Important news concerning our digital services

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@be1t0n it really depends on the user. For example I use GAIA app to get the route from the web (it has a web as well).

So plan on GAIA’s web
Open app
export route to SA

If I had to use MC (not for planning but for improrting a route) I would have:

Plan on GAIA’s web
Open or export GPX from them
Open MC web
Import on MC web
Tick
Open MC app (or sync with cable).

To be honest for people that don’t use MC for Planning I think it’s easier. For the people that only use MC for planning it’s more clunky as you said.

However, perhaps yesterdays example helps.

I went to a friend to go for a run in the Pyrenees. He had the route from Visorando (similar to wikiloc etc here in France). I asked him:

Can you email me the route link ?

He did so.

I did:

Open mail
Go to link
Download GPX
Open with Suunto app.
Synced.

I bet the above with only having my mobile with me, with MC would not have worked at all

estevez

@be1t0n I totally agree. When I was choosing sports watches, web / sw platform was for me very important. I choosed Suunto also because of Movescount platform. I do not want to use 3rd party sw. I paid for Movescount platform when I bought Suunto watches.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@estevez I agree with your words. I also replied to @be1t0n just for showing my workflow atm

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Pal, this is a simply assertion. I agree mobile is useful for such kind of things, but it’s not so complicated on a desktop computer, and unlike on the phone, once you imported the GPX on movescount you could:

study briefly the route (and check elevation changes)
add POIs to the route, so you could know how to find emergency services, rescue zones and so on
modify the route as you need

Repeating: I will totally agree (and I said it lot of times) with adding features to the mobile app, most we have, more juice we’ll squeeze from our watches. No discussion here. But it’s not mandatory to void desktop features for that.

be1t0n

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I agree with this. I just think it would be an odd choice to force people into using a 3rd party service for this rather than linking it to Sports Tracker or something else linked to Suunto App directly. I know that, personally, I would be keen to keep everything in one place where possible.

Being able to import directly in the app sounds like a nice addition to have for the scenario you mentioned, although I personally have never had need to do that.

trukllimb

I’m the happy owner of an Ambit2 which is perfectly functional. I’ve been using Movescount to download my records, but most importantly to change my watch settings and to preload satellites positions.

I don’t really care about transferring my moves history on another platform. What I do care about is just to keep the possibility to do what I did before. By the way, I also care about our planet and would be very disappointed by throwing away a nice piec of equipment when there is absolutely no reason to do so.

For sure, if Suunto don’t provide a decent solution for Ambit2 series, I will find another watch… from another company!

Oktan

@kimbotz said in Important news concerning our digital services:

groups and bring newer hikers

I bet those groups of hikers ask you regarding the movie “Wow, how did you do that?” and you showed your watch proudly…Its sad that Suunto will not get those credits anymore…

Oktan

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Important news concerning our digital services:

I bet the above with only having my mobile with me, with MC would not have worked at all

You can do it by opening your mobile browser and choosing from the 3 dots menu, “Desktop site”.
Then navigate to movescount.com (you will see the regular site, not the mobile version), import the GPX, mark to use in your watch and sync.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@Oktan yeah did that in the past. However to import and the layout breaks quite often. (Had to switch to landscape a couple of time to get this done correct).

sartoric

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos
Yep … because you can’t scroll route “window” while in protrait

DmitryKo

@Brad_Olwin said in Important news concerning our digital services:

So please show me where it says the old Suunto is gone.

I’m not sure why the etymology of ‘news’ is totally lost on you. Probably it’s because you are a loyal long-time customer and just cannot grasp the nature of change that’s coming.

OK, ‘I hate to be Captain Obvious, but…’

Suunto built its current success in sport watches on the free Movescount platform and its tight integration with T/M, Quest, and Ambit/Traverse series hardware. They have a loyal user base of hardcore athletes who love its advanced analysis features integrated with watch customization and workout planning, all in one single place on a big computer screen.

Unfortunately this model is deemed unsustainable by the Amer Sports management, as the costs of developing and supporting a large scale web platform probably require far better sales.

So here come the Suunto news (i.e. the ‘new Suunto’): Movescount is discontinued and its loyal (but small) community of advanced users is encouraged to stay with Suunto hardware but look elsewhere for advanced analysis through forthcoming ‘partner offers’. This is effectively the end of the current Suunto community (i.e. the ‘old Suunto’) which was built on the Movescount service.

Suunto’s digital service is being scaled down to only offer analysis services on the mobile app platform, which would be easier for them to implement and support. The future is the new Sports Tracker derivative Suunto App, dedicated to supporting specific hardware features of recent Suunto watches. This also offers better engagement with the Sports Tracker community as well as Suunto’s new prospective markets.

