Expeience of Suunto support for routes in Movescount

[bowesmana]

Just a bit of a vent of my frustration...

I have a KML file, which I imported as a route to Movescount. After Import, it told me it has more than 500 points, so I cannot edit it, or add any waypoints so I can use it in my Ambit. It containing 824 <coordinates>,

I already knew about the 500 point limitation, but I thought I'd contact support to express my concern at this in the hope something gets done to remove this limitation. (It was a downloaded route of a 45km ultra I plan to do in 3 weeks)

Firstly I was told that a point == a waypoint. After explaining the difference between coordinates in the KML that are referred to as points in MC and waypoints that could be set up along a route (of points) I think she got the picture, but then said she'd have to escalate it and get back to me.

I just received an email stating

"Regarding your route exportation, a coordinate point is the same thing as a waypoint. A route cand contain maximum of 100 waypoints/coordinates."

I now sent them images of the imported 824 point KML which says it cannot be edited. I then edited the KML to remove alternate coordinates and imported the 412 point KML and send them an image of that...

I wonder how to get the information through to Suunto if their support staff clearly do not understand the product they are supporting.

Ah, that feels better...

[jimmijames73]

Many people share this frustration. Surely a watch capable of storing 1 sec GPS readings over 15 hours should have sufficient memory to store more than 100 waypoints! I hope this is one of the improvements in the 2.0 firmware update later this year.

[cobrapa]

We hear you. :) I'm sure not everyone at Suunto thinks the same. At least that's my hope...

I would copy those emails to the ambit@suunto.com address as well. I suspect then you'll get both the support people to see it and some of the engineering/development people for Ambit.

[format]

The problem is not the number of waypoints. 100 is more than enough if they are used to the intended purpose. A way-point!I want to go to that way-point. The problem is the navigation. Is must be implemented not as a series of sequential waypoints. The navigation must be handled as keep you in track alongside a route with thousands of GPS coordinates. I don't want to go to A then B then C .... then Z. I want to go from A to B (most of the times from A to A) alongside thousand and thousand of coordinates. Garmin has this working in 5 or 6 training watches more than 5 years ago. I can't imagine Suunto didn't analyze the competition and doesn't know what you're talking about. It's not rocket science! It not a war secret.People must ask Suunto not to allow more WP's in navigation but to implement it correctly. We can join efforts and buy them a Forerunner 410 for $200 or less in Amazon and send them to understand what they need to do. The limit is the memory and that should allow for more then 100.000 coordinates.The bad news are: If they don't come forward and admit they're doing it right now, it means they're not doing it. This is a bit more complex to develop than this auto connect WP's they released in 1.5. This tooks time and effort. In summer time? This is not something they develop in 2 months. You see what they did in 2 months... This navigation already existed from day 1. You just have to manually selected in sequence. Now the Ambit jumps from one to another...Guess 2013 will be a good year if Suunto really wants to add the feature. Better buy them a Garmin for Christmas...(Why the hell this reply form eats my returns between lines? My messages always seem like a spaghetti text)

[joelc]

I already knew about the 500 point limitation, but I thought I'd contact support to express my concern at this in the hope something gets done to remove this limitation. (It was a downloaded route of a 45km ultra I plan to do in 3 weeks)

I had the same use case as yours for week-end to come (58km ; D+3800 on Saturday; 52km ; D+2500 on Sunday ; a good week-end ) and, with what is available with Suunto Ambit fm 1.5, this is what I did:
- I went to "convert" tab of gpsies.com, selected my KML file as input, choose KML format again as output
- I opened "options" and then choose to filter the points down to 100
- I imported the KML file with only 100 points as a route in movescount
- this route was editable, I picked all 100 points for marking them as way-points, editing/moving some for being sure of marking stops for drinks, etc

Not as smooth as it could and should be, but doable.

[pjc3]

Remember that 100 waypoints (Ambit limitation) is not the same as 100 points. Movescount will accept up to 500 points for editing. So you can have a 500 point route, edit in Movescount with up to 100 waypoints for download to the Ambit.

I agree that the 500 point limitation on Movescount is restrictive and even many routes in the Movescount public library cannot be used in Movescount!!

[bowesmana]

I would copy those emails to the ambit@suunto.com address as well. I suspect then you'll get both the support people to see it and some of the engineering/development people for Ambit.

Yes, I already sent them, the readers of that mail address seem pretty proactive and I've had a number of responses, so I feel my comments will be heard.

[format]

many routes in the Movescount public library cannot be used in Movescount!!

Many? Or any?

Remember that 500 points are recorded by an Ambit in less than 8,5 minutes. 1 sec per point... My trains are usually a bit longer than that. Even if the track was recorded with much less sample rate. You record 500 points in 20-30 minutes.

This path ia a dead end. They need to have proper naviagation.

[joelc]

Remember that 100 waypoints (Ambit limitation) is not the same as 100 points. Movescount will accept up to 500 points for editing. So you can have a 500 point route, edit in Movescount with up to 100 waypoints for download to the Ambit.

I was aware of the distinction between 100 waypoints and points (limited to 500 for editing in movescount). And I had tried also to filter a track only down to 500 and then select 100 way points from it. But when you select 100 waypoints out of 500 points, you are doing manually, and painfully, a filtering that gpsies/convert is doing for you very quickly if you ask it directly a filtering down to 100 points (that I select as way-points in movescount one by one). So comparing the two approaches, I opted for letting gpsies/convert to do most of the job.
The day Ambit watch will be ready to receive way points + points, preparing a route with hundreds of points + some waypoints will be interesting. And I hope this day will come But with current firmware, as only waypoints matter in the end, the process I'm using is focusing on them.

[pjc3]

Thankyou very much joelc for the link to GPSies.com converting tool.....very useful indeed.