GPS tech (Garmin, Hammerhead, Wahoo, RWGPS, etc)

I had the mark one Hammerhead which a mate bought as a kickstarter and gave to me to test out. It was shit and i spent most of the time ironing out bugs for him.

I think they are better now. Originally I think they were a mobile phone which was reformatted as a GPS device. No idea if that is still the case.

Most reviews say it's great but realistically battery can only be relied on for 8hrs.

Interesting. That hasn't been my experience of the 2 devices I've had (I dropped the first and smashed the screen)
I did an 11 hour audax a couple weeks ago in one charge

But you can reduce battery life by having Bluetooth and wireless on and using sensors, HR monitors etc

I reckon 10hrs on mine too but a 20min top up from a power bank during a coffee stop will easily add a couple more hours.

If you have a higher tier loyalty status at Sigma you can get it for £207.

I have a route on komoot I have been working on which I want to now test download onto the garmin 500 we have. It seems I have to pay to unlock the region?

but our garmin doesn't do maps, it is just a gpx file

Garmin 500 will only give you a paper-trail on the screen. No idea why it wants you to unlock the region but Komoot is shit unless you are a paying subscriber

Find a friend with a Komoot sub, send them the route and then ask them to download the gpx and send it back to you.

Nope, i don't have one.

Thank you!

If you have an android phone you can use this app to extract GPX files from a public komoot route URL even if you're not a komoot subscriber. Is very easy to use and works really well:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.spark71.komoottogpx

Switched to a Hammerhead recently and just used it for a week's touring in Scotland. After that I'm pretty enthusiastic about it. The map detail is great - hugely superior to wahoo, which for the kind off offroad navigation I was doing was really useful. Elevation profiles seems really accurate too. Battery life is OK, dynamo hub charger kept it running pretty much indefinitely. Lasted fine for regular rides before touring. For a 200k audax I'd definitely take a back up battery. Not that keen on the slowness of drop down menus, etc. Feels slow compared to phones or other gps devices. Routing app stuff/ability to paste in urls and organise collections of routes also really good.
Overall I think it's pretty good. But then I got an ebay bargain one. Not perfect, but think v3 will probably be great and v2 worth it with a discount.

My Garmin 520 plus is growing on me. I still prefer my Wahoo but an update to the app a few months ago means I can't send any routes to it, rendering it absolutely useless. Apparently it's something a recent update was meant to fix but hasn't for me.
Anyway, there a couple of issues with the Garmin I was hoping there's a way around.
Firstly - is there a way to send new courses to the device without finishing your current activity and starting a new one? I can't get it to sync whilst an activity is in progress which is mildly annoying.
Another mildly annoying feature is that it just turns itself on if you either plug it in or unplug it. Is there a way around that?

Firstly - is there a way to send new courses to the device without finishing your current activity and starting a new one? I can't get it to sync whilst an activity is in progress which is mildly annoying.

Another mildly annoying feature is that it just turns itself on if you either plug it in or unplug it. Is there a way around that?

You can stop your activity, turn the device off and on to sync and then restart the activity.

The turning on thing is annoying. Try plugging it in to non-data source or I normally just immediately turn it off before it boots.

Good tip, I'll try that thanks! It turns itself on if I plug it straight in to the mains so it's not trying to sync data or anything like that. Not the end of the world, just mildly annoying.

I thought mine turns on sometimes and not others, so figured it was with data or without. Now I'm not sure. Maybe I'm just so used to turning it off immediately.

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-520-520-plus/98591/garmin-always-turns-on-when-connected-to-usb

I'm looking to step out of the comparative darkness of Cateye computers and buy a GPS. At present I'm looking at Wahoo Roam V1 (£180) or a Garmin 530 (£220). I would only need routing a few times a year for events away from home, most of my rides tend to be on known loops. Any reason to opt for Garmin over Wahoo? Or wasting cash given I can see basic stats on a Cateye and use my Garmin watch to record and save to Connect/Strava?

Why not just use your phone and OSMand? Free, except for a mount.

Or navigate of your watch? Strap it to bars.
If it really is a few times, seems wasted money.

BTW after posting above on this thread all I get now are adverts for Hammerhead...

Thanks for the honest advice - think I was interested in "new shiny thing" and was trying to talk myself into it!

Sadly my watch is a Forerunner 45 so it seems like routing with that isn't possible. Event I'm riding this weekend is a fairly simple course made up of loops - reading up on the route and maybe some notes on the stem should do the trick.

Get OSMand app. It's free and you can upload GPX into it, it will navigate too if you need, or just see route on map. I use it for offline backup. Also it's vector indexed with all services, super useful for finding water etc

Much appreciated, have downloaded and added the GPX route

I've finally upgraded from an Edge 250 (Strava sent me it for nothing when they first launched and had no data and gave away 100s) to a 540 and things have changed a bit! Halp.

This "no user manual in the box" thing needs to get in the sea, but out front mount and lanyard is good.

I did the same, except to the 840*. What do you need to know, might be able to help.

(* I saw a couple of reviews talking about how the button only interface is a bit cumbersome and that the touch screen upgrade was probably worth it.)

Back to the buttons on STI hoods. Can they be programmed to do multiple key presses on a garmin?

What would make it worthwhile for me would be if I could use them to scroll the map in and out, which takes quite a few key presses from the navigation screen.