I have zero confidence in Suunto route navigation!

[sky-runner]

@duffman19 said in I have zero confidence in Suunto route navigation!:

This is 100% caused by the Auto Reverse “feature.”

Maybe. In this particular case I’ve never done a single step in the opposite direction. However, as I described above there was a short part of the route that was shared between the two mostly different loops, although both loops had that part in the same direction. What happened is that the directional arrow (the light blue part) switched from the first loop to the second loop without reversing the route. Or perhaps it did reverse the route but that wasn’t obvious.

[duffman19]

@sky-runner I see what you mean and take your point from above about having certain “checkpoints” to cross. Even if there are checkpoints added in the background, wouldn’t that just be for the purpose of determining the direction of travel and therefore part of the auto reverse feature? Whatever it is exactly, it’s all just too complicated for its own good.

Like @Mff73 above, I’ve also tested following a route with two Suunto watches at the same time (Vertical and 9PP). At one point leading into a loop, the Vertical showed the correct way (left) while the 9PP showed the wrong way (right). Both watches somehow showed the same end-of-route distance, like in your original example above. How is this possible?

What I’ve observed is that the the auto reverse (and navigation in general) consists of three separate calculations that seem to occur independently of each other: the light blue direction-of-travel arrow on the map, the distance remaining (and ETAs and ETEs to waypoints, etc.), and an “off route” notification that occurs when a change in direction is detected.

It seems that the blue directional arrow is the most sensitive and will change within 50-100 meters after reversing directions. The distance remaining is much slower to adjust, sometimes taking up to 200 meters to correct after a change in direction. The notification (which I haven’t observed lately, so perhaps doesn’t happen anymore) occurs sometime between these two.

Now why wouldn’t all of these things happen at the same time when a reverse of direction is detected? I think this is just further evidence that the backend is just too complicated. This might also explain what you experienced, that you were somehow between these calculations where the arrow had “updated” incorrectly to showed the wrong way, but the distance remaining hadn’t recalculated yet and was still correct.

[sky-runner]

@duffman19 said in I have zero confidence in Suunto route navigation!:

It seems that the blue directional arrow is the most sensitive and will change within 50-100 meters after reversing directions.

From looking at the map screenshot in my original post, I can confidently tell that the direction was not reversed. I can tell that because of a unintentional routing mistake on my part which resulted in the “out” part of the route where the light blue direction arrow is pointing to slightly diverge from the “back” part. According to the original direction, the “out” part is below on the screenshot and it is light blue. The “back” part is above on the screenshot and it is dark blue. Therefore the directional arrow is consistent with the original direction.

[duffman19]

@sky-runner Ok, I think I see where you mean - that small section between the two dots (waypoints or turns)? So you think it just skipped ahead while you were somewhere on section 6? (Sorry, I’m trying to follow along.)

Perhaps in addition to the watch always trying to figure out which direction you’re traveling, it’s also always trying to figure out where you are along the route, rather than just assuming you are strictly moving from one point to the next. So maybe somewhere along section 6, it incorrectly guessed you were farther along in your route (since the paths cross at 6/7) and updated the directional arrow accordingly, but hadn’t yet updated the distance remaining since that lags behind. I’d bet if you had followed the light blue path, away from your car, the remaining distance would have also skipped ahead soon after. But since you followed the route as planned, it didn’t have time to adjust to this mistake.

Whatever is going on, you are correct that it’s screwy and inconsistent.

[sky-runner]

Yet another example of the watch, now Vertical 2, not following the route as planned. I plan complex routes not because I want to get from point A to point B but because I have a specific training goal in mind with specific distance and ascent, and with specific terrain for ascents and descents. That’s why it is not OK to randomly change what I have deliberately planned.

Here’s an example of the watch just skipping a part and jumping to a later part of the route - not OK at all. And if something like this happened in a race, that would make me disqualified.

The plan was to continue from point #1 to point #2, them circle back counterclockwise to point back to point #1 (marked as #3). The reason circling back there because that was the only reliable source of water. Then continue on the high route via #4 to number 5, them return via #6 to #7 (the same as #1 and #3) and refill water again.

