Future of the Spartan Line

[A Former User]

@peringmar said in Future of the Spartan Line:

Earlier today I made a post that got closed because of this one duplicate so I guess I will have to answer here.

In my post I went into some detail of my take on this. It is long so the short summery is that I believe that the consumer, environment and Suunto as a company could benefit of long-time watch support and that if Suunto could not provide the update for free because of development costs, that they should sell it for a fair price.

Link to my post: https://forum.suunto.com/topic/6791/update-the-spartan-series-software

@saketo-nemo while it could be hardware related I doubt it. Resources and fitness-level are two additional screens in the menu. Snap to route is literally the reverse of the already present “remaining distance to end of route” plus a threshold when off route and the turn to turn is not really supported on the spartan, when activated it is only a bunch of annoying waypoints that do not tell anything.

@jsuarez I totally agree with you that the spartan seems EOL. Which I think is absurd because of the spartan still being a totally capable device. Obviously, the watch is not as “snappy” as the S9 when navigating menus, but totally justifiable for its age. For extra features I would even tolerate less “snappiness”. Some things on the old Suunto OS were neat, like the bar chart of activities.

I saw your post, and am curious what features were lost during movescount transition (never had a spartan).
If you lost functions, maybe you have some “right” to claim them. And maybe it is doable to implement them app wise and be compatible with spartans.

Regarding new functions:

1. selling an update , mostly not viable, and would be highly criticable . I rembember when apple asked you to pay upgrades for ipod touch…they were so much criticized.
   Also, if the watch is already not snappy, it will be even worst, most likely if suunto implemented features that turn it slower, costumer would say it is programmed obsolescence.
   Something Suunto “said” already they are against (hence the upgrades for all S series, and compatibility of spartans/ambit with Suunto App (maybe not the way users found perfect, but better than a paper weight).
2. Have you checked other brands watches from 2016, what upgrades with new features they got? I checked the 735XT and the Fenix 3…only bug fixes, and if you check their forums, you will found a lot of complains that this last updated rendered the watch with even more bugs

I am not protecting suunto or whatever, I pay for my watches, but things are not as easy as it may seem, and grass is not as green as it may seem on the other side.

[peringmar]

@andré-faria said in Future of the Spartan Line:

selling an update , mostly not viable, and would be highly criticable . I rembember when apple asked you to pay upgrades for ipod touch…they were so much criticized.
Also, if the watch is already not snappy, it will be even worst, most likely if suunto implemented features that turn it slower, costumer would say it is programmed obsolescence.

Agree that paying for software is an unpopular opinion, when we are used to a lot of high-quality software being free. As a uni student I love free stuff, especially software, but paying a small sum would still be the cheaper option than buying a whole new watch. Also, apple takes a cut for pretty much any in app purchase consumers make/iphone accessory consumers buy and maybe that is why there really was not a need for them to sell the update when consumers already “pay” for it in other ways (I am not trying to defend apple). So maybe it is more justifiable if a smaller company like suunto does it when there is not really the same income that old devices generate compared to apple.

Regarding the snappiness of the watch, I may have made it sound worse that it really is, and I personally only noticed it when comparing both watch models side by side. The two extra menu screens (fitness-level and resources) are static so I doubt it will be a huge hit for the hardware.

Have you checked other brands watches from 2016, what upgrades with new features they got? I checked the 735XT and the Fenix 3…only bug fixes, and if you check their forums, you will found a lot of complains that this last updated rendered the watch with even more bugs

I have not owned a sport watch from any other brand than Suunto so I cannot comment on bugs or features of other watches. Could it be that there was no need for new feature updates because of features that suunto has implemented later were already present at launch?

[Mff73]

@peringmar
just to know, what feature are missing from Movescount with Spartan ?

[peringmar]

@mff73
@andré-faria
It is now quit some time ago but from what I can remember there where two bar charts displaying the three most activities in time and distance in a nice way. In the logbook, the avg pace/HR was displayed with a horizontal line over the charts. Then there was also a page for planned trainings. This last one I am not really shore about, but I believe that when I wore my HR belt and went into the HR on demand it took my HR from it.

Movescount specific would only be the planned trainings.

[jsuarez]

@andré-faria said in Future of the Spartan Line:

I saw your post, and am curious what features were lost during movescount transition (never had a spartan).
If you lost functions, maybe you have some “right” to claim them. And maybe it is doable to implement them app wise and be compatible with spartans.

