Hammerhead to release new Karoo GPS unit

Well I have gone ahead and pre-ordered at £285 + customs.. Definitely taking a leap, but I am soooo sick to death of my Edge 1000, than anything has to be better.

I tried their companion app for the H1 on  my 10 mile commute home from central london and it works like a dream, so I am sure the navigation will be fine.. my only complaint is that the route opted for bike friendly routes which added 2 miles, but to be honest, the seller for me on the Karoo is importing rounds from strava through to ride with GPS.

I'm sure all the biometrics data will be fine.. there are at least 10 adroid apps that do it flawlessly already, so I cant imagine the Karoo will be any different.

Another key selling point is the quality of the screen and simplicity of the navigation instructions. My Edge 100O is horrendous for navigation... it it works, I have to glance down at a low res screen and try and find that pink line and arrow on a low res screen.. fine in the countryside, but in central london, with a 'busy' map... its a nightmare. I've been dreaming of a dedicated bike coputer that uses google map/apple maps principles of providing an uncluttered map that focuses on providing just the info required for you to navigate will minimal time spent looking at the screen for years.

To be able to creat a route in seconds will be just amazing.. rather than waiting minutes watching the edge 1000 calculating the route... given Garmin produce car nav units, its just incredible the navigation solution provided on the Edge 1000 is soo poor (mine doesnt even accept full post codes.... in 2017!!!).

Amyway, I'll report back once ive ridden with the Karoo for a few weeks!   

I make it about £295 plus duty collection charge, say £25. That's not a problem in itself, but the direct selling from the USA is - having had a saddle sit in customs for 3 weeks, a speedy delivery certainly isn't guaranteed, and depending on the carrier, the duty collection charges can vary a lot. Talking of guarantees - if there is an issue, the tedium of shippng it back to the US and them returning it, or more likely sending a new one, and more delays, just makes it too tedious. I have asked them via Facebook if they can bulk ship units to Amazon UK (which is what the saddle people are starting to do) but they haven't replied.

It looks great and I'm very interested but I won't be jumping just yet.

They've just come on advance pre-order; at about £280 including taxes to import that's just about the right amount for an impulse buy so I did some due dillegence.

Firstly, looking around the screenshots there's a number of text alignment and design issues in the app which - as a former Android app developer - makes me immediately suspicious and leads me to wonder if their software dev is maybe outsourced?

Digging deaper, lo and behold I see their entire software team is based in India - a 10-15 hour time difference with their US team - which in my experience plus the former remark leads me to believe they are going to have a lot of quality control issues. If you're a startup and your product is a complex piece of software and you don't have your tech team fully in house (or at least in the same timezone as the founders) that raises a huge red flag. I know; I've been there!

Finally, the reviews of their previous iOS app (for the Hammerhead product) made by the same software team are largely one and two stars with a lot of complaints about routing and app reliability.

All in all I don't advise people to buy this until the long term reviews come in. Sorry Hammerhead, but I'm going to need a lot more convincing.

@rct Not any bigger than Garmin 1000!

A cyclist at 36km/h will cover 10m in the 1 second recording frequency of her GPS. The unit could be set up to record every 0.1s, but given civilian GPS resolution is typically 5 m, there would be no point.

Maybe rkemb can cover 5m in a millisecond, but then they would be posting Strava times from the International Space Station. It's bad enough losing your KOM to an Ebike, I'd be even more annoyed to lose it to an orbiting astronaut 

Sticking to my Garmin. Lasts for the whole of the weeks commutes, plus the weekend 40 miler, before I need to charge it. Needs to be 17 hour battery life, not ten.

I think it really is about time we had GPS units which logged 10 data points every second, rather than 1 data point per second. There are already GPS chipset which can do this. Given the top ten places on typical Strava segments are separated by just a second or two, I think it would be more of a selling point than most other bells and whistles, especially for the ultra-competitive.

Obviously, sites like Strava would have to be updated to take advantage of the additional accuracy.

It is HUGE!

...or dcrainmaker has small hands

P.S. I'll be sticking to my edge 520, which still had 50% battery after 8h ride.

currently using (in France) a Teasi one3 extend GPS 3+" screen, does navigation for 9 hours plus, free updated maps, reasonable bar/stem fittings. I've waited years to upgrade from my magellan meridian (still no slouch and proper drop/weather proof) and managed to bag a twice used one for 75sovs.

retail is about 130ish

I hate advertisements dressed up as reviews. There are too many here of that ilk.

Dunno what all the "vaporware" chanting's about; DC Rainmaker has one and it looks pretty close to a production unit https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2017/05/hammerhead-karoo-gps-bike-computer.html.

Once it's released they've pretty much got my money; I can't stand Garmin Edge's and the Bolt still has a lot of shortcomings.

there's very, very, very few riders that need more than 10hrs battery life for navigation. So if you're in the tiny % regularly knocking out 12 hr days the battery life is unlikely to be an issue?

You missed the "vapourware" tag on the article...

So it's not been released? And won't be for 3 months. 

Looks interesting but this is just free advertising.