During the run, at the junction after #1, the watch pointed me to the left, towards #4 and therefore skipping #2 and the entire small loop.

.

[runyx17]

@sky-runner This is exactly the type of route where navigation fails. When I have a route like this, I have to stop and restart the navigation several times during the workout to make it usable.

And one more thing. I don’t know why they can’t use simple logic here: for example, if I don’t pass point 2, don’t navigate me to point 4. Only do that if I continue towards point 4 for a longer distance—like 200 meters—or after a warning like “You missed points X and Y. Do you really want to skip ahead?”

Reading about these problems here makes me worry if it will ever be fixed at all.

Also, Garmin handles routes where Suunto fails much better.

[mich heller]

@sky-runner
from manual for your watch:
“If you are navigating a route that crosses itself, such as a figure-8, and you make a wrong turn at the crossing, your watch assumes you are intentionally going in a different direction on the route. The watch shows the next waypoint based on the current, new direction of travel. So, keep an eye on your breadcrumb trail to ensure you are going the right way when you are navigating a complicated route.”
https://www.suunto.com/en-gb/Support/Product-support/suunto_vertical-2/suunto_vertical-2/navigation/routes/

I guess you need to know more or less where are you going.

[runyx17]

@mich-heller Yes, I know about this, but the problem is that even if I mostly know the route and Suunto sends me the wrong way, once I keep running the right way, the whole navigation—including climb guidance—gets messed up. Then I have to turn it off and on again.

[johann.fuehrer]

@runyx17 Highlighting a part of the track immediately coming up in front of you in the map would help a bit… (next 50 meters or so? depending on the zoom level)

[Mff73]

@sky-runner
Could share the gpx of that route? I could ask about this behaviour.
mp if preferred.

[stromdiddily]

@sky-runner that’s a heck of a route!

Curious what zoom level you use while you’re navigating during the run and if you happened to look at the navigation while you were approach 1, 3, 7.

I would certainly hope that while you were still moving towards the first way point, the blue arrowed line ahead of your exact current position correctly showed you the path to way point 2.

Absolutely a problem if even while moving, prior to waypoint 1s first arrival, it was navigating you to 4 immediately

[sky-runner]

@runyx17 said:

Reading about these problems here makes me worry if it will ever be fixed at all.

I think the main problem is that Suunto navigation doesn’t simply guide you though a planned route. It continuously guesses where you want to go based on your current position. I think, internally there are invisible “checkpoints” along the route that you must pass for the watch to determine that you are on-route. Based on what the checkpoint that you passed last it draws the light blue arrows pointing you toward the next checkpoint. The reason I think it works this way is because these light blue arrows sometimes lag behind and then jump forward. In my example the route goes over itself twice for a short distance so there would be two checkpoints from different distances. When the watch sees the one from the later distance, it probably decides at that point that I have already skipped a part of the route, so it simply shows the light blue arrows based on where it thinks I am and not where I should be according to the planned route. This is a subtle but important difference. And because of that sometimes it randomly reverses the direction. There may be a momentary GPS glitch, and it readily accepts that, assuming that I started moving in the opposite direction.

Also, Garmin handles routes where Suunto fails much better.

I know exactly how Garmin navigation works because I helped them to fix a bug a few years ago where Garmin navigation would repeatedly go off route at sharp nearly 180 degree turns. The way I helped is that I kept hammering them with bug reports on their forum and produced simple and detailed repro steps. I was in communication with one of their reps and and eventually they had fixed it.

Garmin has similar invisible “checkpoints” on route that I described above - perhaps every 30-50 meters or so. While you are on route you are expected to move towards the next checkpoint. Once you passed that - move to the next one, and so on. Garmin navigation makes sure you stick to the route as a sequence of these checkpoints in the exact order as planned. If course, if you intentionally skipped a part of the route it would tell you that you went off route. Then it would recapture you later on the route. But it doesn’t do that proactively and without letting the user know as Suunto does it.

And this is exactly how Suunto should do that. Even if there is still an auto-reversal logic, you should do the best effort to stick to the original route, and only when that fails, show the notification, and only then after some distance of going off the original route, try to recapture it. That would give user a chance to correct themselves if they mistakenly went off route or cut a part of it, or reversed direction.