Suunto Ambit3 Manual +2: Waypoint/POI Navigation

This may have been a very special case of a question, but it made me notice that I hadn’t shown the waypoint part of the navigation (with a Suunto Ambit) explicitly, especially as it uses either the compass or the GPS.

This is a feature/display that has disappeared from the Suunto Traverse, because it had confused many users, as well as from the Suunto Ambit3 Vertical, where the altitude profile tracking replaces it.

It is a bit strange, too, as the normal route navigation shows you where you need to go in order to follow the route you’ve set up (see the “Navigation” part of my Ambit3 manual).

If you don’t want to read and watch it all back there, here’s the navigation by route:

… and the navigation using a POI:

Compass vs. GPS when Navigating

What may have been missing, or at least turned out to be worth repeating, is this:

When you use the display for navigating to the next waypoint (on a route) or to a POI, it becomes quite obvious that the compass is used when you’re standing still.

So, when you’re not moving, the watch’s direction arrow will move as you rotate the watch, so that it always points in the cardinal direction in which you need to move.

Start moving that way, and the GPS will take over.

With that, the two lines showing your direction of movement at the 12 o’clock position of the watch will appear, and the direction arrow then shows which direction you need to move to get to the next waypoint (or to the POI you’re navigating to) *relative to your direction of movement*.

So, in moving, the direction arrow does not rotate with any rotation of the watch, it only moves if you change which direction you’re moving in.

Center the direction arrow between the two lines at 12 o’clock, and you’re moving the right way.

By line-of-sight / as the crow flies, anyways – so remember to check the route display and/or watch where you’re going before you take the direct path to oblivion rather than your next point.

 

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