[DONE] Selling S9 bought Garmin Fenix 5x

[ColdBeer]

@suzzlo said in [DONE] Selling S9 bought Garmin Fenix 5x:

Hi,

I’m not buying a watch, I’m buying training tools: Watch + App + Web
Totally agree, this is the point of every conversation talking about sportwatches. And, definitely, if you are a manufacturer/producer, you don’t need to hear every user (buyers/athletes with few weeks of experience, for example), and if you are interested on extending your market, you must hear a little further than your traditional expertise users.
So finally, you must develop an stable, trustworthy, expandable and non device dependant platform for athletes, where an expertise could be comfortable, and where a nerd could say WOW!

I need something that help me training harder, smarter and healthier, and actually, none of them (Suunto, Polar, Garmin) are good enough:

• Suunto: best accuracy but lack of basic features

And immersed in a non sense (for overall users) road developing a platform based on mobile apps (against a web based platform which is their best expertise point and the easier -because it’s not device dependant- one)…

• Polar: in the middle of those 2. Not the most big list of features and not the most accurate watch
• Garmin: good platform with too much features but poor accuracy

But, at least into my neighborhood (friends, familiars…), it’s something just like a standard. But for sure, with a confiable and non device dependant web platform with a punch of capabilities to deeply analysis of workouts and programming them.

I’m also thinking of buying a new watch for triathlon, but… which would I buy? FR935? never tested a Garmin but you all guys says that has bad accuracy. Vantage V? very immature (like Suunto platform now)

My wife has got a FR735XT and have not so bad accuracy (at least compared with my SST). Like EVERY other one, it could have a bad day, but mine, for example, has always a bad day on open water. On bike and running, normally mine has got more accuracy, but I must say it has more bad days than 735.
In the other side, as far as triathlon athletes doesn’t do just triathlon competition, but they do duathlon and swim&run too (and other kind of sport cocktails)… IMHO saying that Spartans watches are triathlon watches is a limited assertion and while they have not customized multi-sport modes, the correct assertion would be something like “limited triathlon watches”.
I took a short view of a Xiaomi Amazfit Pace 2/Stratos, and it just really have a customizable multisport mode with transitions (or not, whatever you want). In the other hand, it has just a mobile app, which is far enough from an optimal sport solution.

[mbergi]

@sartoric I reallly can’t understand why Suunto made the decision to leave movescount behind and go that standalone-app way. I’m using Suunto watches since 1999 (Vector, T6. Ambit, Ambit3, SSU). I loved every single of them (at least to ambit3), but now i’m really worrying about the future. I think it will take Suunto years to create a new ecosystem that is able to compete with the market companions. The situation at the moment is so frustrating.
For example: as a user I want to add graphs to my custom sports modes - that means I have to quit movescount wich is the only possibility to do serious workout analysis…I don’t have any more words for that situation…
It’s nice to see a lot of people here in the forum who try to help anyway.

But I have more and more doubt about having such a long breath

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@mbergi

We all help here

[mbergi]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos you do an amazing job here - Suunto has to give you an award!!!

[SlaSh]

@mbergi paycheck is the best award

[Brad_Olwin]

@suzzlo @ColdBeer I buy a watch primarily for Training so I will stick my neck into the guillotine here. These are MY opinions from my experience. I have used many Suunto products and several Garmin products. The Garmin platform is no better than the Suunto App for training! Even Movescount, which is exponentially better than Garmin is still not good enough. I will give my opinion here, which I try not to do because I have strong opinions. I have been a Professional Ski Instructor for 12 years, raced road bikes in long, crits and circuit races doing well in my age group. I quit bike racing and for the last nine years I race ultramarathons from 50k to 200k. I have been self-coached until this year when I hired a coach.

The training tools on the watches and websites with the exception of one are not adequate for training! Period! Why? Because the VO2Max estimates, etc on these websites and recovery estimates are simply not good enough. The only website I have found helpful for self-coaching was Training Peaks, which gives you a wealth of training intensity data for planning, improving and recovering. There may be others out there that I am not aware of. I have also used some desk-based apps.

But neither Garmin nor Suunto nor Polar have sufficient training built into their platforms to make it useful for Training in my opinion.

So I do NOT purchase Watch+App+Web because it just doesn’t matter. What I need is a watch that is reliable and as accurate as possible to give me the information I can use on a Training Site or program that matters. I prefer Suunto for that and the S9 is targeted exactly for people like me that do stupidly long races and cannot remember to charge a watch during a race because they are too old.

My 2 cents!

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@SlaSh I did this with no paycheck as well here and in other forums quite sometime. Don’t insult me.

BTW I don’t get paid for the forums, my task is different. Specifically I am digital market specialist and part of my job is the inbox for example in the Suunto app.

