Conclusions about the Suunto Vertical
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@isazi Reading through the “Vertical bug collection” thread here, it seems to be a quite common issue. I was expecting that it’s a rather rare thing and that we see a concentration of bug reports here. But at least for me, the maps failed on a multitude of ways. And sadly, it’s not only the map. The bugs are allover the operating system. But to mention a few specific issues with the maps:
- Quite often I saw the black background with white squares. Typically, a soft reset is required to solve this, which interrupts the activity and takes time.
- The details of the maps are too low for off-the-grid navigation, e.g. for glaciers or remote mountains. The map in such places is almost useless.
- Same for cities and complex structures. Today, I missed the track for a short wile and looked on the map to find the best way back. Turns out, if you see, for example, a bridge over a river, which is connected to your road on the map, it’s not necessarily truly connected. My road passed right under the bridge and there was no way getting onto it
. The map didn’t have that level of detail to see this. My real map on the phone does, of course. - The already taken path, the solid red line, is shown above the blue route. And on a round trip, it’s not uncommon that parts of the track are shared on the way to and from the furthest point. Since all lines are solid, this gets quite confusing even after passing the same part of the route twice. After only two passes, there’s nothing left of the blue and you can hardly see the white arrows that help with upcoming turns. The S9s have a dotted line for the taken path. That seems to work better. But maybe there’s a reasons not using a dotted line on the map.
- The max scale of 500 m is far too little. If you have lost the track or deliberately choose to deviate from it, it can be tedious to find the track again by panning around. Even the Ambit 3 Peak could show you the whole track with your position in one screen, which can be really helpful. It’s quite perfect on the S9s. Yeah, it certainly can be a performance issue with the map. But you don’t need the map background for such an overview. And why is the zoom out even then limited to 500 m when turning the map completely off? I would suggest to keep the no-map navigation exactly the same as it was with S9 and before.
S9P Ti - ex Altimax, A3P, SV Ti
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@Simon I am not talking about “reading here and there”, I am talking about my experience using the watch every day for a month. Of course your experience is different and as valid as mine, but that does not change that my experience is very positive so far.
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@Luis-Andés-Olmedo Yeah, I can imagine about the Garmin maps :'-D Maybe I just stick with the S9P.
Obviously, the watch works for some and doesn’t for others. Weird
I’m only using custom sport modes, but except for that, my use cases are pretty trivial. Not even using guides or apps.S9P Ti - ex Altimax, A3P, SV Ti
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@Simon said in Conclusions about the Suunto Vertical:
@isazi Reading through the “Vertical bug collection” thread here, it seems to be a quite common issue.
You’re right it is a quite common issue…for those expressing in that thread.
Concerning Maps, the Watch was released a month ago, some things that you miss are well known, I’m sorry again but don’t get why you bought it if that were things that seems so important to you (500m zoom, details level…)
Concerning « black map » it should have been solved with the update ; just try one soft reset, it should work
Suunto’s devices at home :
Vertical titanium solar
Suunto Race S
S9pp titanium sand
Suunto Wing
S9B titanium Ambassador edition, A3P, X6 -
@Simon BTW it is very appreciated by everyone that you shared your experience, and when I say that my experience is different is not to diminish the value of yours or patronize you, it is just to present a different one, because people with good experiences are usually less vocal and this ends up in just increasing the bias of people reading the forum.
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@Simon Sorry, but I really can’t understand your listed issues.
Why do you compare it with a smartphone (totally different screen size and level of detail!)?
What’s your navigation problem if you do a round trip?
Just test the watch open-minded with the hotfix release and you will get an other result!
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@Simon said in Conclusions about the Suunto Vertical:
The bugs are allover the operating system.
But you are solely mentioning maps, maps and maps.
What are the other bugs that are “allover the system”?Please don’t get me wrong but if you read the thread that you are referring to, you will see that there are only 2-3 people stating the bug. I’d say it’s the minority.
I can only say that I had 1-2 bugs (e. g. white/ empty activity when starting an activity, slow OS).
Based on reading here several threads I’m actually waiting for the watch to restart/ fail but it did not happen yet
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The 500m is a real bummer for me as well but will change.
About the details on the maps it also depends on open street maps. We could improve those if needed. But glaciers … I wonder what area.
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@Tieutieu I wanted to try it. I wasn’t sure if the 500 m scale or the missing details are issues for me.
@isazi Thanks! Yeah, I’m sure the watch works for the majority. Would be terrible if not. But it still seems to have far more bugs than previous Suunto products.
@Mitch9 I just mentioned the Smartphone map to express that the Vertical map is not just missing details, but it can be misleading, if not to say wrong.
