is a system update coming ?

olymay

@aleksander-h said in is a system update coming ?:

Just guessing here.

I think the way Google is handling WearOS 3 has put Suunto in a bit of a difficult situation. Most people probably aren’t interested in buying a Wear3100 based WearOS 2, no matter how good it is. Suunto could make a Wear4100 based watch, but still be stuck with WearOS 2, which again, probably won’t excite many, because it is missing WearOS 3.

Fully agree. Virtually nobody is buying 3100 anymore, unless it’s a crazy low price.
It does look like the 4100 will get WearOS 3, but not until well into next year, by which point it will be a three year old chip.
IF Qualcomm get a decent 5100 chip out soon then that could be an option, although my faith in QC at the moment is very, very low.

By the time WearOS 3 becomes available for other manufacturers, Samsung will probably have gobbled up much of potentially interested customers considering their watches are quite nicely priced and carry the Samsung brand.

Samsung definitely are stealing a head start with WearOS 3, but I don’t think it is insurmountable. The devices are selling based on reputation and being first with WearOS 3, so there is nothing to compare them to. Most of the fancy health features don’t work if you don’t have a Samsung phone, so one something else comes out that offers those features to all phones then the GW4 will be in trouble.

All these things considered, I would not blame Suunto for thinking “Not worth it”, and decide against future efforts on WearOS. In that case, I also would not expect them to continue work on their current WearOS watch.

Now if they aren’t 100% decided on the matter, that poses a bit of a problem. If they say updates are coming, they commit themselves and will get massive backlash if they don’t. If they say no more updates are coming, they might risk losing even more potential sales, especially on the Titanium edition which is still quite new. By not saying anything, their options are all still open. I’m guessing this might be where Suunto finds themselves now. ,

I wouldn’t blame Suunto if they did decide WearOS wasn’t worth it. However I think they would be missing a trick. The S7 is by far and away the best WearOS device for tracking activities as well as general day to day health (the resources feature for example). A second generation device could really take this to the next level.

What hurts Suunto I think is the lack of advertising. Most people I speak to have never heard of Suunto, and those that have associate them with either dive watches or extreme running watches. When I explain the S7 to them they are all super interested (although many say it’s too big!).
Also, I read a LOT of tech blogs and websites and most of them have a regular ‘Best Smartwatch’ or ‘Best WearOS Watch’ and none of them mention the Suunto 7 (despite rating it highly in reviews!). Suunto needs to get more share of the market awareness so that customers know it exists.

One thing I would want from Suunto however, is clarification on the future of the Suunto 7. If it still going to be supported than that is great news and I’ll look forward to more updates and time using the S7.
If it is not going to be supported and they are pulling out of the WearOS game then I think the paying customer deserves to know this, especially as they are still selling the S7, how would you feel to buy a new device to find out it is instantly end of life? You’d be pi$$ed!
If it is end of life, the price should be dropped and we should be told (heck, if the price dropped low enough I might buy a Ti version to replace my current one!)

I hope Suunto continue with their efforts on WearOS. As far as I’m concerned, there are no other options for those who want a WearOS watch capable of doing good/accurate sports tracking. Samsung don’t seem interested as they’ve always been hit-and-miss in terms of GPS and heart rate. As long as they have features they can list on their marketing material, they don’t seem concerned with how well it works.

I also agree with this analogy of Samsung. They make a big song and dance about all of the health features available on the GW4 but then whisper very quietly that most won’t work unless you also buy one of their phones.
Not to mention that forums/socials/reddit and more are full of people complaining about the GW4 HR sensor, GPS accuracy, and more.
Yes it has eleventythree billion features, but they don’t work well (if at all).
Typical Samsung (in my opinion).

All this is of course nothing more than wild guesses on my part.

Jamie BG

@olymay
based on the number of issues they have, they are going to need that year head start…
Plus a lot of their health features are really gimmicky, as the tech really isn’t there yet, and especially not in a watch.

