Smartphones and long rides: The Strategy

SB76 wrote:

Dave Atkinson wrote:

you have to be careful using airplane mode on some phones (including iphone) - the GPS will continue to work once connected, but if it loses the connection it *won't* re-acquire it.

Really????

I find that difficult to believe but still highly believable, the whole point of airplane mode is to disable those parts of the phone that the CAA and FAA oddly believe to be dangerous to the systems of the aircraft. A GPS connection would most certainly fall into that category.

I cannot believe that to be a design intent, more likely a bug - So dont shout about it...

I usually use my iphone with wifi & 3G off but I did try airplane mode last week and the GPS was lost a short way into the ride and didn't re-aquire and I didn't notice until 50km into the ride.

Mention it on Sunday to the lads I ride with and 2 have had the same issue.

S13SFC wrote:

SB76 wrote:

Dave Atkinson wrote:

you have to be careful using airplane mode on some phones (including iphone) - the GPS will continue to work once connected, but if it loses the connection it *won't* re-acquire it.

Really????

I find that difficult to believe but still highly believable, the whole point of airplane mode is to disable those parts of the phone that the CAA and FAA oddly believe to be dangerous to the systems of the aircraft. A GPS connection would most certainly fall into that category.

I cannot believe that to be a design intent, more likely a bug - So dont shout about it...

I usually use my iphone with wifi & 3G off but I did try airplane mode last week and the GPS was lost a short way into the ride and didn't re-aquire and I didn't notice until 50km into the ride.

Mention it on Sunday to the lads I ride with and 2 have had the same issue.

Same with me, 3Gs on airplane mode = no strava data recorded at all.

S13SFC wrote:

SB76 wrote:

Dave Atkinson wrote:

you have to be careful using airplane mode on some phones (including iphone) - the GPS will continue to work once connected, but if it loses the connection it *won't* re-acquire it.

Really????

I find that difficult to believe but still highly believable, the whole point of airplane mode is to disable those parts of the phone that the CAA and FAA oddly believe to be dangerous to the systems of the aircraft. A GPS connection would most certainly fall into that category.

I cannot believe that to be a design intent, more likely a bug - So dont shout about it...

I usually use my iphone with wifi & 3G off but I did try airplane mode last week and the GPS was lost a short way into the ride and didn't re-aquire and I didn't notice until 50km into the ride.

Mention it on Sunday to the lads I ride with and 2 have had the same issue.

iphone should definitely disable GPS its either the app not dealing with gps going in that manner in a delayed manner or it is a bug within iOS.

I've been doing some fishing on the interweb and results seem mixed. I know you can enable wifi and even 3g whilst in airplane mode but cant find anywhere that states you can enable GPS. Interestingly some have mentioned enabling wifi in airplane mode allows does allow the GPS to work. Maybe it does work but seems more likely to be cell tower connectivity performing postional data.

This leds me to another thought and that is how much does Stravs rely on GPS and how much it uses cell tower triangulation.
The discrepencies in distances and height suggests it possible or this could be Strava sanisating your route once you upload it.

Quote:

This leds me to another thought and that is how much does Stravs rely on GPS and how much it uses cell tower triangulation.
The discrepencies in distances and height suggests it possible or this could be Strava sanisating your route once you upload it.

CoreLocation, the means by which all iPhone apps get a gps fix, relies on three things:

1. Wifi - position can be triangulated from detection of known public wifi networks
2. Triangulation from known cell tower locations
3. GPS

The developer doesn't pick and choose which ones to use, depending on the state of the phone (ie is airplane mode on, or wifi disabled), CoreLocation will use what ever combination of these three returns a location fix fastest.

This means that disabling wifi, or enabling flight mode will actually decrease battery life in some situations, as the time taken to obtain a location fix is fastest when all three sources of location data can be located, rather than just one. This is precisely why many mapping apps such as google maps warn you that location accuracy will suffer if you open them with wifi disabled.

Tom Amos wrote:

So noone is going to buy the new Garmin Edge 1000 then?

I don't know much about this area but it does strike me that for the cost of the Garmin you could buy an extremely impressive Smart phone which is probably more powerful. Or am I missing something?

I expect it'll fly off the shelves, but I'm with you, I just don't get the point of paying hundreds for a standalone GPS when I've already got a GPS-enabled phone with all manner of (free) apps available for both navigation and performance tracking.

I'm buying one, although this is mainly because I'm doing a lot of touring in Europe over the summer so I can't use my mobile whilst abroad - and I can get a decent price on the 1000. £370 (potentially £350) on it.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Did the first long ride with my new Sony Xperia Z1 compact today. It's fully waterproof (IP58), so that means no case needed; i used a Finn bike mount on the stem.

I ran it with Viewranger mapping and GPS recording in Strava. I didn't turn any of the connections off, just stuck it straight on the bars. I ran the screen on a 1-minute timeout and clicked the clicky button every time i wanted to check the map: you can set it so there's no screen lock, so one click gets you straight back to the map.

We did 5h15m on the bike including stops (where it was still on the bike recording) and come the finish I still had 50% battery life left.

