Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!

Tieutieu

@Stoke80 I work in a software company. Announcing a « previsionnal period » for an update is ok.
But announcing a precise date long time ago is the best way to make people unhappy when it is finally delayed…
unless if it is really ready and validated !

@Tieutieu I guess people don’t need a precise date, but more than “soon”

freeheeler

@Tieutieu
… it’s agile style and that’s state of the art
it actually is more customer friendly but maybe difficult to understand

jjpaz

@freeheeler If so then it’s a strange “agile style”.

One of the principles of the Agile Methodology is:

“Satisfy customers through early and continuous delivery of valuable work.”

In my company, devs team is using Agile Method. They deploy little pieces of software several times a week…

Suunto normally deploy one big piece of software, twice a year?

Garmin and Coros seem more Agile style than Suunto, isn’t it?

wmichi

@jjpaz I think 2 big feature updates per year are good enough, even if we want new features on a monthly basis But in between those bigger updates, multiple smaller bugfix releases would be great. I think this would vastly improve customer satisfactory. But I am sure Suunto knows all of this and there will be reasons why firmware updates don’t happen that often.

jjpaz

@wmichi That’s the point. Software development must be agile to correct known bugs. New features is an optional add-on. Bug correction is a must.

wmichi

@jjpaz Right. I am a web developer and I constantly create new releases for a website and lot’s of microservices. But I think wearables are a little bit different. There’s a lot more testing needed in the real world (what field testers do) and this takes time. So a strict agile approach maybe doesn’t work.

wakarimasen

@Egika said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

Now if you still have the watch, maybe you want to try and judge again next week…

freeheeler

@jjpaz
I’ve had 2 years in mind.
only because most sprints are 2-4 weeks doesn’t mean that they’re released in this pace.
what I wanted to say is: we DO have updates frequently and if necessary even very quick in case of significant issues.
the Race could as well be still unreleased under development

seanvk

Ultimately, it’s all about developer time and testing. It’s great to argue for commit early and often with firmware updates, but the reality is that you have to balance team time and you need to provide time for testing to ensure issues are fixed. There are no easy answers here. Been there.

altcmd

@EzioAuditore sorry to see you go. I left Suunto a while ago for Polar. Works as expected, no mindlessly entering sleep times and getting wonky data, can zone lock on HR, get out of zone vibrations and navigation as normal and not as per Suunto logic. Hanging out here for fun and for my partner’s sake who still has her 9PP.

jjpaz

@wmichi said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

@jjpaz Right. I am a web developer and I constantly create new releases for a website and lot’s of microservices. But I think wearables are a little bit different. There’s a lot more testing needed in the real world (what field testers do) and this takes time. So a strict agile approach maybe doesn’t work.

The bigger the software change the bigger the testing requirements.

I was working years ago as Quality Assurance testing engineer (in more critical projects than a sports watch) and it was easier test small pieces of software than a full software update with several features.
If you deploy a little software change is easier to test that isolated feature and to perform the regression tests to verify the old features are working fine.
If you deploy a whole new software update the testing requirements will be bigger and every little issue detected will create a new whole software update you must test again from beggining, until you meet the deadline and deploy the last “stable” software version (with “little” bugs not detected in the testing stage).
That’s the reason why the new watches seem “not finished” at the beggining. Development and testing resources and deadlines.

Just my opinion, only Suunto knows what happens inside Suunto

Stoke80

@jjpaz said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

ion, only Su

It was not my intention to raise a discussion about project management or software development

I just thought, that an estimated time would avoid several threads about the same topic and make live easier for the mods here in the forum.

However, I am waiting impatiently for the new software. But it can’t be long now.

Jamie BG

@tomasbartko
Giving precise dates, giving soon etc doesn’t help for a lot of whiners out there.

Consider garmin - you will get a quarterly update every quarter. Yet you still get whiners that as soon as you roll into the next quarter - and the last quarter version is still in OTA around 80% - they are blazing away on the forums whinging how its already the next quarter and where is the Beta update…
Some people - you can never keep happy no matter what you do - they are only ever happy whinging.

@Jamie-BG exactly, you cannot please everyone, even if you release an exact date and hour. But perhaps it would make at least a few (sane) people happy. Difficult to say what is the right thing to do, but a kind of an approximate roadmap would be cool to see to know what is Suunto working on (of course just software, not hardware).

Egika

@tomasbartko has been there some year(s) ago.
Issues arise if priorities shift, of technical or any other reason require you to shift the objectives and deviate from plans. And you can be sure this happens.
It generates more fuss if you don’t deliver what has been communicated.
I understand that this experience from Spartan times was the reason for Suunto to change this.

Likarnik

@tomasbartko what is the percentage of Suunto users in this forum? SV was released in May, first hotfix in end of June. A lot of bugs and just one hotfix. October - new watch with new features. Majority of people do not use SA beta to se HRV is coming, do not use forum to see if bugs are acknowledged and fixed. Is SV even getting new updates when there is new kid on the block? Suunto should publish hotfixes so ‘normal’ users will see that this project is not dead and do not run away to other brands…

@jjpaz said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

@wmichi said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

@jjpaz Right. I am a web developer and I constantly create new releases for a website and lot’s of microservices. But I think wearables are a little bit different. There’s a lot more testing needed in the real world (what field testers do) and this takes time. So a strict agile approach maybe doesn’t work.

The bigger the software change the bigger the testing requirements.

I was working years ago as Quality Assurance testing engineer (in more critical projects than a sports watch) and it was easier test small pieces of software than a full software update with several features.
If you deploy a little software change is easier to test that isolated feature and to perform the regression tests to verify the old features are working fine.
If you deploy a whole new software update the testing requirements will be bigger and every little issue detected will create a new whole software update you must test again from beggining, until you meet the deadline and deploy the last “stable” software version (with “little” bugs not detected in the testing stage).
That’s the reason why the new watches seem “not finished” at the beggining. Development and testing resources and deadlines.

Just my opinion, only Suunto knows what happens inside Suunto

True, as a dev myself I also try to fix bugs asap and publish asap. One bug at a time, one test at a time. Also when updating project libraries - you have to be up-to-date otherwise when you make a big jump in versions you can have too much to test and forget something, things become deprecated and so on…

@Egika Yeah I am just trying to be somewhere “in the middle”, because I understand it’s difficult for the company, but also understand why people ask for that.

@Likarnik I get your point and yes, it’s jut a tiny percentage here in the forum (I assume), and it would help to build trust if people were aware… I think we would have seen the SV update sooner, if there wouldn’t be also a release of the Race basically just few months after SV was released. Hence the shift of priorities as I can only assume their resources are not limitless. Not sure how this usually works - if they have two different teams working on both products in parallel, or just one working on both… would be interesting to know.

murphyp228

The response I got when I emailed about this :

Dear Paul

I hope you are well.

I have forwarded your feedback and queries to our development team so they can be assessed internally and I do thank you for bringing them to our attention.

We will definitely have updates and upgrades in the future however we do not have a clear roadmap outlined for this at this time.

Updates are hard to predict as sometimes whats necessary will take importance of an upgrade or new feature so timelines are hard to know especially this early on. But they are inevitable so we hope to get to all the features you have advised on.

If we get any new info regarding this we will update you for further clarification.

Have a lovely day and take care.

runomatic

@murphyp228 said in Software Firmware Update Suunto Vertical?!:

especially this early on

LOL!