External sync through Sports-Tracker

ColdBeer

@Brad_Olwin Your answer is welcome too. The only con I see here is that I need to trust on third party services. And at the really end, the process seems a bit crazy: to sync between a Suunto service and another Suunto service, do I really need a third party web service where I must transfer all my history training records? Really, Suunto?

It’s an option if no other exists, of course but no really confident for sure.

ColdBeer

@Mff73 Hi dear! 2 cons in your trick: third party services dependence and the big one: a hard manual work for every workout. No way for this one at all, but thanks a lot.

@ColdBeer Seems complete to me, at least for activities that I do that include only running, trail running, and some gym activities. I use the sync only to evaluate / test the app so I didn’t look too close.
When it is time to do the official import I’ll probably just recreate my SA account and start from scratch.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

short and sweet. Any 3rd party tool that pulls data to other services should not use ST as a source. You can let SA sync to Strava for example and do the sync from there.

So Sa->Strava -> 3rd party -> where you want your data to go

cosme.costa

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in External sync through Sports-Tracker:

short and sweet. Any 3rd party tool that pulls data to other services should not use ST as a source. You can let SA sync to Strava for example and do the sync from there.

So Sa->Strava -> 3rd party -> where you want your data to go

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos , with all the respect for the job done till now, that I know that is a lot even if it doesn’t look like, but I hope all you see that after Suunto kills MC and without alternative yet, if we have to do all this to do a proper analysis of the workout is not acceptable?
If the gear was very cheap I could accept the downsizes and the necessity of doing tricks to get the files where I want but not with Suunto prices and more if your direct competition are giving you what you already have. If Suunto/Amer wants us to use only an mobile app, I do not agree but Suunto should present us the best mobile app, not the one that we have now, we should have something that really makes us doubt if it is enough only with it. Right know is not the case and in my opinion we are quite far, I really hope that Suunto proves me wrong.
Regarding the 3rd party apps, most of us have started slowly or we train for fun at respectable level without the need of intervals, training plans, etc. Some of us have started to lose some weight, then fun and now we start to look for more technical training. So at the beginning we do not need the most advanced metrics or analysis tools but we need some basic features, and this should be supplied by Suunto not for 3rd party app, then in case I want/need better tools then its time to go for the 3rd party apps. I been around for a while here and I even follow some of you and I can see why you (@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos) or @Brad_Olwin need better analysis tools but not all of us need them, at least yet.
For me the problem is that I see Suunto quite lost that they are asking us what we want instead of “I will give you till here, do you agree or need more?”
I’m trying to be constructive here, In my trainings I’m in the point were I’m trying to understand all the data and apply changes to my way of running but I can do a proper analysis in MC not in SA (at least until there is a web version). I have tried to do it in SA but forgetting the fact of the size of the screen I do not have graphs for everything (cadence, temperature, etc), I can’t overlay multiple graphs only altitude, pace and HR in a tiny proportion (1/5) of the mobile screen).

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@cosmecosta I am confused.
I think this is not a MC thread and MC is not yet dead. What do you mean?

I just tried to help @ColdBeer

cosme.costa

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Yes yes, you are right!! I think it should be on “important news concerning our…” But I started to write about all the tricks you have to do to export the data and finished with the long post…my bad!

As I said before, I do respect all the job done and I’m trying to be positive but I have mixed feelings about the money that I have spent in the watch and how it is going to end eventually. Sorry man!!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@cosmecosta Hey man! It’s 1.5y. In this time I would as a Spartan/S9 owner

Use the features/App I like now.

If in 1.5y we don’t have the things we like and corect, I my self will exit this situation.

I think it’s pretty much tooooooo pushing at this moment to get a bad feeling. We are just in the start of this jurney.

cosme.costa

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I hope you are right and “In Suunto we trust”… Except if my SSU breaks, and then I will have a big dilema, I will be around and I will see “the transition”.

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in External sync through Sports-Tracker:

short and sweet. Any 3rd party tool that pulls data to other services should not use ST as a source. You can let SA sync to Strava for example and do the sync from there.

So Sa->Strava -> 3rd party -> where you want your data to go

So, finally, Suunto is not offering any kind of solution to -even technical users- sync SA and MC databases (and then could test SA with no fear for lost data), just using external, third party, paying solutions. Is this the true?

And everything is because ST database (and open api) is not right. Doen’t it?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ColdBeer I did not understand well what you mean.

So, finally, Suunto is not offering any kind of solution to -even technical users- sync SA and MC databases (and then could test SA with no fear for lost data), just using external, third party, paying solutions. Is this the true?

You mean sync from SA to MC?

And everything is because ST database (and open api) is not right. Doen’t it?

What does this mean?

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos said in External sync through Sports-Tracker:

@ColdBeer I did not understand well what you mean.