Hi André:

The feature loss for the Ambits is worse than for the Spartan series. I would be pissed, for example, if I had an ambit and now I would not be able to program non-straightforward interval training exercises. I still really can’t understand why Spartans didn’t get this so simple feature…

As for the Spartans, I would say they only lost their ability to program exercises in the calendar (via Movescount), so “hardware-wise” the picture is not that bad.

However, the critical part for me is the decommission of Movescount web itself. When I bought the watch in December 2017 Movescount and its features were a selling point. Clearly for me they were. And that service was clearly announced on the watch box.

So what were the features I really liked?

• It had a web frontend! Yes, one of those things that we dinosaurs of the past can use with our PC with its mouse and other peripherals… Why analyse a move on a glossy 5" screen with your fat fingers…? That’s really unbearable and the Amber Sports-owned Sports Tracker is really subpar and doesn’t cut it.

• The move analysis options were incredibly good if you take into consideration that they were bundled with the watch purchase. You could filter certain parts of the move, chose what parameters were being showed in the graphs, etc. Really good. Maybe right now Dimitrios’ QS is on par with that; can’t tell because I don’t use it.

• Also the features for performance/progression tracking were superb. You could filter your best 100m, 400m, 1k, 2k, 3k, 5k, 10k, 1/2M, M chunks in any move and show them on a progression chart where you could also show the parameters you wanted and filter by them. You could even set the specific date interval to show (by manually changing the parameters in the web address shown on the browser). So for example, I could tell what my average power, average HR, etc. were in those moves and figure out trends. So, if for an almost similar pace and distance my average HR was lower (and the tracks were almost identical or the same), I could tell that my aero was getting better. Same for example for smaller chunks in relation to power (e.g. hill training). E.g. show me 3K chunks of all my runs between 1-Jan-21 till 15-Feb-21 where the average HR is between 144 and 156BPM and plot them on a graph so I can further inspect. That’s super powerful and valuable. I really can’t understand why Suunto threw this down the drain.

These features are lost and the worst here is that the code that allowed this rests in Suunto’s IP portfolio. They could have reimplemented it or given a proper solution.

While many will argue that there are 3rd parties that allow more or less the same, or even better, (i) I am not willing to pay a kidney for such analysis that was part of what I purchased back then (EULAs may be legal, but they not enforceable in good faith against users; you loose face as a company…), (ii) I am not willing to have a myriad of 3rd party service providers that store my personal and health data -with Movescount I had all I needed-, and (iii) the transition, feature parity/loss, FW update policy were plaged with wrong and poor communications by Suunto. You can ask Ambit users if they felt at ease during that time…

In this last regard, IIRC the last FW update for the Spartan series was a bugfix for the 1 Jan 2020 bug. But AFAIK the company has not stated whether further updates will come or if other features such as S+ will come. Polar, OTOH clearly shows the roadmap for each watch series/model and that’s what proper communication and expectations management is about.

So the picture above is not what a customer paying EUR 500 deserves or expects. And since I vote with my hard-earned money, I am not buying any new Suunto piece of equipment unless they reinstate (at least part of) what has been inexplicably lost.

It’s far beyond doubt that Suunto make great HW. Suunto 9 Peak is an example. But Suunto have showed that they don’t give a cent for some of their customers and their opinions on what is important (even a 30% discount is not enough in my opinion, given that it is only applicable in their web store and prices are sky high there, even higher than the competition with the disccount applied). I don’t want to be treated the same again.

P.S. In reply to Dimitrios’ last comment on the other thread, my main comment was on the de facto EOL situation of the Spartan line. In relation to Movescount and the transition there was communication, but IMO not clear and not correctly timed.

[sartoric]

Please (all) do not revamp the Web interface discussion.
Everything has been said and you can check the existing discussions about it.

[jsuarez]

@sartoric No problem! I was just replying to the question about the features lost as a result of the transition.

[theorydude]

I would gladly buy a new Suunto, as long as the hardware had the features I’ve missed since the Ambit 2 owned - real swim tracking. Suunto - and these forums - continue to ignore all requests for updates on whether they will return manual lap add for swimming (kick/drill function). All indications from the development of the 7 watch (smartwatch features) is that they are just sticking with people who only swim freestyle. Tracking the other strokes is great, but the inability to manually add laps means that they fundamentally do not understand or care about real swim sets - kicking and drills (where you don’t move one of your arms for an entire lap or multiple laps) are fundamental to real swim training.

