Feedback: Heatmap changes

[GuyBeels]

What have you done to Heatmaps?  I do not care about businesses, or where other people have run, walked, or biked, and the new color selection interface does not allow basemap changes from the same interface (as it should).  Also, as I zoom out, the once-useful aggregation of workouts (showing a circle and number at scales where the actual paths get tiny and useless) is now gone.  Writing this as a cartographer, recent changes are not an improvement.  Is there a way to recover the old display mode?

[uzaks]

Agreed. I've just created this topic under the new idea suggestions, please send kudos/support there: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/ideas/add-back-the-activity-clusters-to-heatmaps/idi-p/27182

The more the kudos/support the more likely and sooner it will be implemented.

[GuyBeels]

It's hard to tell if any Strava staffer reads "Community", or if they intend it only as a chat space for users.  Too bad if it's the latter, but it's starting to look like that might be the case.  The "happy thought" is that this is something in Strava's software development backlog that they haven't yet decided to take up, and they're just not being communicative about it (no excuse for that, though).  But what I'm starting to suspect is that they've monetized the Heatmaps now that they display commercial establishments, and there's no longer really a place for big, fat (but informative) activity clusters.  Serving advertisers, not customers.

[uzaks]

I've just created this topic under the new idea suggestions, please send kudos/support there: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/ideas/add-back-the-activity-clusters-to-heatmaps/idi-p/27182

[bauapowa]

Until a recent update when you zoomed out on your personal heatmap you would be able to see various sizes of dots (with numbers) that indicated where you have completed activities. After the update when you zoom out very far from the area where you have completed an activity there is no indication where you have completed any activities. Request that this feature be added back to the personal heatmaps. 

Image 1: Personal Heatmap December 2023

Image 2: Personal Heatmap February 2024

 

[uzaks]

Agreed. I've just created this topic under the new idea suggestions, please send kudos/support there: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/ideas/add-back-the-activity-clusters-to-heatmaps/idi-p/27182

The more the kudos/support the more likely and sooner it will be implemented.

[hollandsmith]

Has anyone heard anything official from Strava about whether activity clusters will be brought back or not? I agree 100% with the sentiments on this thread. One of my favorite features, now gone. Very sad.

[uzaks]

We haven't heard from Strava staff on this unfortunately, but I've just created this topic under the new idea suggestions, please send kudos/support there: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/ideas/add-back-the-activity-clusters-to-heatmaps/idi-p/27182

The more the kudos/support there, the more likely and sooner it will be implemented.

[GuyBeels]

I suspect that this thread is one of many in the "community" that is meant to allow us all just to talk to each other.  Though it would be nice, it may be unrealistic to assume that anyone within Strava corporate reads these with the intent of gathering ideas for improvement of the user experience.  (Too bad, since that would be "agile" and "hip".)  If they ever do come back with activity clusters, we likely won't hear about it in this forum, it will just be presented out of the blue as a "new and improved" Heatmap experience.  That said, it does mystify me that they don't bring back the activity clusters, since they obviously already have the code.  But maybe the application architecture is such a mass of spaghetti that re-inserting this is a lost cause fraught with danger to the code base.  I dunno. 

[uzaks]

Yes, so, I've just created this topic under the new idea suggestions, please send kudos/support there: https://communityhub.strava.com/t5/ideas/add-back-the-activity-clusters-to-heatmaps/idi-p/27182

The more the kudos/support there, the more likely and sooner it will be implemented.

[bpower14]

Could not agree more - Please bring back the aggregation (where the route lines become circles as you zoom out)! 

50% of the reason I use heatmap is to see where I've been in a city / area (new version still does this great). But the other 50% is, I love seeing where I've run across Canada + the US, and the entire world (i.e., the fitness/activity version of a "world map travel peg board"), and the new heatmap is now totally useless at this!