely this feature was sacrificed for other more important ones due to the target audience of this model, which is not the mountaineer but more the casual urban sports person.

[A Former User]

@jamie-bg said in GPS on/off:

he only issue with this is how will the watch know whether the barometer change is due to elevation or due to actual change in weather?

hello there,
an excerpt from suunto core manual

Automatic profile:
When the device is moving 5 meters in altitude within 3 minutes, the ALTIMETER profile is
activated. When the device does not move in altitude for 12 minutes, the BAROMETER profile
is activated.

It would be nice to have the ability to set the profile in Auto Alti or Baro too

[A Former User]

@egika said in GPS on/off:

Most likely this feature was sacrificed for other more important ones due to the target audience of this model, which is not the mountaineer nut more the casual urban sports person.

I’m pretty sure the urban dude would benefit from these features