Open source Movescount web
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My personal views to this, not official Suunto statement: Even if the code would be good enough to be open sourced (not going to give my opinion if it is pretty or not) it would be really, really difficult to get the cost of the required servers covered by open community. I don’t have any exact numbers and would not be able to give them if I’d have, but I know it it pretty big number
This is business and in the end it always will come to money and cost and how to balance with them and the user requirements. To keep the product promises Suunto has given and is giving we need to offer certain services. Since Amer now have two databases for activity data, one can easily see the reasoning why to combine them. That selected one will be the database that all Amer brands will be connected to. Now we just have to see what is really, really required and what features do we need to build on top of the chosen database. Mobile only is big in China and I can personally see the trend towards that. How ever, there is a very clear tone in the feedback that the web is really, really required. I’m personally eagerly waiting to see what will we offer in that area in the next ~2 years, until we have only the one database left. It can also be noted that due some regulations in China, the Movescount do not exist there anymore.
One final personal thought about the Sports-tracker and Suunto. They share the same database and are both owned by Amer. They co-operate, but run their business independently. So if Suunto would decide to open up a sport wearable dedicated web-front, it will be accessed through www.suunto.com. It is however true that you can access the same data through other sites. If you dig the Amer stock releases and dig the Sport instruments parts you may find out what kind of size we speak when we speak about Suunto and for example Garmin. You may also find out what have the money flows been between Amer and Sport instruments. I personally love the Ambit’s, but have been learning to love also S9 and Suunto app too. (I do some endurance stuff so battery is the key to me) The Suunto app (as platform) is not quite yet in the level I wish it would be, but I have the possibility to work daily to get it there and I’m really grateful about all the feedback and time from all of you in this forum and in the beta and so on that are helping me and my co-workers to build the new app better than Movescount is at the moment. -
@Jouko-from-Suunto
Thanks a lot! -
@Jouko-from-Suunto
Thank you so much for your transparency and taking your time to post a reply.Probably in the end the result will be good but the communication was quite “improveable”, to say the least.
Anyway, big kudos to the developers and may the force be with you to bring a great web platform!
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@jsuarez I have unfortunately correct? / make more clear? some details. I’ve been a developer, but not in Suunto, so a long time ago. Currently I’m working mainly with the apps. Mainly with Android releasing and Field testing areas. I have no visibility to what web shall we have if we will have one, I’m pretty sure we need to have one to support certain features properly. Now it is all up to the discussion and feedback here that needs to be understand by business doing the decisions about the future. I hope we will have what is needed. So my post should not be read as promise of a similar web front as Movescount is now and really carefully read like if there will be one it will be also different from Sports-tracker. To my personal understanding. I do not run the decisions, but I try to influence them by giving the feedback from this forum and some other touch points to users.
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@Jouko-from-Suunto
Jouko, your message was perfectly fine and I am not reading it as a promise either. You made it quite clear that it was your personal opinion, not that of Suunto’s official position.
When I said the communication was not good, I was referring to yesterday’s Suunto official notice. My impression is that it was half-baked and much of the trouble would have been spared if proper analysis was carried out to detect the problems users would come up with, think if that could be solved before MC web is closed and make a full, proper communication in a few weeks/months time. After all, announcing the closure of MC in 15 months is almost equal as 18 months.
If you are going to give your feedback internally, it might be worth taking a look at what pieces of information and functionalities MC web has that are not present in the current offerings of SApp or STracker (or included in the internal roadmap). For example, I could name the following:
- A personal bests section (this year/all time where you are even given a % standing based on moves of other people of your age group).
- A personal yearly progress section where you can filter by length and heart rate (this MC web feature is outstanding, in my opinion).
- Being able to see other values the Suunto gear gathers or MC web is capable of calculating. E.g.: EPOC, VO2max calculation, breathings per minute, Heart Rate Variability, etc. With regard to those values calculated by MC, it “should” be easy to take the function from MC web’s code and re-use it in Suunto App backend, I guess…
- And obvioulsy all the accesibility using a big screen, keyboard and mouse a web frontend brings.
