What is your most important finger ? ... proposal for a future SUUNTO watch

Mister PYC

Before you read more … Do this trial …
Close your eyes and move your (generaly right) hand, so the one which does not have the watch as if you will use it to manipulate your SUUNTO
Repeat this exercise for example in the early morning tomorrow when your watch will wake you up

Well well well … most surely you will realize that your thumb is arriving systematically to a place where … … … … … . . . there is no button…

So a proposal which this one is not software but mechanical

Why not to add in the next future SUUNTO 9 (may be 10 ) one more button which can be used by the thumb ?
For which purpose ?
I have no precise ideas suggestions … but … some ideas soon … for example for a back button here instead as in position 1 or a rolling menu …

See pictures … Am I not right ??? All these pictures have 2 things in common …
In all there is a SUUNTO watch … in all the person has his thumb super well positioned to a place where the thumb is useless except only to hold the watch

Important : personnaly I will not have placed a such button in the left middle of the wath but in the left bottom because your opposite hand arriving to the watch place its thumb precisely on the bottom. … if you want to use the thumb to clamp you can position it above or below the button, if you want to use it to press it is perfectly at the right place …

DMytro

@mister-pyc I wear my watch on the right arm, I can use both my thumb and index finger - can highly recommend!

Egika

@dmytro and I can do this with the watch on my left arm as well

surfboomerang

@mister-pyc Then @freeheeler would need even more locks on his watch!

But…back to the usecase.
I can think of one case where I would need another button action and that is in the navigation screen. With the touch action it’s possible to get a full overview of the route. This is not possible by pressing buttons. All the possible combinations are already assigned.

For me personally the watch has buttons enough, but you don’t miss what you don’t know…
Maybe Suunto can surprise us.

DMytro

@surfboomerang agree, apart from not being able to scroll through the exercise screens in the other direction, other then to use touch functionality.

surfboomerang

@dmytro You’re right, I forgot that was also not possible with buttons only.

2 usecases then

Bulkan

Never more buttons. Ugly and more complex UX to move. Garmins has 5 buttons.

Less is more, simple is not easy is the opposite.

freeheeler

@surfboomerang said in What is your most important finger ? ... proposal for a future SUUNTO watch:

Then @freeheeler would need even more locks on his watch!

that was my first thought: noooo, not more buttons that can be pushed unintendedly

freeheeler

@bulkan
what about a digital crown?

as @surfboomerang mentions, a one press full zoom in the navigation would be cool. but could also be solved with less buttons. maybe with predefined zoom rates?

scrolling backwards would be very cool, too.
I developed the crazy wild behavior to not lock the buttons for running when I need navigation in order to be able to swipe back and forth by touch… how crazy is this… running with an unlocked watch?!? living on the edge

DMytro

@freeheeler or a rotating bezel.

Bulkan

@dmytro @freeheeler you are killing me guys

freeheeler

@dmytro
hmm… I am not so sure about the durability. The less moving parts the better. But I can imagine that Suunto would manage to design something reliable.

on the other hand: it needs a lock-bezel function

olymay

Personally, I like not having a button on the bottom left (I wear my watch on my left wrist) as this is where my thumb naturally rests and can then push back against the watch when pressing the buttons on the right hand side.

If there were a button here then it would either get pressed at the same time, or I would have to move my thumb.
Not exactly a major problem to move my thumb, but there is a lot of muscle memory there now and it would likely frustrate the heck out of me for a while.

I have a Suunto 7 and love the four button plus touch screen interface, feels intuitive and close to perfect to me.

Mister PYC

@bulkan humm humm … try a touch screen for example when you are swimming … it does not work … a possible use case.
Having said that I totally agree with you about 2 thinks

The SUUNTO approach with 3 buttons plus the scrolling and touch is already really awesome
Going to 5 buttons like Garmin … why not 6,è,8,9 …

My point was more … when my thumb arrive precisely on a place where there is no button … dommage …

Mister PYC

@olymay humm humm … you have 4 buttons … on a suunto 9 there are only 3.
Again as I said in another reply … the idea is not to put buttons all around the watch but use them intelligently and here we can say that SUUNTO has already used very brilliantly their buttons in theig GUI …
After that one more button could give new approach which could be also very intuitive

olymay

@mister-pyc I haven’t used an S9, so am not familiar with how the buttons are configured.
The extra button on the S7 is purely for WearOS and is the home/app drawer button (also power button on long press).

The S9 (and S7) is touchscreen, something that Garmin have not yet implemented in it’s high end devices (although rumours are it will be there in the F7 and E2).

Could Suunto add an extra button to the S9? Of course. Would it add a huge amount? As all of the software and interface are optimised around the current layout, this is unlikely.
And if they add too many then they will be accused of copying Garmin.

I like the idea of a rotating bezel and crown on a smartwatch, but on something designed for more hardcore adventures, they would be a pain to use and more likely trigger by mistake.

I think both Suunto and Garmin have great interfaces optimised for their hardware and software.
Perfect? No, nothing is. Could they be improved? Of course.
This is where suggestions like yours are great, as it starts a talking point amongst users and designers

Brad_Olwin

@mister-pyc I can’t think of anything worse than a button for a thumb when wearing gloves!

freeheeler

@brad_olwin
talking about gloves… I’ve got the Hestra Heli Ski Lobster and can operate all 3 buttons of my X-Alps nicely good old Suunto glove ready button concept

Frederic

Huh, it depends, when I have this issue after an exercise, it is likely the middle one if you know what I mean…

Joke aside, it’s my right index.

Mister PYC

@brad_olwin said in What is your most important finger ? ... proposal for a future SUUNTO watch:

@mister-pyc I can’t think of anything worse than a button for a thumb when wearing gloves!

Humm Brad … should I catch that your glove is only protecting your thumb but not the other fingers ???

Personally in any case I do almost all manipulation removing gloves even by -25/20°C (gloves being stored inside my jacket near the body to keep them wam) OK OK … I should confess we are more down to max -15°C now than in past

Just to say … for me my gloves are in any case not adapted to watch …