Navigation orientation issue

Vrba007

Dear all,

I often use imported routes in my Suunto 9 Baro for my hikes.
When I’m right on trail there is that circle arrow in the middle, and the path is straight ahead…but sometimes the route (path direction) rotates for 90 degrees even though I’m moving straight forward.
One of the members here thinks that it is because hiking is slow moving activity. “When you go slower the watch switches to compass for orientation” says he.

Does anybody else has this issue?

isazi

@Vrba007 the compass is wrongly calibrated.

cosme.costa

@Vrba007 I don’t know if the watch switches to compass, but I don’t think so if you are in navigation screen. In fact I think the north is the small red arrow in the ring.
Probably your problem is that the compass is not calibrated. Theoretically the watch will tell you when it is uncalibrated but in my experience sometimes it doesn’t ask for it. The magnet in the charging cable can un-calibrate the compass. You can calibrate it before the activity, in navigation -> navigation settings.

Vrba007

@cosme-costa The thing is that this happens from time to time during the same activity…for example 30 minutes everything’s cool and the path is straight ahead, and then all of a sudden, it goes like in the picture above…then after some time all is cool again…
Is it maybe connected with satelite availability?

isazi

@Vrba007 the compass can get uncalibrated during the activity of the watch comes into contact with a magnet or some other magnetic field.

Vrba007

@isazi That is a good presumption. But, nevertheless as I said…this happens during an activity from time to time…First everything is OK, then path is off, then again everything is OK. I think that if compass would not be calibrated then this would last till the end of activity, don’t you think?

isazi

@Vrba007 the watch can recalibrate itself if you move, using GPS to compute direction of travel, that’s why if you move steadily you can see the correct arrow even with an uncalibrated watch, or a watch without compass. Do you feel the watch vibrate without any message popping up?

Prenj

I had similar experience on a recent hike. I don’t know if it’s related to latest firmware or just a coincidence, but I didn’t have such problems before the latest fw.

I guess the compass was not calibrated before the start of activity. When I was moving compass was mostly accurate but when I’d stop for a short brake, it would crap out. Then I tried doing figure 8 movement without stopping the activity (I think someone advised here once that it can calibrate compass even mid activity) and I think it did help few times, but then again on the next stop, the compass would crap out again. Interestingly the error was also about 90 degrees.

Maybe Suunto should add an option to calibrate the compass mid activity or clarify if the figure 8 movements can do it (which in my case was hit or miss) and add the notification that the calibration had been successful.

Egika

@Vrba007 @Prenj

While moving, the direction is derived from the GPS positions over time.
The compass comes into play when stationary or moving below some slow speed.

Now the compass freaking out could happen from things you don’t even think of, like

overhead or underground power lines
magnets in gloves
magnets in backpacks (closures or holding hydration pipes
possibly mobile phones
etc

Vrba007

@Egika Thanks for explanation…what speed do you think of when talking about “slow speed”? Is it 1-2 km/h or something else?

Vrba007

@isazi No, the watch didn’t vibrate, or showed any message

Prenj

@Egika

I thought about all this possible reasons but I don’t think they are to blame… I had no magnets anywhere with me, no powerlines (total wilderness, high in the mountains), mobile phone in the right jacket pocket, watch on the left. And, as I said, this did not used to happen before to me. And I have not started using any new equipment in meantime.

Anyway, I think the watch should either calibrate the compass itself when it detects such a difference between the GPS data and magnetic compass, or notify a user that the calibration is needed. Also, I don’t understand why there is no way to initiate calibration manually by user during the activity, without stopping it. That would make sense, no?

isazi

@Prenj the ability to start manual calibration during activity is present from the S9PP, unfortunately not in the previous models.

Prenj

@isazi said in Navigation orientation issue:

@Prenj the ability to start manual calibration during activity is present from the S9PP, unfortunately not in the previous models.

Could a feature suggestion in this forum for this be considered at all? Or do you think there is no chance Suunto would port this feature to s9b?

inkognito

Cool, here we go again Necessity for manualy triggered compass calibration during excercise has been discussed many times already…

In this thread: from this post bellow https://forum.suunto.com/post/112036

And in this thread: https://forum.suunto.com/topic/7692/compass-loses-calibration-after-charging?_=1673957569729

It indeed is cool that it was solved for S9PP… But I do really dislike this attitude… Now, if I buy S9PP and find some similar troubles, will I need to wait for S9PPP for solution?

isazi

@Prenj as pointed out by @inkognito this has been requested already, and I reported it to Suunto (together with other people) and some action has been taken in the new UI, but I do not know if this or other features will ever make it to the older models.

Prenj

@inkognito @isazi

Thanks for the links to the threads discussing this before.

Now that I read the other people have had similar experience, that probably means this is not so rare. Might this be considered a bug and not only feature request? The watch seems to sometimes ignore the difference between the data from GPS and magnetic compass. There seems to be a software feature that asks user to recalibrate the compass if it detects it’s wrong, but for some reason, sometimes it doesn’t engage at all. That seems like a bug.

If you reported it as a bug already than just ignore this

surfboomerang

Is the watch using the compass in the first picture?
If I recall correctly, the watch shows a dot instead of an arrow when the compass is used. As soon as you move, it changes to an arrow again.

inkognito

@surfboomerang Yes, it is. Watch with compass shows dot only when you stop (or move too slow) while the watch knows that the compass is not calibrated, e.g. when you dismiss the calibration prompt with middle button. It shows an arrow when it uses compass and thinks that the compass is calibrated.

David Young

@Vrba007 Here’s the test I use to see if the compass is calibrated when I don’t know where North is.

Hold the watch level and let the red North pointer settle. Note the pointer’s direction and ideally line it up on a terrain feature.

Now rotate the watch in your hands and see what the pointer does.

If the pointer returns quickly to its original direction then that direction should be North and the compass should be calibrated.
If the pointer wanders around the edge of the screen before stopping at some arbitrary point then I assume it’s not calibrated.

Of course, you need to recalibrate every time you charge your watch, as the charging cable connects magnetically.