My paycheck for this position comes since Sept way after the forums etc was formed. Way after 2016

[ColdBeer]

@Brad_Olwin I don’t fully agree (but partially) about Movescount vs Garmin Connect platforms. Maybe… were you comparing apps? I don’t need/like/want mobile apps (just need it to sync). I need a good analysis platform, and I prefer to do that job on a big screen and even better, a multi-device platform (like web) to could do the job on a tablet, or a desktop computer. I work with both web platforms and I must say that -with differences- both are “good enough”. Probably not perfect (or professional), but enough. I know TrainingPeaks (did you test with http://sporttracks.mobi ?) is better for hard analysis but Hey! probably not the objective for most athlete enthusiasts.
So your sentence “The Garmin platform is no better than the Suunto App for training!” is not true, in my honest opinion, because, simply, I can’t believe that you try to compare the fully Garmin platform (web) with a simple mobile app which has no more than 30% of the Garmin capabilities. Another thing is if you are comparing both mobile apps but, again, Suunto is still a beta where some things doesn’t work, most things doesn’t fully work (with no bugs) and is not ready for nothing more than a “preview” of a workout analysis.

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@SlaSh just to be clear. My job is not this forum.

[peringmar]

Ipad version? YES please, route planning would be so much easier(i use a iphone se). I don’t know much about programming, but can’t you just use the same code but upscale everything?

[Dimitrios Kanellopoulos]

@peringmar that is the way

[peringmar]

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Then it should be a pretty easy and fast job to implement if you compare it with other other awesome features like in-app route planning or sports customization? Maby it will in the near future.

[mbergi]

@ColdBeer in my opinion movescount would have been absolutely worth it to be further developed. For sure it’s not enough for pro athletes, but imo it was the best solution for HOBBY runners, trailrunners, mountainbikers, hikers and even a lot of triathletes liked it very much. I really don’t get why Suunto drops it. Who makes those desicions?!

[Brad_Olwin]

@ColdBeer For me, the bells and whistles don’t matter, I need training information and the info on Garmin Web is much worse than Movescount and for the Garmin app is no better than the Suunto app. It doesn’t matter how much junk is on it, the “training info” on the Garmin app and watch is useless AFIK as is Recovery time on the Suunto watches and Movescount. Again my 2Cents.

I have tried .mobi but have not investigated the Training potential. I do not think it is as good as WKO4 though. I disagree with you as it does not matter whether Suunto app has only 30% of Garmin capabilities, neither is sufficient so I would rather not have the extra “junk.” Once I can export .fit files from Suunto App I will be happier or sync all data with Training Peaks it will be sufficient. I have a very different view here as I do not want or need to see steps or 24/7 hr or much of anything else. I doubt the Suunto App or Garmin apps will ever be useful for training. I need reliable sync, offline sync., maps with waypoints (I love the heatmap), watch customization, planned moves and all data transferred to 3rd party or downloaded.

[ColdBeer]

@mbergi I could understand the decision to migrate to a new platform based on several things (as an IT manager). But doesn’t agree the fact that they are forgetting the good job made and experience developed on Movescount. IMHO, I would order to develop a new WEB (fully web and multi-device) platform to view, review, analyze and work with our workouts, and for the start, based on the job made before on Movescount. This web platform could be linked on a light mobile app (developed separately for iOS and Android) which just have the code to sync watches and send notifications, while the hard job is common on the web (and the same for the different platforms).

[mbergi]

@ColdBeer my full approval

[Brad_Olwin]

I think that long-term the app will be close to Movescount. Here is another reason for the move to the app. This is a fictional rendition…Many moons ago in Ambit world, many, many customers complained about being tied to the web to change watchfaces, etc. So, Suunto makes a bold decision…the Ambit platform will not support all the customization we need in the watch and on mobile. So, we design a complete new modern OS that can grow, we know mobile is the future so we will invest there and get the basics running, build mobile and then see if a web interface is still needed.

I think that a lot of features are coming…ones we do not discuss much that will push the Suunto watches and mobile platform into an integrated unit. Our voices may change once we see the app come out of beta…

[mbergi]

@Brad_Olwin I like your positive attitude!

[ColdBeer]

@Brad_Olwin Again, I agree with you if I try to be under your skin. But I’m trying to think in 2 ways: as the totally nerd (about trainings, workouts, and sportwatches) I were 24 months ago, and as a medium (but techy) user I am right now.
So, as you know, the “bells and whistles” matters in the sport market. You can’t look everything with your own glasses. I understand that profesional (or specialized) analysis and programming needs an special way. That’s the reason syncing between platforms are great. But for those who will never spend 60$/year on a training platform, plus 600$/year (at least) for a professional trainer… I really think (and most athletes I meet) that Garmin, Polar and Suunto (movescount) platforms are good enough. And movescount, unless until the turn on Suunto, was probably the best one in this playing field.

LAST UPDATE: I agree: at the end the app will be close to Movescount but… which one? iOS app? Android app? They are two totally different apps, they are running by different ways and have got different bugs and issues. And the app, at the end, just work on the mobile device. Most people (and I said “most” because this is all-around known) doesn’t make the hard work on a mobile device. But please, don’t forget that the web solution doesn’t mean it’s just for desktop. As you could work with sporttracks.mobi or TrainingPeaks on your mobile browser (or inside an app)…

[Luís Pinto]

@Brad_Olwin I think web and app have they own space. SA pratical, when you are away from home you can able to custom fields, and upload moves, have a social support; Movescount web personally i am a fan. To see maps, routes, graphs, nothing beats a large screen. Maybe I’m getting old.
Disadvantages? Not portable like having the app in your pocket.
What is now important is to have platform communication.