Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra
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While the mere file size does have some impact on resources and battery consumption, I’d agree with sky-runnner, that the rendering process of vector maps is the actual energy hungry beast:
Raster maps come in different layers (resolutions), depending on zoom level. All the watch has to do, is loading part of such a file and put it on the screen. Not much calculation needs to be done there: extract the image part, rotate and display it.
For vector maps, each displayed element has to be calculated and rendered individually - every street, every street name, path, field, etc. This usually involves less data to be loaded from the map files, and yet requires much more processing power. That’s heating up CPUs and drains the battery.
That’s my experience as a software developer. But I don’t know for sure about the watch software here.
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@Simon Maybe it works differently for maps/watches.
I do some graphics work, and processing larger raster graphics/images is very resource-intensive. Vector graphics are more gentle on the hardware and its resources.
This is generally the advantage of vector graphics. Typically, you can’t achieve visually as good results as with raster graphics, but vector graphics are cheaper (resource-wise). For this reason, car navigation systems are vector graphics.
Suunto maps, despite lacking many details, look much better. -
@maszop said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
Suunto maps, despite lacking many details, look much better.
Suunto maps only look better, but are much less usable if we forget for a moment about the navigation layer on top of the map. Consider the map itself. But I would question even the “look better” part. For example consider this screenshot from my weekend trail run and imagine looking at that not on a large screen but on a small watch screen at a distance of extended arm and while running:
Can you even see what I am talking about? Who thought that rendering trails as green on a green was a good idea? And I don’t even mention that one more zoom out and I’d be staring at a pure green screen with zero details.
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@sky-runner I have already written here many times that Suunto maps become useless when viewing a slightly larger area. No trails, no paths, no contour lines – just breadcrumb on a colored background.
If there is a place with more landscape elements (lake, fields, cliffs, etc.) then Suunto maps look great.
Regarding your photo, I’ve been concluding for some time that the people responsible for the map’s appearance don’t actually use them in the field. Look at how cartoonishly clear these paths are in the city (they look like some kind of highway), and how difficult they are to see, for example, in your photo.
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@maszop said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
Regarding your photo, I’ve been concluding for some time that the people responsible for the map’s appearance don’t actually use them in the field. Look at how cartoonishly clear these paths are in the city (they look like some kind of highway), and how difficult they are to see, for example, in your photo.
But what I find the most difficult to understand is that not a single reviewer has pointed to this when Race 2 and Vertical 2 were released. I mentioned this issue to two of them in advance, so they were aware, and they still didn’t mention it.
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@sky-runner this is why I don’t watch review videos anymore. People act like they are the only source of truth and the holy grail. I find it amusing when somewhere online uses “but DC ray said” as an argument. They touch just the surface, show the user interface, show HR comparison on one or two activities, then conclude for whom this watch is. There are a few exceptions, but 90% of them are like that. In entertainment terms I would say it’s “lazy writing”.
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I think the maps are very useful. But there needs to be said I come from no map on my previous watch (Polar Grit X), only a breadcrumb trail. I find it easy to determine my path and orient with it. The only thing I would ask is paths visible to 500 m or maybe 1 km. But that’s all
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@Horizontal_2 said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
The only thing I would ask is paths visible to 500 m or maybe 1 km. But that’s all
I used to be that way until July 2025. Then Suunto has “optimized” it in the 2025 Q3 update, shortly before the release of Race 2. At least on my Race and Race S watches configured with imperial units, I could see trails at the 0.5 mile zoom level, which is 800 meters.
Can anyone from Suunto explain why this has been changed?
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@sky-runner said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
Can anyone from Suunto explain why this has been changed?
No, the claim is Suunto doesn’t watch this forum…
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@sky-runner
I am not sure where the claim that Suunto maps are raster-based comes from, maybe others have different definitions. But: The maps on my Race S are definitely vector graphics, not raster(=pixel) images. Just observe dashed lines while zooming for a clue. Map data clearly is split into tiles, though, which explains the lack of (difficulty to do) routing on the watch.My previous watch had no maps and I definitely find them useful despite their limitations, hoping that they finally fixed the “some tiles randomly won’t load” bug.
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@jakubdr I was skiing 4 hours with 6% battery consumption, OHR on, best GPS, chest belt connected, slalom skis - it means many turns with arm raise to wake :-), so I am very satisfied with batery comsumption
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@Jan_B said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
I am not sure where the claim that Suunto maps are raster-based comes from, maybe others have different definitions. But: The maps on my Race S are definitely vector graphics, not raster(=pixel) images
I am pretty sure this has been discussed before and the conclusion was that Suunto maps were raster based, and that’s why the maps are so much larger in size than Garmin maps and also that’s why rotation is so much more smooth.
However I started to research it last night and I am no longer sure. On one hand if you look at how building outlines scale, how multiple buildings merge together into formless blobs when scaling out, that points to image scaling. On the other hand, the way trails and roads scale, does no longer look like image scaling. I think that perhaps it now may be a combination of raster based and vector based layers, and that may also be the reason why rendering has changed in the 2025 Q3 update as discussed in https://forum.suunto.com/topic/13311/map-rendering-and-trail-visibility-after-software-update-2.43.8-.12 thread.
The Mapbox website does mention some innovation with Suunto and in particular this:
“The combination of Mapbox Tiles and Static Images API enables wristwatches map experience as effective as in mobile apps”
https://www.mapbox.com/showcase/suunto
Perhaps someone from Suunto who knows more details may shed some light if that isn’t a secret.
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@sky-runner good find, but AFAIK mapbox is only used in the app, not on the watch…
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Suunto watches are using vector maps data ofc
Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer
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And yes, mapbox provides some maps data only for Suunto App, not for watches
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@pavel.samokha Very interesting!
If it is vector based it should be relatively easy to make the level of details optional for those users who really need it. The lack of trail visibility at higher zoom levels is something that is likely drive me to a competitor watch if that isn’t addressed soon. I find it bizarre that I can see building outlines at 0.5 mile zoom level, but trails disappear two zoom levels earlier. This is supposed to be an adventure watch so arguably trail visibility is far more important!
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@sky-runner said in Vertical 2 during 14.5 hour long ultra:
If it is vector based it should be relatively easy to make the level of details optional for those users who really need it.
Exactly! Someone getting an idea to hide trails at 500m and above is weird enough, but that the idea actually makes it all the way to production firmware, unchallenged, is quite shocking.
