Suunto – Advanced Plotting Support, Now Integrated to plotaroute

Today’s announcement sees another 3rd party linkup to the ever-expanding Suunto app.

I’ll talk you through the process and share some of the awesomeness of the many plotaroute features. You can find out some more about plotaroute with Garmin here and it’s worth some further investigation if you ever have advanced route plotting needs.

Kit Used: Suunto 9 Peak (detailed review here) with a generic sport loop band and an iPhone 11 with a Nomad Leather case.

Table of Contents (Click to Expand)

PlotaRoute – What’s Special?

John at plotaroute.com has developed the most advanced plotting tool I’ve seen. As a quick overview here are the 18 of the 23 plotting functions that plotaroute support which range from the simplification of plotted points through to route splitting and combining.

(smartphone: click the right arrow to see all images)

Naturally, you can plot a new route based on advanced features that may affect your journey like

Trails vs roads (walking vs cycling)
Seeing Google Streetview alongside the map route you are plotting
Overlaying multiple routes on the map for comparison or for multi-day trip planning
Detour management
Gradient highlighting
Route tagging
Public Transport networks including formal cycle routes
Naturally, Plotaroute creates Turn-By-Turn (TBT) instructions. However the Suunto watchface is often too small to display the street name so, instead, plotaroute send simple ‘turn left’ type instructions.
And naturally, Plotaroute creates an elevation profile too.

Finally here is one last route creation feature that I liked where you can quickly visualise a distance or time radius ‘as the crow flies’ from where you are. Fine. That’s easy enough. However, there is then an isochrone radius version that replots the boundary based on actual road mileage. I’ve shown both those in the images below as 10km radii based on Windsor Castle, UK. The third image then factors the time taken when cycling to work out the limits of where I can get to within my constraints. I thought that was a nice tool that I could use when on holiday to visualise some limits of where I might want to cycle or run to before I set out. Try doing that on your premium STRAVA Account!

3 images, arrow right

Plotaroute – What’s New

We’ll come to the Suunto linkup in a second just before that here are the latest new features that have been recently added to plotaroute.

Upgraded ‘Make Me a Route’ tool to define areas you want to avoid and set a preference for off-road routes.
One million ready-made routes are now shared on plotaroute.com.
Recreational SatNav navigation features added to the mobile web app.
UK Ordnance Survey maps for £18pa

How to get your Route from Plotaroute to your Suunto Watch

Let’s assume that you’ve created your route. As a one-off, the next step is to authorise the link from plotaroute.com on your smartphone’s web browser to the Suunto app on the same device.

Plotaroute’s Garmin linkup is a little smoother than with Suunto. For Suunto, there are additional steps where you have to send each route to the Suunto app and then on the Suunto app you also specify which of those routes go to your watch. The broad thrust of the flow is shown in these 4 screen grabs.

A quick sync to your watch and all is good.

Limitations

Suunto watches can only display breadcrumb routes and have no onboard maps (the Suunto 7 being the exception)

Suunto watch sizes generally are not large enough to display street names but can display useful turn right/turn left instructions

The Suunto link is a PREMIUM feature and subscription costs: GBP £18, USD $25, EUR €22

Take Out

A great addition to the Suunto stable for those watch owners with complex routing needs.

Info: plotaroute.com

Disclaimer: This is an unpaid news story I get nothing from you selecting the links, I received a free 3-month premium trial that I will only use for the creation of this piece. I pay for the services and devices I use for my own personal use with my own money. If you want to support my work producing stories like this, which take a day to research write and test, then please show your support in one of the many ways available (link here).

1 thought on “Suunto adds Plotaroute support for Advanced Route Creation & Easy Syncing”

Peter says:
14 October 2021 at 9:57 pm
Don’t forget the tbt notification abbreviation feature that can automatically shorten long names to get most out of what the watch can show. I use it on my fenix to shorten for instance turn left to L and ‘turn sharp left’ to ShL

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Suunto adds Plotaroute support for Advanced Route Creation & Easy Syncing