”Huld’s competence in technology was invaluable. Our whole project culminated in making our new ecosystem SuuntoPlus™ available for users globally, and Huld played a key role in its iOS mobile development.” – Janne Kallio, Ecosystem Lead, Suunto.
Suunto is a designer and innovator of sports watches, dive computers, and precision instruments. They are popular among adventurers all around the world. Suunto products are not only extremely durable, but they also have a design that reflects the practical, aesthetical Nordic style.
Staying on the cutting edge of smart watches requires constant development work, and Suunto is dedicated to developing their services continuously. Suunto’s latest breakthroughs were SuuntoPlus™ and SuuntoPlus™ Store, and Suunto trusted Huld’s expertise in their iOS mobile development.
Suunto and Huld’s shared journey for developing SuuntoPlus™ and SuuntoPlus™ Store began with workshops in which common parameters for the development work were defined. The communication was continued with frequent design meetings with Suunto’s development team, UI designers, product owner, marketing team, and other parties.
”Huld became an integral part of our developer family. Our collaboration was smooth, and there were no unnecessary barriers. Sometimes, you could not even tell who was from Huld and who from Suunto.” – Janne Kallio, Ecosystem Lead, Suunto.
Every feature was studied separately, and the development work was carried out in strong consensus. Everyone’s strengths were utilized in the collaborative and flexible culture, and Huld’s software designer was given the freedom and responsibility to carry out the iOS mobile development as he saw fit. For example, connecting a physical smart watch to a software requires extensive technical competence.
”The synchronization of a physical device and a mobile application poses its own challenges to coding. We used the best technologies and practices, and we solved problems and developed solutions together with the entire development team.” – Antti Vekkeli, Senior Software Designer, Huld.
As a result of over two years of collaboration, SuuntoPlus™ and SuuntoPlus™ Store saw the light of day. The new and innovative feature in Suunto smart watches, SuuntoPlus™, now enables seamless use of third-party applications in Suunto smart watches. All users can download the applications from SuuntoPlus™ Store.
The compatible applications help tailor Suunto smart watch to meet the needs of the users more versatilely. Anyone can expand the living ecosystem, whether the need is related to following body temperatures and fitness testing, reporting geography profiles or coming rain showers, or linking smart glasses to sporting achievements.
The compatibility is not only beneficial for consumers but also for startup and larger companies. With the right innovation, they can help improve the monitoring of occupational safety, well-being, and coping at work for example among mining industry workers or heavy truck drivers as a part of Suunto smart watch. The possibilities for different applications are infinite regardless of the industry.
”Application thinking is still relatively new in this field. A versatile ecosystem that is created collaboratively is a significant differentiating factor both for us and for compatible applications and their creators. For example, the innovations of startup companies can spread globally in a flash through us, when a compatible application is created for the invention in SuuntoPlus™ Store.” – Janne Kallio, Ecosystem Lead, Suunto.