Suunto Routeplanner

atoponce

Planning another long run of ~35 km, give or take. As expected, the Suunto Route Planner has non-uniform spacing between distance ticks on the x-axis:

0 km
1 km (+1)
3 km (+2)
6 km (+3)
8 km (+2)
13 km (+5)
16 km (+3)
18 km (+2)
24 km (+6)
33 km (+9)
35 km (+2)

This gives a skewed view of the elevation profile:

Compare to the uniform spacing using onthegomap.com:

Mitch9

@atoponce Yes, I can confirm this strange behaviour.

brechtvb

@atoponce same here

baaaa

The problem with how trails and roads are displayed is simply disastrous - even in the route planner, compare the map at nearly the same scale and see how drastically it changes!

https://routeplanner.suunto.com/?lat=49.851338&lng=22.607213&zoom=13.1&style=outdoo

https://routeplanner.suunto.com/?lat=49.851338&lng=22.607213&zoom=12.95&style=outdoor

These aren’t watches, but maps on a computer - what’s the point of hiding so many roads?

davemaps

Thank you for making this – it is much more convenient for me to make routes from my laptop than on my iPhone.

My question is regarding elevation data. It appears that the web route planner is using a very different algorithm or digital elevation model. It undercounts by about 50%! This makes it difficult to plan runs or rides in hilly or mountainous areas. Why is the calculation so different between each Suunto platform?

I made a route for a run today that was about 10.3mi (16.6km).

Suunto Route Planner (website):
Gain: 646ft (197m)
Loss: 656ft (200m)

Suunto iOS app route builder:
Gain: 923ft (281m)
Loss: 895ft (273m)

Suunto Vertical 2 watch (the recording of my run):
Gain: 1235ft (376m)
Loss: 1199ft (365m)

For comparison, here is the elevation estimate from the Strava website route builder:
Gain: 1354ft (413m)
Loss: 1333ft (406m)

atoponce

@davemaps I’ve always found wildly different estimations that I don’t know who to trust. For example, I’ve got a trail run loop tomorrow. According to the different mapping tools I use:

OnTheGoMap: Gain and loss: 7700 ft (2346 m)
Plot-a-route: Gain and loss: 7011 ft (2137 m)
Strava: Gain and loss: 6555 ft (1998 m)
Suunto RoutePlanner: Gain and loss: 6214 ft (1894 m)

I’ve found that OnTheGoMap gets really close to what my Race S calculates, provided I’ve got stable weather. Crazy that so many different mapping tools can vary so much.

sky-runner

@davemaps I think the difference can be explained not by the absolute data accuracy but by the data resolution and thresholds used by algorithms.

The difference is the most noticeable when I plan a running route on a rolling terrain with a lot of small changes in elevation rather than one large climb and one large descent. I find that the elevation data produced by Suunto App and probably especially the route planner tends to be quite smoothed with a lot of smaller changes in elevation disappearing entirely. In some places I may be going up and down through a substantial dip, but the estimated elevation data would show that as a steady climb. Because of this smoothness, a part of estimated elevation gain is lost with every small climb or descent - the more small climbs and descents there are the more difference in estimated data vs the actual measurements. And not only the total elevation gain and loss numbers that are affected but also climb guidance data for individual climbs - all of them are usually short by anywhere from 10 to 30 feet (3-10 meters).

davemaps

@sky-runner I agree about it being a data resolution issue. I just find it odd that Suunto’s software platforms don’t use the same data under the hood from one to the other. I ran a 100k in the mountains (East Coast, United States)…it was fun to see the route I built in the web route planner jump from 6500’ of climbing to 10,500’ of climbing when I imported it into the Suunto iOS app. Then I ran the race and my Suunto watch (along with all the other runners’ watches) calculated about 12,350’ of climbing. I was aware of the course’s terrain going in so the elevation was not a surprise to me, but the runners in the other brand ecosystems aren’t dealing with this.

BrunoH

Sorry if this is a duplicate question; I didn’t find an answer by searching “routeplanner activity type”.

I would like to create cycling routes on the web-based Routeplanner, but I can’t figure out how to choose the activity type. When I upload the route to my Suunto App it always ends up as running, and I can’t use it in biking activities.

Lorenzo Pintore

@BrunoH you can modify the route from the phone, changing the activity type

BrunoH

@Lorenzo-Pintore Thanks mate!!! It was a bit hard to find. You first have to open the route for editing and then click the V-sign for accepting the edits, and only after that you can modify the activity types. Awesome, thanks!!!