Aleksander H

@jamie-bg said in is a system update coming ?:

Plus a lot of their health features are really gimmicky, as the tech really isn’t there yet, and especially not in a watch.

But will most normal users even be aware of that, or simply brag about everything their watch can do?

olymay

@jamie-bg I agree 100% with that!

olymay

@aleksander-h said in is a system update coming ?:

@jamie-bg said in is a system update coming ?:

Plus a lot of their health features are really gimmicky, as the tech really isn’t there yet, and especially not in a watch.

But will most normal users even be aware of that, of simply brag about everything their watch can do?

And this is also accurate! People will brag that their watch measures blood pressure, when in actual fact it does no such thing (and even what it does it isn’t accurate or even consistent at!).

Aleksander H

Maybe Suunto could pivot. Take the work they’ve done and rebrand it as a standalone version of Sports Tracker for WearOS. Then they could lock access to it behind the premium membership and make it available for all WearOS watches.

The new health service app might allow them to relatively easily grab the data they need for things like resources, etc.

I wonder how much of their code is dependent on specific hardware .

olymay

@aleksander-h I really hope not, as I love the Suunto hardware as much as I love the software.

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

Regarding glitches, there aren’t many glitches with the S7 anymore as most have been fixed. I think I’ve only had one wobble with mine in the last 6 months

from my point of view, frankly speakin, not even a crash and/or a reboot once a year is acceptable. period.

olymay

@walker said in is a system update coming ?:

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

Regarding glitches, there aren’t many glitches with the S7 anymore as most have been fixed. I think I’ve only had one wobble with mine in the last 6 months

from my point of view, frankly speakin, not even a crash and/or a reboot once a year is acceptable. period.

sounds to me (just my point of view) that you are expecting perfection, in which case you will be very disappointed constantly.

A smartwatch is a very complex piece of kit running complex software. And many, many people using them in different ways with different combinations of aps installed.
If you think there will never be any issues then frankly you are living in la-la land.

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

If you think there will never be any issues then frankly you are living in la-la land.

please, read again what I wrote. ymmv, I understand.

olymay

@walker said in is a system update coming ?:

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

If you think there will never be any issues then frankly you are living in la-la land.

please, read again what I wrote. ymmv, I understand.

Your words were:

“from my point of view, frankly speakin, not even a crash and/or a reboot once a year is acceptable. period.”

Which is saying that you will not accept a crash and/or a reboot once a year.

If you never experience any issues with anything you own, then you either own some incredible devices, that are tuned to perfection by the worlds best, and you use them absolutely perfectly.
Or so far you have been the worlds luckiest user.
Or you live off grid in the forest with no tech to actually go wrong (in which case, how you write on his forum is pretty clever!).

All I am saying is that no technology is perfect and will, and does, have issues. Some are more than others (I’m looking at you Sky Q!!!) but on the whole most are not that common. But they do happen.

Saying that not even even a crash or reboot once a year is acceptable, is crazy talk, especially with a device that is used for every minute of every day of the year (usually without rebooting or turning it off). If you left a laptop turned on 24/7 then it would most definitely have a few issues throughout the year.

My Suunto 7 has had one wobble in six months, which is better than any previous WearOS device I’ve used. Better than any Garmin device I’ve used. Better than any Withings device I’ve used. Heck, even my cheapo Casio plastic fantastic sailing watch which was £10 has the odd wobble now and then.

Jamie BG

@aleksander-h - yes the vast majority will incorrect brag…
But let them, doesn’t hurt anyone except for someone who buys one without doing their own research - and I am a firm believer in darwinism - so I say have at it…

Jamie BG

@walker you are going to be massively disappointed then, as I don’t know of any piece of tech (especially with wearables) that doesn’t get the occasional glitch and need a reboot (and that includes Apple).

@olymay
my complaints obviously stem from what happened to me (“crash & reboot during activity” thread). At this point I think it’s completely pointless to try to be as detailed as possible to describe a possible bug or even say it happened … because it’s ok / acceptable if it happens once in a while etc. Ok, I give up and sorry for the noise.

olymay

@walker the crash you experienced was almost identical to the one that happened to me a few months back, except that afterwards none of my settings were changed.