Edit reason: typo
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@Jouko-from-Suunto Thank you! It is encouraging to know that you, @Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos and other staff are fighting for a better future for this project. We will win all!
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@Jouko-from-Suunto said in Open source Movescount web:
but I know it it pretty big number
Jouko, Suunto is selling 500+Eur watches and people who buy this type of premium device expect a premium software environment same or even better as Garmin or Polar has to offer (both have web front end and mobile), reading your personal opinion I really hope that this is not internal thoughts in the Suunto realm that an a AWS cloud service is too expensive for our just sold 500+ watch let’s cut and make it cheaper with a mobile only version due cost savings of the servers. If Suunto is serious in playing a significant role in the device market they need to compete with the top not with the bottom cost cutters as there are plenty. Yesterday Suunto announced they ramp down movescount hence cutting service level and offering…
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@Tobias-F Web based apps, or let me say it like so, a web interface does not / should not put extra load to servers. On the contrary (as a web dev) mobile apps can add extra load.
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@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos was referring to the line that an AWS cloud is costing a hell of money …
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@Tobias-F yeah hey I am not arguing here. I just post what I know in regards to webdev. Just saying
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@Tobias-F valid point. As a customer I totally understand it. I’m sorry I can’t open up more about the cost structure, since I’m already in a pretty thin ice here since I do not have all the numbers and I may be even restricted to give them by stock rules since Amer is still a public company, even Mascot Bidco is likely to buy it in few months. I think the best option here is to vote on the topics and give the feedback here. I’m sure it will be taken in considerations since this whole web-topic is sensitive to users as we already learned when Polar announced to remove one older service and they had to rollback the decision. Here we need to find the ways to give Suunto users a good service also outside Movescount. I’m sure our users want to help us doing that. We’ll see if ~2 years is enough or do we need longer time.
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Personally, I don’t use Movescount for anything other than configuring my watch and uploading to Strava.
What I would expect is that Suunto at least do the bare minimum to avoid Ambit etc owners from having to throw their rather expensive and not very old watches in the rubbish bin. I would not have bought my Ambit 2 if I’d known it was going to be useless in 5 years. And I would challenge Suunto to prominently advertise that any of their watches currently being sold could be useless in 5 years time. See how many you sell then… yeah, I didn’t think so.
I expect that Suunto continue to provide functionality for these watches to be configured and upload move data to 3rd party applications like Strava etc, even if the interface to your “new digital services” isn’t viable. Either that, or offer a free replacement for the watch that you have decided is no longer functional.
Given that your announcement is only 24 hrs old, I predict you’re going to get a lot more outraged customers. I, for one, am going to make a lot more noise about it.
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@tcdev This post totally reflect my opinion. The bare minimum is to allow owners to further use their Ambit and Ambit2 watches. What is Suunto official position about environmental sustainability? It does not matter and we have to throw our watches in the rubbish bin?
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@Jouko-from-Suunto said in Open source Movescount web:
We’ll see if ~2 years is enough or do we need longer time…
hear you … not sure if Suunto still has 1-2 years for this, world around Suunto is not sleeping or waiting until Suunto get’s the things straight
if Garmin has a BI team and is smart enough to listen to this whole customer complains after Jan.15 about shutting down an essential service without a proper replacement they probably would considering to buy out whole movescount.com from Amer and get 2Mill user for less as 5US$ per account and keep movescount running and offer them step by step over time replacement hardware, Adidas bought Runtastic for 230M$ for 70M users (3.3US$ per user), Under Armour paid for Endomondo’s 20million users 85M$ (4,25US$ per user) and in 2015 MyFitnessPal 475M$ for 80Mill users (5.9US$ per user), a movescount user is probably more worth to Garmin as a typical Suunto user they tend to own more as one device (even SA support only one single device today unfortunately -> bad move by design) and tend to buy higher end and premium devices with higher gross margins -> chance of a lifetime for Garmin…
if you want to help would appreciate if you can bring one single message back to Suunto internally and make them heard:
NEVER FIGHT AGAINST YOUR OWN PAYING CUSTOMER!