For those who need advanced tools on a web platform, Suunto offers a migration path from Movescount to the Suunto App / Sports Tracker, and then a simplified connection pipe to a partnering site of choice, with direct export of .FIT/.GPX files through the Sports Tracker cloud API. I’m sure many such sites will be happy to accommodate current Movescount users and offer one-click import of their training data.

This would however require all current Movescount users to migrate to the Suunto App / Sports Tracker and remain on this new Suunto platform for the lifetime of their current hardware, as there will be no other way to download their workout data and customize their watches.

As for the users of older watches with no support for the Suunto App, there will probably be upgrade incentives and/or trade-in offers to keep them within the Suunto ecosystem.

By the way, the decision to drop support for older watches might have been based on valid technical reasons. Not that the obstacles cannot be overcome, it’s just unlikely they still have enough resources and/or expertise. But it’s also a subconscious move that follows their chosen strategy of discontinuing the old Suunto model and moving the associated user community to the new platform.

These are the reasons why I keep saying that I do not expect this announcement to be reversed in any substantial part. They have a clear roadmap for the new support model. They knew this will do a lot of damage to their current community, the Movescount community, so this was probably not an easy decision. But nevertheless it was effected at least one year ago, and they cannot reverse it now even if they wanted to.

Feel free to expect miracles to happen in reaction to forum posts and vote polls, but the hard truth is that virtually nothing can be done about it at this point. The only thing you can do by now is vote with your money, however even ‘dollar voting’ against new Suunto products can only influence future product and service decisions, but it cannot really overturn the decision effected in the past and already implemented by now.

So please take your time to re-read the announcement with the above considerations in mind.

gueze

@trukllimb That’s exactly the point, all other features can be replaced, but accessing the Ambit2 and changing the settings is fundamental!
I agree with you and have to say: When that is the way, Suunto is dealing with their customers, I cannot trust Suunto any more.
I intended to buy a new Suunto soon, but under that circumstances I will not.

DmitryKo

PS. Make no mistake, I am hugely dissatisfied with this decision and especially the abrupt changes it brought to old hardware. I think the transition should have been executed much more smoothly, given they had a full year to prepare for the announcement.

I’d also think the winding down of Movescount was not really based on the objective quality of their web interface and services, or even on high maintenance costs, which could be offset by a subscription fee. In retrospective it looks like it was really the plan all along, so Amer Sports could leverage the acquisition of Sports Tracker with minimal possible effort by providing just ‘good enough’ service.

I’m just trying to explain the reasons behind this decision, even if I do not agree with them.

Dominique Kowalski

This post is deleted!

Dominique Kowalski

@Dominique-Kowalski said in Important news concerning our digital services:

Bonjour,
Bonjour,

Je programme mes séances à l’avance, si «Movescount» disparaît comment pourrais-je faire?
Je ne vois pas comment faire avec l’application “Suunto”?

Sportivement.

Dominique KOWALSKI

Saketo Nemo

@Dominique-Kowalski said in Important news concerning our digital services:

Bonjour,
Je programme mes séances à l’avance, si «Movescount» disparaît comment pourrais-je faire?
Je ne vois pas comment faire avec l’application “Suunto”?

now, actually, you can’t do that

ColdBeer

@DmitryKo Totally agree, dear friend. What is actually more embarrassing, is the fact that Suunto announced those plans based in the “new Suunto App”, which everybody knows perfectly it’s an OLD mobile application (maybe “antique” or “vintage” would be better adjectives) with a few make-up jobs, with, definitely, no kind of integration with the “traditional suunto’s world” (movescount platform) and, in another way, in a so started state (in what referred about workout analysis, social sharing and external sync with other services).

In the real world, the suunto news would be published just after stopping the full development of the new platform (and just staying in a bug depuration state, or adding new functionalities for new services).

As you said, it’s obvious, so much obvious that each every suunto’s user are still embarrassed and knock-out.

RiphRaph

@gueze I have the same problem. I’m left wondering how long I can expect to use my Spartan Sport before the company decides it doesn’t want to support it any more. And I have a friend who’s looking to replace his running watch in the foreseeable future; I’ve been enthusing about my Spartan to him but now I have to warn him to steer clear of the Ambit range even if he sees a really good deal on one – and I have to tell him that the reason is that Suunto is willing to leave the owners of its older models high and dry. And it’s a pretty safe bet that when he hears this, he’s going to head straight for Garmin.

Even TomTom, for whom sports watches were never more than a sideline, is continuing to maintain their Sports website since it pulled out of the wearables market two years ago. It’s a truly terrible business decision on Suunto’s part not to do the same.

hrl_s

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in Important news concerning our digital services:

@Sean-Hermany hey I am in France it’s not illegal.