Yes, I was frustrated at the time it happened. Angry? No. Unacceptable? Nope.

As both myself and @Jamie-BG have said, this is a complex piece of kit and occasionally there will be a hiccup.

Are you saying that you have NEVER had an issue with a phone/laptop/TV/wifi router/or anything electrical?
If not, you are either unbelievably lucky, or have some mystic power that causes everything around you to behave perfectly all the time.
Or do you simply rant every time something goes wrong and say it is unacceptable?

Dude, sh1t happens. Technology has hiccups, mechanical systems fail unexpectedly (I run a predictive maintenance team, so know full well that not everything can be forecast).

So yes, it is acceptable for technology to throw a hissy once in a while.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@walker you have a point.

A sportswatch that crashes ain’t good at all. Even it’s 1nce per year imo.

But imo as well, a wear os platform would crash once per year , from my experience. Is it good ? No. I am not in favor.

But that’s why I also don’t use wear os atm.
It’s good but not that good yet. With wear os 3 things might change.

Still s7 is my favorite wear os watch and smart watch. Especially now that YouTube music is supported afaik.

olymay

@dimitrios-kanellopoulos Any device that crashes is not good. But it is inevitable, it happens.
There are numerous posts on these very forums about issues with the S9 (all versions) and the S5 and others. Does that make them unacceptable to use? Absolutely not. It makes them complex technology.

Obviously we would all prefer everything to work perfectly first time every time. For nothing to ever crash. For printers to always print (ok, that one will never happen!).

My point is simply that nothing is infallible (least of all people. is it unacceptable for a human to never make a mistake? Well, considering it is people that design and make our technology, why do we think that it should be infallible??).

WearOS is actually pretty stable right now. I’ve been using it for years and since the HMR2 update it’s been pretty brilliant. Yes, the functionality could be better blah blah, but it is stable. WearOS has not crashed on me in well over a year. The Suunto app has crashed once this year, once. My laptop has crashed more than that. So has my TV. So has my cooker (which is not smart).

YouTube Music is coming the S7, but later this year apparently (due to it running the SD3100 )

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

Or do you simply rant every time something goes wrong and say it is unacceptable?

Well, in the past I’ve been a fw developer, written miles of code, assembly, c, with different uCs, different platforms.
I spent most of my time hunting and debugging bugs so I’m absolutely aware of what I’m talking about. Things have changed today and I’m really sorry and disappointed that debugging time doesn’t take the proper relevance in the development and I do not justify at all what you’re trying to pass as a normal because of complexity. Let me say: such a childish excuse.

olymay

@walker said in is a system update coming ?:

@olymay said in is a system update coming ?:

Or do you simply rant every time something goes wrong and say it is unacceptable?

Well, in the past I’ve been a fw developer, written miles of code, assembly, c, with different uCs, different platforms.
I spent most of my time hunting and debugging bugs so I’m absolutely aware of what I’m talking about. Things have changed today and I’m really sorry and disappointed that debugging time doesn’t take the proper relevance in the development and I do not justify at all what you’re trying to pass as a normal because of complexity. Let me say: such a childish excuse.

And in all of your time as a debugger you never ever made a mistake or missed something?

And again, I ask the question, do you rant and scream and throw a tantrum every time that something throws a wobble or has a crash?
Because if you do, that is way more childish than accepting that not everything in the world is perfect and that mistakes do happen and that computer systems do have wobbles now and then.
Yes I will tut, shake my had, and be a little annoyed. But shouting about it will not get anybody anywhere. I report every issue I find through the support channels (how else will developers know what is going on) and then I get the heck on with my life.

Dimitrios Kanellopoulos

@walker well you understand that this excuse is not per se a developers excuse.

If for example Google drops wear OS support for x cpu etc its more complicated.

In general I do agree with your point of view as of a holistic approach but in reality it gets flanky.

(Personal opinion)