ps: for all the picky moderators here who come afterwards, I’m not at all affiliated with Garmin or else, personal opinion and messages here expressed only
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@Tobias-F hehe. The moderators here are also customers and not affiliated with Suunto, just saying. We had a Who wants to become mod poll some time ago
https://forum.suunto.com/topic/756/the-call-for-moderators-mods
Maybe I can be picky, but we have never silenced, banned or did anything regarding to freedom of speech. I am very concerned about freedom of speech so never worry that anything here will be muted, unless that is a bot, spam, or a tester breaking his NDA with Suunto.
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@Tobias-F and since you are very affiliated and concerned here perhaps next time we have mod’s opening you can join. I d be glad to vote for you
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@Tobias-F said in Open source Movescount web:
hear you … not sure if Suunto still has 1-2 years for this, world around Suunto is not sleeping or waiting until Suunto get’s the things straight
if Garmin has a BI team and is smart enough to listen to this whole customer complains after Jan.15 about shutting down an essential service without a proper replacement they probably would considering to buy out whole movescount.com from Amer and get 2Mill user for less as 5US$ per account and keep movescount running and offer them step by step over time replacement hardware, Adidas bought Runtastic for 230M$ for 70M users (3.3US$ per user), Under Armour paid for Endomondo’s 20million users 85M$ (4,25US$ per user) and in 2015 MyFitnessPal 475M$ for 80Mill users (5.9US$ per user), a movescount user is probably more worth to Garmin as a typical Suunto user they tend to own more as one device (even SA support only one single device today unfortunately -> bad move by design) and tend to buy higher end and premium devices with higher gross margins -> chance of a lifetime for Garmin…
if you want to help would appreciate if you can bring one single message back to Suunto internally and make them heard:
NEVER FIGHT AGAINST YOUR OWN PAYING CUSTOMER!
ps: for all the picky moderators here who come afterwards, I’m not at all affiliated with Garmin or else, personal opinion and messages here expressed onlyIn global terms I find a lot of sense in this. Being an Ambit user with this Suunto ¨move¨ I would be very hesitant to buy a Suunto again. It´s no longer a question of device quality or accuracy. If it were not for excellent quality of Suunto devices, it would cease to exist a couple of years ago due to financial problems. 2 months ago I try to sell my SSU for 1/4 of market price paid 1.5 years ago and no success. I sold my Ambit 2 in less than 2 weeks. The sports watch market expands rapidly and is no longer a matter of 2 and increasingly difficult to survive. Amazfit Group of Facebook has almost 34,000 users that is 4 times more than all Suunto groups together. I guess Suunto is up to date with this and I’m still with them
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I would suggest that Suunto at least make the USB Protocol used for communication between PC and the Ambit2 watch open source.
That way I could write my own software to maintain routes, settings, etc. for my Ambit2 (e.g. participate in the openambit project and extend its functionality).
Reverse engineering the protocol using USB pcap dumps is a pita. -
@mfischer01 See openambit
One issue that was mentioned as being potentially problematic is the fact that activities “manually uploaded” to Strava aren’t (always) eligible for challenges, contests etc. So the issue extends beyond simply getting the files off the Ambit2 - for which I believe openambit already provides a solution - but rather getting them into Stava and other services via the API so they’re not considered as being manually uploaded.
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@tcdev Did you read my post? I mentioned openambit…
It shouldn’t be a problem to extend openambit so that it uploads directly to strava or others if there is a documented api.
The problem is that openambit only READS data from the device. I cannot be used to push routes, settings, etc. to the watch. Therefore the USB protocol should be published open source so that we can add that functionality to openambit.
