Suunto - significant connectivity expansion in ecosystem, more to come

Suunto gets busy Suunto is moving all Movescount users over to the Suunto app and has been busy incrementally adding new features to the Suunto app in anticipation of the final cut-off date. The original Suunto app wasn't great but it has certainly improved considerably and my attention was recently brought to one aspect of it - the number of connected apps. And that's not all, some other features have been quietly released, as detailed below, and there are more to come to the overall ecosystem fairly soon; perhaps signalling Suunto's continued intent to add software value to those of us who already have Suunto watches. Suunto App gets many more connections The existing connections are many and varied, including Dive-related apps like O'Dive; basic health sync of activity data to Google Fit and Samsung Health; and then a plethora of sports-related apps, some of which you will know and use and others of which will intrigue you. Runalyze, running.COACH, OS Land, PerfectPace or PWR LAB might tickle your fancy - should it need tickling on a quiet news day. Here are all the connections available as of today and there are more to come [gallery type="rectangular" size="medium" ids="52911,52910,52909,52908,52907,52906"] new Home Screen on app The app's new home screen is a welcome change, delivering only a relatively small impact but I kinda like it. As of 24 August, this is only rolled out to iOS but Android is imminent too. Especially for multisport activities, it gives a great visual overview of your sports covering indications of total durations, some of the routes you've completed and the physical impact of individual workouts. And you can easily toggle between THIS WEEK and THIS MONTH views. Nice! My Tracks Heatmap Like many other companies, Suunto is endeavouring to add value to the routing experience and that's a BIG ASK as the whole darn thing is immense in scope. Even if a company covers every possible feature-eventuality, the resulting app will be so complex that it would probably be unusable. So the trick is finding those tweaks and innovations that YOUR customer base will love and use, more as a means of customer retention than new customer acquisition. This leads us to some love that has been given to the existing HEATMAP functionality. Suunto recognises that people love heatmaps. On the Suunto 7, there is even a personalised heatmap of your routes that shows as a watchface. That's just pretty (probably one of THE prettiest watchfaces out there) and the new MY TRACKS HEATMAP on the app gives a similar nice warm glow as it offers you a little context to where you've been and you can filter the map by week/month/year. Although I/you probably know where we've recently been, the value perhaps comes in knowing HOW OFTEN we've been there. #NiceAndCuddlyFeature. [gallery type="rectangular" columns="2" size="medium" ids="52940,52941"] Popular Routes & Starting Points One of my larger uses of routes is when on holiday and I simply want to find or create routes that start from a location that I'm not familiar with. Although I found Suunto's new features in this area to be useful, they took a while to get the hang of. DCR covers POPULAR ROUTES and STARTING POINTS in a bit more detail on his blog if you are interested, although the headlines are relatively self-explanatory - in a nutshell, you can search from points and choose nearby routes. [gallery type="rectangular" size="medium" ids="52942,52943,52944"] MyRadar on Wear OS It's worth mentioning the MyRadar app from Wear OS again. I've used that many times with Wear OS watches over the last few years, most recently with the Casio WSD-F30, and it now seems to work well with the Suunto 7. MyRadar has two components to it. Firstly there is the good old weather forecast but then there is also the visual display of your location with time-lapses of weather fronts moving in on you, as these two pictures (partly) show. [gallery type="rectangular" columns="2" size="medium" ids="53532,52946"] The Suunto 7 DOES display the weather map on the watch but it was difficult for me to take a picture of it without the pin code prompt taking over, which it does when you have NFC payment methods set (I do). The mapping feature of MyRadar still needs your phone to be present but you can have your phone safely in your pocket and the watch in a much handier position to more esaily use it. The other weather forecast parts of the app are then similar to those found on many other weather apps and give hourly, daily and current forecasts. The special thing about MyRadar is that many users of the service are happy with the accuracy of the forecasts.