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TECH NEWS
beeline 5.jpgBeeLine GPS cycling navigation compass now available to buy
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign - we ran a story back in 2015 - the BeeLine cycling navigation device is now available to buy. It’s a compact handlebar-mounted device that essentially works like a digital compass, using an arrow to direct you to your pre-planned route. It costs £99 and includes free international shipping.
“Ride with Beeline and make every journey an everyday adventure. By simply showing you the direction to your destination and the distance to go, Beeline allows you to take back control of your ride.”
- Buyer's guide to cycling GPS units + 9 of the best
How does it work?
The BeeLine takes the GPS signal from a connected and compatible smartphone and allows you to input your final destination. Instead of providing turn-by-turn directions like a car satnav, the smartphone and allows you to input your final destination. Instead of providing turn-by-turn directions like a car satnav, the BeeLine acts like a compass and indicates the direction of your final destination, but leaving the choice of route entirely up to you.
Inside the compact device are a suite of sensors, including a magnetometer, accelerometer, gyroscope and a Bluetooth receiver. Then there’s the companion app, available for iOS and Android, that you use to tell the BeeLine the destination that you want to cycle to.
It might be the office, a friend’s house, a new coffee shop, or the top of a big hill. You can add waypoints along the route if you need to run errands or go exploring. The small screen displays an arrow showing which direction you need to be heading in, along with the distance remaining.
The BeeLine features an e-paper screen so it can be read easily in any light, even bright sunshine, and a backlight for riding at night. It’s water resistant and shockproof thanks to a silicone mounting system.
Inside there’s a 350mAh battery that BeeLine claims will last 30-hours between charges. When the time does come to top up the battery, it’s simply a case of plugging in a USB cable.
Sounds good
It does, doesn’t it? The company reckons that the simplicity of navigation offered by the BeeLine allows cyclists to “rediscover the fun of cycling with their new-found freedom as BeeLine lets them pick their own path, unlike most navigation devices that use turn-by-turn GPS navigation.” Sounds like a novel way of navigating through a new city but might not be much use if you’re running late for work.
BeeLine co-founder Tom Putnam explains it best: “Mark (Jenner) and I wanted a navigation system we could rely on, one that is built on the idea that cycling is fun, but can also be used as a tool to explore the surroundings.
After months of refining the device to ensure it is both flawlessly engineered and beautifully designed, we are immensely proud to launch Beeline. We know our passionate backers are eager to start using their Beelines, and we hope their availability encourages more people to embrace exploration that Beeline enables – be it on their daily commute or weekend rides.”
You can also use BeeLine without navigation, and it’ll perform like a regular cycle computer, displaying your current speed and distance or a clock.
The BeeLine costs £99 and is available in three colours: Charcoal Grey, Hot Coal Red and Petrol Blue from http://beeline.co
Intrigued? We know you are. We are too, and we’re going to try and get one in for review to see what it is actually like to use. We reckon it could be good fun on those rides when you want to explore roads without plotting a detailed route in advance, but want to pass a few particular destinations.
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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20 comments
The first paragraph under "How does it work" needs to be fixed.
Other than that, as soon as I read a device needs to work in conjunction with a smartphone, I lose interest.
It's like those waypoint markers you get in video games pointing you to your next mission.
First thing I thought when I read the article: Grand Theft Auto. Second thing I thought of: all the dead-ends and times I went 'splat' off buildings and walls and cars. My car-jacking days are mostly behind me, and God knows where my bazooka is.
There's so many cyclists to run over in GTA V. Get back into it.
Though I haven't got the device I thought I would check out the android app, and then maybe buy it.
My findings;
Website funky videos
Cool vibe
Information - zero
How do I add a waypoint - still not got a clue
How to add a destination - pain in the backside
Reviews of device on website - very enthusiastic
Android app - pretty awful. Interface is 'funky'. So funky is the rather hard to figure out.
My impression is that a couple of guys got to together to design this but they don't know how to run a business. Then the money men arrived and spent a lot of cute stuff. More cute stuff obviously makes for a better product.
I think the BeeLine doesn't offer enough for its price.
For example a Garmin Vivoactive HR for ~£80 more has the"beeline" feature without the need for a smartphone. It also has integrated GPS, wrist HR, activity tracking (steps, floors, all day HR, sleep), sports tracking (running, cycling, golf etc)...
