Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin

MiniForklift

I was really pleased to see something very similar to this when I used ‘Snap To Route’ on a hilly run earlier this week, didn’t realise that screen was there

isazi

@miniforklift there is something like that in navigation (routes and snap to route). Suunto is aware that people want even more, your feedback (you as the forum) has been forwarded, and most field testers want more also.

Alexander Jerković

Personally, I am very disappointed with the attitude towards customers. Taking away the functionality of things we’ve already paid for is similar to stealing. If a new opaque and useless mobile app is already being introduced, forcing customers to switch to this scrapbook is the worst marketing move I’ve seen in the last few years. This means that suunto products lose some functionality after a while, even though we paid for it. I would never have bought a watch if I knew it would change the way I manage it. To force a client to use a method they don’t like is an extremely mean and unfair move. If a company thinks of retaining customers this way, it is honestly wrong. New forms and complex applications are just an additional burden for the user. It took me about half a day to change everything to a new environment and eventually found that they robbed me of most of the functionality. It’s like if parts fell out of my car while driving … I probably wouldn’t buy a car of the same brand
New things are supposed to be introduced to impress customers rather than disappoint them. However, if the gentlemen in marketing think that immediately after the loss of functionality I will throw the watch in the trash and buy a new one from the same manufacturer, they are deeply mistaken. I think most users have a similar mindset. It is a pity that such quality hardware suffers from the delusions of misguided marketing strategies.
Too bad

freeheeler

@alexander-jerković
have you heard about the financial situation at Suunto recently and know that people are actually working there who appreciate an income to feed their families and make them a living? i think this is only possible when you can sell something, unless you are rich, have endless money and your company strategy is charity.

what version of android or ios is running on your phone? please tell this also to any smartphone maker, too, because they steal from you, too.
apps aren’t supported in older os versions and make them partly useless, too.
be fair to Suunto, they want you to have a great watch and benefit from new awesome features, but they can not do this free of charge.

@alexander-jerković said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

Taking away the functionality of things we’ve already paid for is similar to stealing

A3P: we’ve partially lost the possibility to play with the apps. All the core things are still there.
MC: SA works well, very well.

Just out of curiosity what makes you so disappointed?

btw, I’m not a fan of any brand but I would buy the A3P again and again nowadays

sebchastang

@freeheeler I don’t want to be disrespectful and I appreciate your input on this forum but I think your answer is inappropriate. It is absolutely not about family living conditions.
Of course, people has to earn money to live decently. The point is about the loss of functionality. Suunto can of course sell newer products but what @alexander-jerković suggests is to keep functionality we paid for when we bought the watch. It doesn’t prevent Suunto to employ people and make them live.
Who talked about having new products or features for free? Nobody I guess. On the contrary I even had to buy a laptop since we cannot sync settings and routes with a mobile phone in 2022 (although it was possible few years ago with movescount app)

sebchastang

@g-q we lost the ability to create/modify Suunto apps
we lost important data logs generated by those apps
we lost ability to sync all settings/routes with a mobile phone. Maybe you always train around the place you are living in and always has access to a computer with SuuntoLink. How do you edit/sync settings and routes when you are exploring an other place in you country or elsewhere?

@sebchastang everyone has their own needs / priorities I understand but as mentioned elsewhere with the initial premises we could have lost much more… and objectively for me it hasn’t changed that much.

Alexander Jerković

@freeheeler The product is simply too good, so they took away its functionality to make it easier to market new models. Suunto did not do this in order to increase the salaries of people who actually develop products, and they go to tears when they receive marketing requirements. I am also worried about the families of the workers if they continue in this way so that their products lose functionality and there are no alternative solutions. That’s how we see this situation. But I believe there are also technicians who are actually developing this watch.
The product is currently worse than it was at the time of purchase. If they ensure the family’s survival in such a way that they worsen the product, wages will soon be gone and the company may be shut down. This is definitely not a long term business. From now on, it is difficult to suggest suunto products to an acquaintance or friend because you do not know what awaits you after a while. This will certainly have an impact on sales in the long run because the bad reputation is spreading fast.