Hello /Bonjour

So, if you are in France, i send you the french law about planed obsolescence…

The law said since 2015 and 2016 :

« L’obsolescence programmée se définit par l’ensemble des techniques par lesquelles un metteur sur le marché vise à réduire délibérément la durée de vie d’un produit pour en augmenter le taux de remplacement. »

Code de la consommation : article L.441-2 et article L.454-6

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000032222841&dateTexte=&categorieLien=cid

https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do;jsessionid=2F7786BB99234C6F3500BDDD39F782C8.tplgfr41s_1?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006069565&idArticle=LEGIARTI000032225228&dateTexte=20190121&categorieLien=cid#LEGIARTI000032225228

Je pense que prouver que l’impossibilité de synchroniser mon Ambit 2 et donc de l’utiliser ce pourquoi elle est faite ne sera pas trop difficile. C’est donc bien de l’obsolescence programmée.

I think it won’t be difficult to say " suunto is planning an obsolescence for Ambit, Ambit 2 etc" AND in France, it’s not legal !
So i can understand, it’s not your fault, but please, don’t say “its not illégal in France”.

Kind regards
Steve

Brad_Olwin

@DmitryKo said in Important news concerning our digital services:

@Brad_Olwin said in Important news concerning our digital services:

So please show me where it says the old Suunto is gone.

I’m not sure why the etymology of ‘news’ is totally lost on you. Probably it’s because you are a loyal long-time customer and just cannot grasp the nature of change that’s coming.

OK, ‘I hate to be Captain Obvious, but…’

Suunto built its current success in sport watches on the free Movescount platform and its tight integration with T/M, Quest, and Ambit/Traverse series hardware. They have a loyal user base of hardcore athletes who love its advanced analysis features integrated with watch customization and workout planning, all in one single place on a big computer screen.

So please take your time to re-read the announcement with the above considerations in mind.

Yes, I am a long time loyal customer and cannot grasp the nature of what is coming…my Vector when Suunto released it did not have a web app, a nice logbook though to track my mountain adventures.

My X9, and later X10 was completely nonfunctional on my Macs! I had to purchase a cheap, crappy windows machine just to download/upload routes. They took forever to get GPS fixes but worked.

My T6, which I have a lot of years with was the same…no Macs.

I purchased a T6c as the workout structures and fields were an improvement on the T6…still no real GPS and no way to see where you went, my X10 was not compatible with STraM (Suunto Training Manager)…a bummer but not much to do about it.

I was thrilled when Movescount was started as I could finally use a Mac…I did however wish for an all in one unit so I was not using either a footpod or GPS Pod, which was a pain to use. The X10 could upload to MC, alas it was supported but did not provide any training capabilities. Another issue with MC was I lost my ability to accurately track my training stress. As this declined with the loss of STraM my use of Training Peaks increased…

I tried a few Garmins but ran into issues with most of them, poor altitude tracking and durability issues as well as poor battery life. One reason I tried them is the integration with Suunto and Training Peaks was poor and difficult.

Ambit, cool, the first time I had everything in one place.

S9!!! First time I have enough battery so no more charging on long runs/climbs/etc.

BTW I started using Training Peaks prior to purchasing my T6. While I liked and used all MC features…I have well used Training Plans and 17 pages of routes as well as apps I used, it was never good enough to track training stress to prevent overtraining and was a pain for Training Plans.

I am very happy to see TP integration and hope it will strengthen.

So, to answer your question, maybe I cannot grasp what is happening or alternatively, I have been through many transitions with Suunto, I have had AMAZING customer service. I scratched my first Vector badly when moving to a new apartment, I was a postdoctoral fellow and did not have much money. I sent in the watch for repair and received a new watch no charge.I sent in my T6c when the altimeter stopped working well. It could not be fixed but Suunto gave me a great discount on a new watch. I had an Ambit malfunction, new watch, no charge.

So, whether I like it or not I have been through many Suunto transitions. I doubt that Suunto is planning to end its dominance. While they are more specialized than some competition, they do excel in diving as well as outdoor and ultra markets. The S9 for my purposes is about all I could have imagined. I am confident I will be through more transitions if I live long enough…

Perhaps this will give you more of my perspective with the company. Again, while I may not agree with the decisions made I think it will work out well in the end. MC was not the best analysis platform IMHO and I would rather see resources ported to hardware and enhanced third party integration. So I am not entirely unhappy with the change. I trust I will adapt and find as I have through the other transitions that the long term plan was well justified and worked.