Pretty much every Garmin watch and cycle computer with GPS does what this thing does.
I really like the idea, it'd be good for exploring new road routes while keeping some idea of which way is home!
But then I don't currently have a Garmin or anything and my phone tends to just stay in my jersey pocket with Strave running.
I was quite tempted to splash out but, neat idea or not, the price is too high for what it is I think.
Nice idea, but seems quite unnecessary if you already have a smartphone since the smartphone contains the GPS. I suspect an app could do the same thing without the need for the Beeline unit.
it is what it is and looks to be good at what it does. You can put a little exploration in your mundane daily commute.
But can't anyone with a vague sense of adventure and direction do that anyway? Personally I can't see that I'd ever think 'I have a spare 10 mins - let's muck about a bit' either on the way to/from work - but if I do, I can do that without a digital compass.
It's obviously not aimed at me, as I don't really get it and other commenters do, but the marketing claiming that it enables adventure and fun is a bit much, for me. Could equally enable sending you down steps to a subway or up a dead-end or dogshit alley, sort of what Doctor Fegg says.
Edit: I might have thought of an application for it for me... I visit other cities a bit with work, and sometimes have a wander by myself. I can manage this OK as is, but I think the beeline would be great in those situations - rather than me just memorising a route to head from the hotel to a particular square, or referring back to my phone every few minutes, have the beeline worry about the bearings and I just wander... Not bikey, but I could see that being handy.
Looks a bit like the early handheld GPS units for walking etc that used a similar sort of concept whereby you put in waypoints, they gave a bearing to walk off and you used them mostly in conjunction with a map to help you navigate: - no real terrain detail on the screen etc.,so if you had trouble finding a track or path or the fog came down you could check the bearing it gave you to orient your paper map etc. It was just an aid to navigation, rather than a definite set of directions.
I quite like the idea of having a bit of a mystery tour rather than following turn by turn - which as the review says, has it's place if you are adamant you have to get to an exact location and hit it first time, - but if you are wanting an exploratory route from A to B, choosing as you go, I think it looks like a nice little device/idea, especially for out in the sticks where you get lost or disoriented on a winding bridleway or lanes and need to know the basic direction to head in only.
But then, I'm old skool and really love paper maps and a compass, (don't do Strava etc)but I'd quite like one of these to go with them.
This would be great in a world without one way systems.
I'm not convinced it's great for cities. Ask it for Paddington to King's Cross, for example, and it'll naturally gravitate towards the Euston Road, because that's the straight-line route. Yes, you can deliberately stay away from the road, but (in my experience) trying that in London usually lands you at the entrance to a one-way street with no legal way forward. This is the sort of situation where turn-by-turn really shines.
But the hardware looks awesome!
"It" won't graviate anywhere - it has no knowledge of what is between where it is and where you're going; only what direction it's in and how far away it is. It's up to the user whether they follow the arrow and try to stay as close as possible to the route the crow would take, or avoid roads they don't want to ride on. I take your point about the one way streets potentially funnelling you onto those main roads though.
I could see this being interesting and fun to use if I was in an unfamiliar city - I've tried navigating round London on my Brompton, and I've had to regularly stop and check the map to make sure I'm still roughly on course.
... because it works off of GPS. Even a manual compass works off of magnetism. Pretty sure you can't use gravity to enable positioning and direction-finding.
I'll get my coat...
I think this would be great to use in conjunction with the Santander bike hire scheme, especially when you don't necessarily know where the nearest available bike dock is for example. Would have been a much better integrated tool, in my mind, than the Blaze lazerlight
Like the idea of this. I find constant nav distracting in traffic and have a pretty good idea where I am heading.
Just had a look at the site and it seems you can set waypoints as well...and then head...good for cities for sure. But not a replacement for my Garmin on specific distance weekend riding in the hills.
It's a bit more than just a compass: it's a bearing from your current location to a fixed destination point. So it might point broadly north to begin with, but as you get nearer (or overshoot), it'll recalibrate.
But that said, I'm mostly looking forward to getting mine so I can start experimenting with it and hook up some proper turn-by-turn directions.
Have I understood this?
It's a compass and it displays distance to go and you use it in conjunction with your smartphone?
The makers are claiming that it enables exploring because... compass?
And it costs £100?
Why wait for the review: take my money!!1!