About the round trip: I was a bit confusing there :'-D Hard to explain. If you pass over the same part of the map several times, you can’t see the map there any more and neither can you see the planned route or the direction arrows. NOt a big issue. But a dotted line could be a better choice for the taken track.
@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos For glaciers, the map needed some details like altitude values along the contour lines or names of huts and summits. It’s not a bug and not Suunto’s “fault”. The map is what it is, but it doesn’t work well as an emergency backup there. As a positive, the map movement is quite smooth and rotation when turning around is totally fluent, that’s cool - and that wouldn’t be possible with more details on it - given the current hardware.
Is there a plan to increase the 500 m limit in the very near future?!?
@lessthanmore To mention a few other issues I had: The heart rate intensity display doesn’t work well. The current HR is fine, but the values for the upper and lower zones are often wrong; sometimes they just say 0 or they are not visible at all. Weird! After soft reset/reboot, certain audio alarms are enabled, despite being disabled before. The compass was once suddenly totally off - and I don’t think I had any magnets on me that could have caused that. Then, during navigation, the watch sometimes gave the warning “You are off course”, when I wasn’t or just due to GPS-inaccuracy in a city. The screen immediately switched to “You are on course again”. Both screens are blocking view on the map for too long - or you have to press the middle button to dismiss them, which is annoying. Personally, I would so much love to disable these warnings altogether! But that’s a complaint I have since the Ambit 3 Peak …
S9P Ti - ex Altimax, A3P, SV Ti
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Thank you all for your honest and kind feedback and advise! It is interesting to see that the watch does work flawlessly for some.
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@Simon “You are off course” & immediately switch to “You are on course” happen few times to my S9P and Spartan Trainer when i go to hiking. So not only happen to SV.
Now i’m wearing both watch S9P & SV for hiking. Those message are also appear both of my watch at the same time although i’m still on the right track. So i guess is a GPS accuracy issue
️Suunto Vertical All Black
Suunto 9 Peak All Black
Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR (Black) -
@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
As for maps, is there possibility to download different types of OSM maps except for those offered in Suunto app? There are different OSM maps with all kinds of specific details. It is possible to download them e. g. to Garmin watches.
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@babychai said in Conclusions about the Suunto Vertical:
@Simon “You are off course” & immediately switch to “You are on course” happen few times to my S9P and Spartan Trainer when i go to hiking. So not only happen to SV.
It was also something that both my Garmin Fenix 6X did and Coros Vertix 2 as well. Suunto does it less, but those other 2 companies may have improved in the past year too.
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@boudaj I think it’s not a matter of maps but just different layer visibility and / or colors.
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@Łukasz-Szmigiel
All right. And can I download OSM maps with different layers visible to Vertical? I can do it with all kind of these OSM types at Garmin watch. -
@boudaj it depends on how it’s implemented by Suunto. I think there is just a base data layer and “skins” for it. Perhaps more than default ones can be added? Or there could be a simple generator in SA?
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@Łukasz-Szmigiel
This is exactly my question, if someone knows it… -
@boudaj you cannot do anything at the moment, but as seen in recent surveys Suunto is looking at what people want with maps in the future. More layers is one of the options.
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@isazi well, I also have the impression that the Vertical is still very expandable. I’m not just talking about the maps. here is to criticize that it took me hours to download all of Germany… ( and yes my wifi is fast) . A trip to another state Cologne / NRW had the result that I could not see a map. Then i was back in Hessen IT works… In this respect, I cannot currently rely on whether the maps work outside of my state. Then the limitation to 500 m? I can’t see exactly where I am on a circuit. The watch only has one alarm in 2023 and the watch is anything but smooth. Apart from the fact that the clock has already hung up for me. Then functions such as body resources are simply implemented extremely poorly. A short unit immediately after getting up ensures that the resources can drop from 79% to 30%. After a treadmill training session I can’t calibrate the distance, etc… So there’s still some homework to be done… The design is cool and beautiful, but in my experience you can’t rely on the watch at the moment.
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That’s a bummer you’ve had a crap experience with yours. I upgraded to the SV from my S9B, although I also had a Garmin Enduro I was also semi-using just to see how they compared
Personally the SV is pretty much what I was hoping it would be, I’m lucky that I have no issues with maps or crashes. For me the maps/navigation features are awesome and a massive step up from the S9B where I was basically just following a blue line; I travel a lot for work and have used them quite a bit already to head out into places I have never been before. The only thing that didn’t work well for me was the OHR, unfortunately it’s unusable (as it was with my S9B), but I have a chest HR strap so whilst disappointing it’s not a particularly big deal
Hopefully in the future Suunto is able to roll out some other goodies like HRV which I found to be quite useful on the Enduro