@alexander-jerković said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

The product is simply too good

this is very true!!!

Alexander Jerković

@g-q What bothers me the most is that it is only edited with a mobile phone and the PC is being abolished. Well people we deal with navigation …

freeheeler

@alexander-jerković said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

The product is simply too good, so they took away its functionality to make it easier to market new models

I think this is absolutely not the case, but maybe you know it better.

DMytro

@alexander-jerković I think movescount was abandoned in order to cut costs, suunto simply couldn’t financially support both platforms. And I don’t think the intent was to relieve ambit users of functionality.
Web interface is actually kind of there if you have windows 11, you can launch Suunto App in landscape mode and it should be fine I think.

ChrisA

@freeheeler As somebody who purchased my first Suunto, when they already told you to use the app only, I never used Movescout. From what I read here it seemed to be very good. Wasn’t it communicated WHY they move away from such a good and developed platform and develop an app, instead of integrating new functions in Movescout?

freeheeler

@chrisa
I remember that there were semi official info about the reasons for closing MC. I didn’t mean it rude when I said @Alexander-Jerković might know better, maybe he does? because my info is that the MC database was crazy blown up and was expensive like hell.
some functions would have been expensive to maintain or transition, too.
Don’t get me wrong here, I came to Suunto mainly because of MC, because it was definitely awesome!! I also disagreed at first when I’ve heard of closing MC, but sometimes it’s simply time to move on, go with technology and benefit from new features

pavel.samokha

@alexander-jerković said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

they took away its functionality to make it easier to market new models.

I don’t have time to argue but that’s not true

ChrisA

@freeheeler thanks - makes sense. For me it sounds illogical, that a company would “kill” a great and working platform, which is/was - from what I read here - the reason for many people to buy their products in the first place. There must have been some reasons/problems, that Suunto saw on the horizon. Can understand the disappointment of the users though, but what is it for? You won’t change things anyway and so every one must make ones choices. I think it’s waste of time to discuss it endlessly - so sorry for bringing it up again

@chrisa said in Goodbye Suunto, hello Garmin:

@freeheeler thanks - makes sense. For me it sounds illogical, that a company would “kill” a great and working platform, which is/was - from what I read here - the reason for many people to buy their products in the first place. There must have been some reasons/problems, that Suunto saw on the horizon. Can understand the disappointment of the users though, but what is it for? You won’t change things anyway and so every one must make ones choices. I think it’s waste of time to discuss it endlessly - so sorry for bringing it up again

Let’s not forget, what can be very good for us users, can be a mess for the company.
I believe when they closed movescount it was because it was a hell to maintain, and that SA could replace it, specially with 3rd party connections (route planners, performance analyzers, etc).
I believe the thing that misses, and there are rumors it will come to 3rd parties, is complex interval and planner via 3rd parties.
Syncing routes to a3 via phone is also missing, but also the old workflow was not, what I would kind “normal” for an average user. But I understand, that for those who were using it, it was a viable solution.

Bulkan

I have a question.

Are you talking about the apps than were a free update in the Ambit 3?

I know the Movescount drama. But now Suunto app beta is in big screens. You can use the apps you had in your watch… or are you creating new apps after years of use?

Is ok to don’t be happy with the Movescount farewell but some facts aren’t true or accurate.

sebchastang

@Bulkan
Maybe some of us would need to create new Suunto apps. I don’t think I personally would need to create new ones (maybe 1 or 2, but not much more), BUT we really need to be able to EDIT those apps since some of them are dynamic and need some variables to be set at the beginning of the program.
That is the case for interval training apps for example, but I know some other users who also need to edit variable values to use apps according to their needs.
That is why it is really important to be able to access a compiler so we could edit apps and keep using them.
Lots of apps are totally useless without ability to edit them.
And I personally also miss a lot the data logged by those apps since they are no synced with SA (although they used to with Moveslink2 or Movescount app). Those data were very important and interesting to analyse workouts just like other data are (like speed, distance, ascent, pace, …). This is the other weakness of this transition: loss of those data.