[freeheeler]

@sartoric @freenico
I wanted to add here, that @freenico has complained about several issues here with his spartan, and he waits for updates. be we don’t know at all the details of the issues. asking for updates is one thing. but I know people happily using their spartans without an urgent need for an update… why the difference? If @freenico could explain the issues, maybe he could get support here, if the topic isn’t discussed to the ground already

[freenico]

@freeheeler said in Future of the Spartan Line:

@sartoric @freenico
I wanted to add here, that @freenico has complained about several issues here with his spartan, and he waits for updates. be we don’t know at all the details of the issues. asking for updates is one thing. but I know people happily using their spartans without an urgent need for an update… why the difference? If @freenico could explain the issues, maybe he could get support here, if the topic isn’t discussed to the ground already

I will happily give my reasons for hoping for spartan software updates:

• the gps tracking, especially during swimming, is worse than the 1st model apple watch (i actually tested and compared them)
• altitude sensor is really poor
• perhaps they could add a few watch-face (maybe not important at athletic levell but it would still be nice to have the option)
• there is the option to customize existing sport modes but a new sport cannot be added (for example, i took part in a duathlon/swim-run race and i had to use the multisport option to somehow records the laps). It would have been useful if i could add a new sport
• reading form the official specs page the suunto spartan ultra does not have a temperature sensor however, when uploading the activity on suunto app it shows the temperature (both air and water temp.); it would be nice if the temp could be shown on the watch also (especially during trail running on high peaks)
• often the gps takes several minutes to grab the signal and occasionally i have to soft-reset the watch to get it started.

Perhaps, i could think of a few more; isn’t software updates adding&improving the whistles&bells of something good to make it great?

P.s.: for instance, i am having a drink sitting at a bar by the sea, in the Med sea (literally sea-level), and my spartan gives -49m altitude

[freeheeler]

@freenico
S9B is still frequently receiving updates and gives relatively bad tracks when swimming. Water is very difficult for GPS signals and the issue might be in the hardware, too. Hence, no improvement for Spartan and S9 either with updates.
What do you mean by alti sensor is poor?
Are the sensor holes free during your activity?
I don’t know about sport mode customization, it should be possible to add, but the amount is limited.
Regarding the time to get satellites locked, I assume you keep AGPS file updated? I have experienced that it sometimes takes 2 seconds at the start screen, sometimes over 1 minute. If you move while on the start screen it is more difficult for the watch to lock satellites.

[freenico]

@freeheeler said in Future of the Spartan Line:

@freenico
S9B is still frequently receiving updates and gives relatively bad tracks when swimming. Water is very difficult for GPS signals and the issue might be in the hardware, too. Hence, no improvement for Spartan and S9 either with updates.
What do you mean by alti sensor is poor?
Are the sensor holes free during your activity?
I don’t know about sport mode customization, it should be possible to add, but the amount is limited.
Regarding the time to get satellites locked, I assume you keep AGPS file updated? I have experienced that it sometimes takes 2 seconds at the start screen, sometimes over 1 minute. If you move while on the start screen it is more difficult for the watch to lock satellites.

Thank you for your input.
I have a few questions:

• I am aware that gps signals are lost with the watch under water but, for instance, garmin and even the first apple watches give a smooth trajectory of your swim activity (and not pointy and sharp, sometime crossing the coast -line or going all the way in-land to the retunr in the middle of the sea, if you swim open-water close to cliffs or rocks)
• what sensor holes? i wasn’t aware of such detail
• i believe it’s not possible to add a new sport mode, i have tried for 3 days; you can only customize existing sport modes
• what is the AGPS file? and how do i update it? (and i don’t move at all before starting a training run in fact, i stay sill until the gps signal is locked)(I remember the day I unpacked the new Spartan, it locked the gps in a fraction of a second and I was sitting inside my apartment)

p.s.: i wasnt complaining about the watch; as i mentioned in the thread that the moderator moved/closed, I have been a Suunto fan for over 2 decades when I first started diving; i was only trying to get tips from an official Suunto forum hoping that (maybe) a suunto team members would/could tip me

[freeheeler]

@freenico
this forum is not a direct line to the Suunto team. But you can get help here with questions. I don’t know the Spartan myself, other members can help better here.
What I can say is that surfboard paddle training with my S9B looks like I was floating like a drunk in a rubber beach boat on the lake I know exactly what you mean with your description. Unfortunately I think there’s nothing that could be improved with firmware.
The sensor holes, I actually don’t even know where they are located on the Spartan… could become dirty and clogged over time. If you are a frequent swimmer it shouldn’t be an issue as it gets cleaned with every swim.
The Assisted GPS file gets loaded with SA or SuuntoLink sync to the watch and helps the watch to find satellites faster. It works without it, too, but takes longer to find satellites.
I have to say that in recent days, I observed satellite issues and even losses during activities. Could be that we face a period with more difficulties in general

edit: there’s a small wakeboard launch pad that I use to paddle there for training. I never go beyond it. But the recording shows a faulty spike way beyond it. I think this is what you are talking about?