So I'm sold, pretty much. Ideally someone would produce a skin-type case that turns the small clicky button on the side into a big fumbly button for gloves, and also has a quarter-turn mount on the back. Then it's be more or less perfect

You have a chance to use it in the rain yet? One of the reasons Garmin cite for avoiding smartphone style capacitive displays on their bike computers is in addition to capacitive displays not working with gloves, rain water can trigger the touch sensing on capacitive displays, triggering false inputs. Curious to hear how well the Z1 works in this scenario.

I've read complaints from some Mio 505 bike computer users that rain water does indeed cause touch screen button presses on its capacitive display, similarly in reviews of the Z1 I've seen it pointed out the display can't work underwater (although you'd hope on the bike total submersion isn't going to happen!)

Dave Atkinson wrote:

So I'm sold, pretty much. Ideally someone would produce a skin-type case that turns the small clicky button on the side into a big fumbly button for gloves, and also has a quarter-turn mount on the back. Then it's be more or less perfect

Interested to hear your thoughts on this Dave, I've just got the Z2 handset myself and am also looking at options for mounting the phone on the stem.

How do you get on with the Finn, particularly for a handset of this size? Whilst it's only a tenner, I do have niggling doubts as to quite how robustly it will hold a £600 handset in place!

I've otherwise been looking at the aforementioned Quad Lock, they don't make (and aren't planning to make - I did ask) a case specifically for the latest Sony handsets, so you'd need the universal kit which then just sticks to any old hard case. With the 10% code you get by simply signing up to their email list, the universal kit is a little over £20, plus another tenner for a reasonable quality case.

As for your issue with using the side button to wake the phone, have you tried the feature to wake the phone by double-tapping the screen instead? I've admittedly yet to try this with gloves on myself, but I'm sure there's also a glove mode buried somewhere in the settings too.

parksey wrote:

Interested to hear your thoughts on this Dave, I've just got the Z2 handset myself and am also looking at options for mounting the phone on the stem.

How do you get on with the Finn, particularly for a handset of this size? Whilst it's only a tenner, I do have niggling doubts as to quite how robustly it will hold a £600 handset in place!

I've otherwise been looking at the aforementioned Quad Lock, they don't make (and aren't planning to make - I did ask) a case specifically for the latest Sony handsets, so you'd need the universal kit which then just sticks to any old hard case. With the 10% code you get by simply signing up to their email list, the universal kit is a little over £20, plus another tenner for a reasonable quality case.

As for your issue with using the side button to wake the phone, have you tried the feature to wake the phone by double-tapping the screen instead? I've admittedly yet to try this with gloves on myself, but I'm sure there's also a glove mode buried somewhere in the settings too.

Like Mike said, the Finn will hold pretty much anything smaller than a 7" tablet. so you're all good there. the main issue i have with it is that if you want to take your phone off for a quick photo, you can't. it's a faff. a quadlock would be better. especially one that let you mount your phone out front...

i didn't really have an issue with the clicky button. i just think it'll be a bit more difficult with thick gloves on. at the moment, it's fine. double click to wake could work, the Z1 compact has a 'glove mode' which makes the screen more sensitive but that could be A Bad Thing if rain triggers the screen.

screens/rain: no, not yet, or at least not a *lot* of rain. i've used it in drizzle but not a downpour. i will report back when the inevitable happens

KiwiMike wrote:

benezeir wrote:

I the think the hammerhead navigation device is going to end this debate. All the benefits of using the phone (connectivity, free route planning, track recording and navigation apps) with none of the battery or sunlight visibility problems as the phone is in your back pocket with the screen off, and the hammerhead flashes brightly on your handlebar to tell you there's a turn coming up, and even how close to the top of the hill/strava segment you are.

I'm very keen to read the real-world reviews of this. Assume that you have to carry a phone, have it on, in your pocket using Bluetooth (no idea what flavour, should be 4 / Smart though). What this is doing is showing you distance to turn and direction. That's something that an app like Viewranger can and does do, without really impacting battery life (checking for 15 seconds at each junction by waking the screen with a single home button press is easy). The handlebar real estate needed looks similar to a phone - good luck with using lights or a bar-mounted computer/HRM with this - you'll need to put either the other kit or the Hammerhead out front on a Barfly. The Hammerhead is 'a' solution, and like people who find an Edge works for them, I'm sure there will be people who like the Hammerhead. Others might decide they need the maps side of thing on the bars, accessible instantly. I might be a Hammerhead convert, if the reviews are good and I can find a spare £100 or whatever.

i backed it, so i should have one to play with in the indeterminate future

benezeir wrote:

I the think the hammerhead navigation device is going to end this debate. All the benefits of using the phone (connectivity, free route planning, track recording and navigation apps) with none of the battery or sunlight visibility problems as the phone is in your back pocket with the screen off, and the hammerhead flashes brightly on your handlebar to tell you there's a turn coming up, and even how close to the top of the hill/strava segment you are.

This seems like a great idea in theory, however turn by turn based navigation doesn't really work all that great on a bike. Most of the GPS routes you pull from websites don't have turn data, and even those that do can be pretty sketchy. I've long given up on turn guidance on the Edge 800 and just follow the map now, no one I know with bike GPS has ever been able to get satisfactory turn by turn navigation.

The turn data is also usually based on how cars drive, which is often quite different from how you might tackle a corner on a bike.