So, finally, Suunto is not offering any kind of solution to -even technical users- sync SA and MC databases (and then could test SA with no fear for lost data), just using external, third party, paying solutions. Is this the true?
You mean sync from SA to MC?

Sure, pal! Is valid to sync my watch with SA (which supposedly uploads my workouts to ST), and using the SyncMyTracks utility sync them to MC?
Any other valid option that doesn’t pass through external services (which could modify data in they middle)?

And everything is because ST database (and open api) is not right. Doen’t it?
What does this mean?

As you said several times, ST records are not valid for exporting/evaluation of our workouts, as it could change some data (and there are reports it doesn’t save altitude, power…). Is possible to make ST just SAVE workouts as they are (without modifying anything) so we could use that platform (which is from AmerSports) and has got a known and widely used api as our trampoline to still analyze our trainings on the trustworthy MC platform while testing SA?

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ColdBeer I dont get it again .

I think it’s quite clear why Suunto does not want to sync SA to MC. Even if MC was to stay after all this wave of loud comments, I don’t think Suunto would like to add more workload to the past

In regards to ST , ST API is another API from SA.

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I don’t want to bother you, friend, but please, let know Suunto managers this:

Even if Suunto wouldn’t like to add more workload to MC, I (a suunto user who bought two Spartan Trainers one year ago) will save their whole workout load to MC in some way. And I’ve got two options here:

I could stay using MC until the last day (so workload will be there whatever they want)
I could test SA beta app and help in its development while syncing in any other way (using external utilities) to MC and maintain my workout analysis homework as prefered, in a trustworthy and great platform

As you see, sometimes clients do whatever they want (just as Suunto is doing). Jajajaja!!!

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ColdBeer haha ok fair point. Then what I suggest to try for NOW (it will be better when 3rd parties wake up a bit).

Create a strava /TP account

Use syncmytracks to get the data from there to where you want them. I bet syncmytracks will support SA as the app is , to be honest so bad (been there since start) and already has made tons of money with SA / MC )

What I mean:
SA -> Strava -> data ok
SA -> TP -> data ok
SA -> ST -> data not ok dont pull from there.

Makes sense? This is what I suggest as a user to you NOW .

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Really, and sincerely, tons of thanks for your clarification. Now it’s clear for everybody.

But, talking about your comments. Do you mean SyncMyTracks (SMT) is doing a bad job syncing services? What do you mean that it already has made tons of money with SA/MC? Just to understand you, please.

I saw another -as people writes all around- good service called Tapiriik, but it’s not compatible with MC,SA or ST, so you need to sync before from one of those suunto’s services to Strava or whatever.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ColdBeer Yeah let me exaplain about SyncMyTracks:

That app is quite old. I started using it and as a developer I tried to have contact etc to ask for more complete data. I think that was in ~2016 maybe earlier. My contact with the developer was very bad. The app sometimes crashed etc. It left a bad taste even if I had paid for that app. That said maybe now is better, but I bet it has made quite a few $$ due to use cases like yours. To be specific there are a lot of people who have adviced to use SyncMyTracks to sync to MC from SA so imagine how many new users that app got from user that want to use from SA to MC. Makes sense?

ColdBeer

@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos Ok, thanks for your clarification. I was just interested on knowing about your experience. Sincerely, developer NEVER answer any email question. No matter how polite you ask him.

But apart from the support service, in my personal experience, the app works quite fast and well with the supported external services. I don’t think it would be so much money after all (play store shows 10000+ downloads, at 2.99€ is a total of 29900€), if you divide that quantity between years and think on service maintenance. And, hey! Devs needs money to eat and dress too!!! If he spent some effort developing a utility useful for lot of people, I agree he earn some money. I just lament that I didn’t have the same idea a few months before him

Coming back to an idea i wrote some months ago: I would prefer this kind of non-automatic sync services, because I love to customize every workout before syncing them (picture, description…). I asked about this before (having a button into the workouts to “let” them been synchronized with the external services the user had just approved… And never had an answer.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@ColdBeer its hard to not automate this time the automatic sync. That is technically due to OAuth.
OAuth signs you in to another service, then you come back to the app with a secret token (that needs now and then refresh), the server saves it and with that token it uploads for you.

You have given specific permissions to that token, eg to upload, read etc. You might have seen that.

When you want todo it manually you would have to store that token somewhere at your device or go over the authentication flow again.

That said, lets come back to this in a few time as I am also a person that would like to have that

In regards to the above, and not trying to blame syncmytracks that app does what in development we don’t do, store your password or ask it every time. That means that the app it self at some point does know the password. Depending on the protocol/method it uses, that password, in a way , can be exposed. Even in system logs as its STORED PLAINTEXT in order to be used to log you in. I bet you know the risks of that and how bad , or childish this method is.

my 50c why this app/way does not look ok imo .