I’m sorry but if the solution to this is either limit functionality (less sensors, lower screen brightness, etc) or have to buy additional products (external batteries), then it’s a shit product. Not to mention the hassle of either stopping to charge the battery, or figuring out a way to rig up the system to your cockpit mid-ride.
Imagine if Shimano was like, “Here is the new 12-speed Di2 groupset. But we recommend you only shift the front derailleur less than 10 times per ride, and the rear derailleur less than 100. So we suggest riding on flat routes. Or you can just attach an external battery.”
It just seems odd that you’re defending so adamantly, trying to justify its major flaw with added requirements. Having to buy extra products to get basic functionality is laughable.
Not my experience. Bought a 520 in 2016 and have continuously recorded rides even when connecting it to my lipstick battery mid ride. Same with my Varia radar.
Is the Hammerhead software on the Karoo just a skin on top of android, or is it an app installed on vanilla android?
If it’s either of the above, has there been progress on creating a karoo rom of sorts, so it can be loaded on any android phone, maybe one with a better/bigger battery?
(I had a quick search on the xda forum, but couldn’t see anything)
Edit – Looked a bit more into this, and it looks like they’re running a skinned version of android 8 and calling it Karoo OS. Seems that they’re using a mediatek chip
Pretty poor comparison. That DI2-groupset would be completely unusable for everybody. A bike computer with a battery that lasts for 7-8 hours is usable for all but the most demanding cyclists (in terms of ride length).
Personally, I stay away from K2 primarily because of the battery as I sometimes do rides up to 6 hours. But for the vast majority this is not a problem.
I do a lot of long solo rides in remote areas with poor coverage where I dont want to run down my cell phone battery by using it for live tracking. This is light, cheap and has a long battery life. It only needs 2g to send its info. It works well and means theres a good chance Ill be found if anything ever happens.
Most discussions on this always assume a starting point of 100% battery. I’m rarely starting a ride with a fully charged battery on any head unit, so the fast battery burn on the HH becomes even more of a problem. If I grab the K2 and it’s on 40% at the start of a ride, I have to overthink things… 40% on any other unit isn’t an issue.
I still believe the baseline for all bike ‘computers’ should be 15hrs. Taking into account auto-pause, coffee stops, etc, is about 12-13hrs actual ride time… maybe less if you really like coffee.
Completely agree there. I think you should at minimum be able to expect a weekend riding if you went away and forgot your charger etc.
I charge every ride almost, but that’s because I chose a Garmin 130+ and given the size it’s an anticipated sacrifice.
I wish I’d gone for a 530 in hindsight. Can you do a video on the TrailForks integration at some stage @GPLama ? I know you’re not a mountain biker, but I’d still very much value your opinion.
Definitely Karoo 2 “curious” but I’m in the same boat with battery life. I do a lot of long gravel rides, often navigating unfamiliar roads by GPS the entire time. This ultimately will keep me using a Garmin for now.
Ultimately though the Karoo 2 is good for the industry as a whole. Hopefully it will continue to push Garmin and Wahoo to continue to innovate, and also for work on a future Karoo device to address some of the weaknesses, especially battery life.
What computers are people using they cover a weekend of riding between charges? I have a Karoo2 and it has longer batter life than my 530, seems pretty workable
You have a outlier K2 or a borked 530. I’ve got a ton of battery burn data in my daily testing… I’ll pull it out one day for review. I know it doesn’t look good for the K2.
I guess the 530 is several years old, got to be some battery wear going on. Still not sure that I was getting back to back rides on the weekend without recharging though. Are you getting more than 8hrs on the 530 in testing?
I picked up a HH over the winter - I like it. I got it for the screen size, the 1030 is too big for my needs and I haven’t had the best experiences with Garmin.
I charge my apple watch and my phone every day
I charge my lights and my headunit after every ride. The battery life will last for 95% of all my rides, the once or twice a year it doesn’t I will have to bring a tiny battery pack - not a big deal.
I have a pretty brand new 530, and mine went flat in 8 hours from 100%, which was surprising to me. I had heard that it would last 15 hours. I was following a course, does that make a difference?
8% per hour using a route sounds about right for my experience with HH so far. Still able to ride 100 miles and get home with a little more than half my battery though, thought that was pretty good until I started asking questions on the internet
The re routing function on the K2 is fantastic, like how fast it catches up. Being able to add a route mid ride and get rid of it when I’m done is also really nice.
For me it seems to be leaving it on the map screen (not being on the map screen is fine as the notifications and distance to turn as displayed are fine, and i don’t leave my Garmin on map screen either) , living in the UK, at the moment I have to re-route A LOT because of road works and I sill get 10-11 hours (Radar bleeping away)
I’m hoping on a 24hr event latter in the year, it’s going to be a pain for that
but looks to me like I’ll be carrying a battery pack no mater what I do, at least with HH any off courses will be dealt with quickly and without fuss, to be honest with you, I’m more concerned about the RTL515 and lights at the moment
I am hoping that Karoo bring out a battery pack, with the slot in mount it could be a neat and tidy affair, rather than that Garmin double decker
