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I am testing my new Suunto Ambit2. Great watch! I like the way it can be configured and the analysis of the data! However, I am a little bit surprised to see that the software solution from Suunto only works with an internet connection.

Is it possible to get the data stored in the watch during a training when the computer is not connected to internet? Especially the waypoint from the GPS chip would be interesting for me.

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According to everything I have found on the web and experienced with my own watch, the watch will not register as mass storage so that you could access the recorded logs directly. Therefore you cannot just plug the watch to a random computer and copy he logs like it was a USB thumb drive.

But, there's at least some help:

Computers running on Windows or MacOS

What you can do is use Moveslink offline, i.e. you don't have to connect it to the Movescount online service at all or if you have temporarily no internet connection. In this case Moveslink will save the logs locally until it is connected to Movescount in a proprietary xml encoded file. This file by itself won't be of great use in the first place but some nice people already have written a tool to convert the logs to a gpx file. I haven't tried it myself but if I read the documented options right you can choose to just export the GPS positions or other (heart rate etc.) data. The logs are stored in the following location (cited from a no longer available Readme file of the tool mentioned above):

When transfering data with moveslink, an xml file is stored on computer. On Windows, it can be found on locations such as:

C:\Documents and Settings\'username'\Application Data\Suunto\Moveslink2 (on Windows XP) C:\Documents and Settings\'username'\AppData\Roaming\Suunto\Moveslink2 (on Windows 7)

Pay attention to the fact these 'Application Data'/'AppData' folders are hidden by default as they are 'system folders'. Change settings of Windows explorer if you want to make them visible.

For Windows versions newer than Windows 7 I would try the Windows 7 path, but I can't check since I don't have such a system running here. On a Mac, the path is /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Suunto/Moveslink2

Linux computers

If you are a Linux user and able to follow some console commands to compile the source code yourself, there's a project called openambit. The authors have dissected at least enough of the communication protocol to allow to download moves from the watch and (optionally) upload them to movescount. They also ship the conversion script mentioned earlier in my post, but at the moment you would have to invoke this manually to convert your moves to gpx files.

TL;DR

So to conclude the the information above: You can use Moveslink or openambit offline to download the logs from the watch and there's a tool to convert the files to gpx format. But you will need a computer where you are able to install these tools, therefore you won't be able to use any random computer unless you have the ability and/or permission to install the needed software there.

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  • That's fantastic - thanks! Any idea where the data files are stored on a Mac? Jun 18, 2014 at 11:00
  • Never mind: /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/Suunto/Moveslink2 Jun 18, 2014 at 13:34
  • There is an application here: github.com/openambitproject/openambit not for the faint hearted, which in theory could be used to download data directly to the computer. I'll ask Suunto what they recommend if I don't want to use GPS data locally. After all I bought their product, so they should provide customer support.
    – inf3rno
    Feb 15, 2016 at 4:47
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Yes, you can use the USB cable to directly transfer information from your watch to your PC. You just won't get updates or new features, and you'll miss out on the Movescount functionality online.

This and more information in the Suunto Ambit 2 manual.

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  • Hi Rory. Thanks I missed that in the manual (and still looking for it, but I am confident I will find it ;-) ). There is no "offline" software for that purpose? I understand that without Moveslink, no update can be performed on the watch. I was more thinking of data transfer when I have no internet connection (e.g. during a bike week: I sleep in a van and have my computer to store my pictures of the day). I will try out your solution. Thanks.
    – Giomsen
    Jun 3, 2013 at 12:30
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    @Rory Alsop: May be you should explain as what type of device it gets registered at the PC. If it registers as a mass storage device it is possible to access the watch as any other USB storage device. Then explain which data and how the data must be exchanged to extract way points or tracks. The linked manual just describes the usage of the Movescount web service.
    – Kai K.
    Jun 18, 2013 at 13:01

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