Important news concerning our digital services
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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.
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@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
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@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
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@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.
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@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.
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@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
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 -
@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.
Vector/T6c/Ambit 3 Peak/S5 Copper/S3/S7 Ti/S9 baro Ti/S9P Ti/S9PP Ti/Vertical Ti/Race Ti/RaceS/Ocean/Wing
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Adding my dissatisfaction as a previously proud Ambit 2 owner. We need a solution that does not involve binning a perfectly good watch in 1.5 years. The announcement has already tainted my view of the company and created a bad feeling every time I put the watch on my wrist. So please a solution soon!
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@RiphRaph I fully agree with you, imho first of ll it is a betrayal of trust and nobody knows, when the next „business decision“ of Suunto hits newer models. Therefor I will buy my nest Fitness-Companion earlier and not from Suunto. For my use e.g. Garmin offers even „more watch for less money“, so I know what to do.
By the way, uploading data of todays training did not work easily, data first appeared on them MobileApp and later on after new login finally on the Desktop. Exporting Ergometer-Data btw. does not provide kml-format (no GPS), so this data hangs in movescount and its useless
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I’m putting this here because I think is the right place: https://forum.suunto.com/topic/1862/external-sync-through-sports-tracker/10
@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). -
In my thinking, suunto is considering something like this:
What it the cost of producing a web platform that does great analysis?
Easy, let’s check at some of the best 3rd party offerings.
(Not real numbers)–> So, it’s something like 10USD(EUR)/month per user.
If suunto has 1.000.000 users, then this is a 120mil/year potential income. This is roughly the cost associated with providing this service. Or the opportunity cost, one might say.
So, suunto decided to copy the lower cost offering of xiaomi and let it;s partners reap the benefits. If only 10% of Suunto users are -forced- to use a 3rd party tool, then it is 12mil/year of income for said partners.
Plus, the mil/year that Suunto is not forced to invest in creating this web platform, supporting older watches etc.
Who is willing to bet what percentage of the functionality of web MC will be present in SA when MC shuts down?
For me it is all about functionality. I could live without a web interface if, by some way, all the functionality would be present.
But, Suunto is seemingly ok to lose part of its core base in order to pursue the blue ocean strategy (i.e. all the people that do not have a watch yet).
Maybe the next suunto watches are more affordable and less focused on long time athletes.
The hardware strategy will align to the software strategy. -
@Yannis-Belouris said in Important news concerning our digital services:
But, Suunto is seemingly ok to lose part of its core base in order to pursue the blue ocean strategy (i.e. all the people that do not have a watch yet).
Maybe the next suunto watches are more affordable and less focused on long time athletes.I also think they are making a strategic shift now. As I said it the other day, after they shutdown movescount, their competition is going to be cheap chinese manufacturers (Xiaomi, LEMFO, Alfawise etc.) . Prices (and of course built quality) of Suunto watches will have to be adjusted accordingly. Not surprisingly if we know about takeover of Amer Sports by Chinese Anta Sports.
So in my opinion, Suunto will in the future be just another manufacturer of crappy watches focused more on fashion then usability and will not be targeting professional sportsmen and outdoor enthusiasts anymore. In the end, maybe that way they will earn more money, but nevertheless it’s a great loss for the pro users who will now have less alternatives. Lack of competition is going to hurt the entire industry.
I’m still trying to understand why they chose ST app, crappy as it is, to try to make it better, than to modernize movescount. By keeping movescount app, they could have even ditched the website but make the transition smooth for the users and not spit them in the face by making their older, top quality watches, obsolete.
I’m not sure they understand that they are far too behind with development of this app. They are selling new, very expensive watches, that still don’t have not even the same set of features that old ones had (which they are trying to brick soon) and are asking users to be patient… They sell you a 600$ watch, then tell you to wait for them to develop a working app few years, but in mean time they are bricking or crippling the devices sold just few years ago. It’s hard to imagine worse scenario for the image of the company.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this strategic shift of Suunto puts them out of business in the end.
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@Emir-Karisik yeah it seems the Finns have great technical ability with zero business awareness.
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@Droro said in Important news concerning our digital services:
@Emir-Karisik yeah it seems the Finns have great technical ability with zero business awareness.
I would keep comments related to country, race etc to my self if I was you
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@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos meaning?
It was just a comment regarding Nokia if you didn’t get it, seem to be going the same way… -
@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos but seriously, what do you mean by ‘if I was you.’? If you are implying something then say it directly.
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@Droro Nokia, Erricson , Suunto or Garmin are not composed of one country of origin people.
Meaning: please do not scope comments, arguments, or anything in this forum to race, country etc of People.
I understand that you scoped it on a company level, that is fine now.
It’s just a heads up for anyone that would try todo so.
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@Dimitrios-Kanellopoulos I’m not into racism or bigotry, but I am into customer service and standing behind company claims.
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@Droro understood. No worries.