[freenico]

@freeheeler said in Future of the Spartan Line:

@freenico
this forum is not a direct line to the Suunto team. But you can get help here with questions. I don’t know the Spartan myself, other members can help better here.
What I can say is that surfboard paddle training with my S9B looks like I was floating like a drunk in a rubber beach boat on the lake I know exactly what you mean with your description. Unfortunately I think there’s nothing that could be improved with firmware.
The sensor holes, I actually don’t even know where they are located on the Spartan… could become dirty and clogged over time. If you are a frequent swimmer it shouldn’t be an issue as it gets cleaned with every swim.
The Assisted GPS file gets loaded with SA or SuuntoLink sync to the watch and helps the watch to find satellites faster. It works without it, too, but takes longer to find satellites.
I have to say that in recent days, I observed satellite issues and even losses during activities. Could be that we face a period with more difficulties in general

edit: there’s a small wakeboard launch pad that I use to paddle there for training. I never go beyond it. But the recording shows a faulty spike way beyond it. I think this is what you are talking about?

This is my swim this morning

and this is the comparison (threading water next to each other) done in 2021 between me (wearing the €400+ spartan ultra) and my german friend (wearing a less than €200 apple watch)

pace and distance are completely different

I am pretty sure that the gps satellites work the same for all sport watches so, surely it has to do with the software and how it converts the signals (using glonass is slightly less pointy but still sharp corners and straight trajectories)

The Assisyed GPS on my suunto app is updated regularly and the watch is duly kept and rinsed with fresh water after every swim.

Anyway, as i already said earlier, I am not complaining; i am just disappointed because i really love(d) suunto and its app, which in my opinion, is much better and user-friendly than the nemesis, garmin (I refuse to even consider apple watches in the same realm)

[freeheeler]

@freenico
satellites do not even work for all Suuntos the same way. Not all, but some different models have a different satellite chip set and also a different location and concept of the antenna. Best example is the external antenna of the ambit series.
In Switzerland GPS+Galileo works best for me, but it will be different for other locations.

[freenico]

@freeheeler thank you. I realize then, that it is a matter of hardware, I can see now how the size-of–the-company affects the quality of its products.
Once, again thank you and I still opt for Suunto )

[vinay]

@freenico Looking at these GPS tracks, it appears like the apple software draws a smooth best-fit curve through the recorded nodes whereas Suunto simply shows the recorded nodes and connects them with straight lines. One isn’t necessarily better than the other, it is just that the smooth line is prettier whereas I actually appreciate seeing the actual nodes (to get an idea of how accurate the recording is).

As for altitude sensor, I’ve used a Spartan but I think it is different (the one with the external GPS sensor, I think it is called “sport” or “trainer” or something) and it doesn’t have an altitude sensor. My Ambit 3 Peak has it, Suunto 9 has it but other than that? I though the other ones just derive the altitude by GPS data and maybe by using acceleration data. But maybe someone else can comfirm.

Edit: This said, some Spartan nodes clearly are off of course, with some of them being outside the water. There was a discussion elsewhere as someone had also a coarse resolution GPS track when swimming and even though mine was a bit coarse, it wasn’t as bad as his. We were both using the (regular) Suunto 5. Chances are it was because of swimming style. I was crawling, he was doing a breast stroke. So that might matter too, swimming style. But if you look up that discussion (which I won’t repeat here) GPS just isn’t good under water so getting a good recording is also a matter of luck. Same goes for GPS in the mountains or in a dense city. Maybe there are ways to tweak things to get better results. That’s what experts are doing with echo (to see tissue inside your body) or sonar (to scan under water). That’s a skill on its own. But maybe it just can’t be done with GPS because you’re not transmitting the signal hence can’t play with frequencies etc. Only advice I’ve seen is, if you want better GPS reception then you need to keep the sensor out of the water. So attach it to a buoy or something.