Tide table on vertical 2

[bruno.tanqueray]

@Ze-Stuart Yes: data source and refresh window, plus the trigger logic.

To be clear, I am not asking for the source code, I know it is proprietary. I am asking for the documented behaviour of the widget, which is not a trade secret.

Why it matters: this thread is going in circles. We are all asked “location permission? tapped update? synced?”, we all answer yes, and then it stops. Without knowing what the widget is supposed to do, we cannot test anything, and Suunto cannot get a useful bug report from us.

My case: Brittany, France, 200 m from the sea. Sometimes tides load during a normal sync, right after the weather. Most of the time nothing loads. Same phone, same place, same procedure : the result is random. And when the widget is empty it offers to sync with my Iphone, but the app does nothing because the watch is “busy”, so that button seems useless.

What we need to know:

1. Which provider supplies the tide data?
2. Is the tide computed for my GPS position, or for a reference port that may be far away? (The watch only shows a region name.)
3. What triggers a refresh : opening the widget, a phone sync, a background schedule?
4. Is there a cache duration or a request limit per day? That alone could explain why it works once and then stops for days.
5. What is the official watch/app sequence? If we follow it and it still fails, it is a bug, not user error.

Thanks.

[bruno.tanqueray]

bruno.tanqueray said:

@Ze-Stuart Yes: data source and refresh window, plus the trigger logic.

To be clear, I am not asking for the source code, I know it is proprietary. I am asking for the documented behaviour of the widget, which is not a trade secret.

Why it matters: this thread is going in circles. We are all asked “location permission? tapped update? synced?”, we all answer yes, and then it stops. Without knowing what the widget is supposed to do, we cannot test anything, and Suunto cannot get a useful bug report from us.

My case: Brittany, France, 200 m from the sea. Sometimes tides load during a normal sync, right after the weather. Most of the time nothing loads. Same phone, same place, same procedure : the result is random. And when the widget is empty it offers to sync with my Iphone, but the app does nothing because the watch is “busy”, so that button seems useless.

What we need to know:

1. Which provider supplies the tide data?
2. Is the tide computed for my GPS position, or for a reference port that may be far away?
3. What triggers a refresh : opening the widget, a phone sync, a background schedule?
4. Is there a cache duration or a request limit per day? That alone could explain why it works once and then stops for days.
5. What is the official watch/app sequence? If we follow it and it still fails, it is a bug, not user error.

Thanks.

[Egika]

@bruno.tanqueray I understand your questions.
Just you know this is a user forum, so everyone can only share what he/she knows.
I know that it works for me.
When the watch is connected to the phone (iphone in my case) and SA is running at least in the background, tapping the refresh button in the widget shows that tide data is being updated and it also shows success.

I have no clue about your other questions. and I don’t know if anyone has.

[matus69]

@MikeC30 same here - worked for two days and now nothing

[matus69]

@Egika I don’t understand the way it works, as when I open the tide widget, and I open suunto app, it says it can’t sync because watch is busy.
I can sync only when the watch is in time.

[Egika]

@matus69 I don’t even touch my phone. It is in standby.
Then I tap update in the widget, and the watch seems to fetch data via SA in the background.

[MikeC30]

I am in Scotland within a mile of the sea. I’m noticing a pattern with the tide widget. The last 2 weekends it has updated without me doing anything different and then will not update again for the rest of the week until the next weekend. I think it will update again this weekend if this pattern continues.

[Ze Stuart]

@bruno.tanqueray

Is the tide for my GPS position or for a reference port?
Your phone sends your coordinates, but the forecast comes back for the nearest reference point in the tide dataset, and it’s that point’s coordinates and name that are pushed to the watch. If the reference point is within 50 km of you the widget may still label it with your own town, so the name you see isn’t proof the curve is for your beach.

What triggers a refresh?
Nothing on the phone: there’s no tide screen in the app and no background schedule. The watch asks for data when it needs it, and the phone answers only if it’s connected and nearby, so the practical trigger is “watch connected to phone”, not “open the widget”.

Is there a cache or a daily limit?
There’s a cache, but I don’t know about a limit: each fetch pulls about a week of data, and the app serves it until roughly two days of it are left, or until you move more than about 10 km. That’s probably why it fetches once and then appears to do nothing for a couple of days.

What’s the correct sequence?
Pair the watch, keep the app installed and allowed to use location all the time (not just “while using the app”), keep the watch connected, then open the tide widget on the watch. If you there’s no tide data after that, the two things worth ruling out first are background location permission and a location that has no usable tide data (eg something inland, like Lake Tahoe).

NB: I don’t work for Suunto; these are my own observations. Someone who works for Suunto can tell me I’m wrong, or delete my post if it over-shares.

[MarkG]

@Ze-Stuart
Thanks - that’s getting somewhere for my particular question which is which reference port is used. But my watch still just says ‘Scotland’ - tide data is published for a place called Mallaig just up the road but most tidal planning here is based on times plus or minus tides at Ullapool or Oban. So Mallaig isn’t regarded as a reference port in practice although the information is useful locally. So is the data here for Mallaig, Oban Ullapool or somewhere else? To make this truly useful the watch needs to show the actual port used - required info can then be extrapolated from that based on various constants.
I’d just like Suunto to sort this and make this nice addition properly useful.

[MikeC30]

@MarkG

Mine just says Scotland as well. The widget updated today which I was not expecting as for the past few weeks it has only updated once a week at the weekends. Maybe it will update more regularly now as we had hoped from the outset.
Regarding tide times, the displayed data in the widget is close but not the same as the 3 closest ports data based on my location.