Mijn eerste indruk na enkele uren spelen met de Karoo. Wel in het "mottig" engels geschreven .... sorry hiervoor
HI,
This isn’t a review but just in short what my thoughts are on the Hammerhead Karoo which I just got today , Monday 19 february 2018.
The Karoo came in a nice box with held the Karoo, a simcard remove tool, a small rope, a barfly and 2 Allen Keys for mounting the barbly, removing the quarter turn mount so you can install the rope/cable to hold the Karoo on a rope.
When holding the Karoo the first thing I noticed was that it’s quite heavy compared to my Garmin Edge 1000. It’s not a big deal but yet because it’s also bigger (wider) it’s a bit more difficult to keep it in hand. Too be honest I almost dropped it on the ground.
So heavier but also bigger and that I don’t mind. It’s has a wider screen and it’s more a square screen compared to the rectangle form of the Garmin. The bigger screen together with a much bigger resolution compared to my Edge 1000 was one of the reasons I bought the device.
The next thing I did was just powering the device on. It came with a 50% battery. You have to press the power button a second or two to power it up. You’ll see the Hammerhead logo, it’s spins a bit around, looks nice and then you’ll see a welcome screen. You’ll be asked to set the device up, give your measurements, height, age, … connect to wifi and then the device will automatically search for a possible update. In my case there was an update, it was about 650 MB big and that took about 10 mins to download. Apparently it upgraded my device to version 1.4,58,3 (whatever that means). After the upgrade the device rebooted and it took some time to install the upgrade.
So the next thing I did was create a bike profile. I was planning to do an outdoor ride and for that I needed the following fields (like on my Edge 1000)
• Power 3 sec
• Heartreate
• Cadence
• Course/heading (north, south, west, …)
• Gradient
• Height
I already knew that the device lacked some of those basic fields. Ccourse/heading – gradient and height weren’t available. Too be honest I find this a big disgrace. Those fields are in my eyes pretty basic for a $300 device! My polar CS600 which dates from 2008 already had those fields. Hammerhead this is a big point to work on. Get more datafield options and start with the basic things and then wider the range. Also you can’t change the fields on your screen during a ride. On my Garmin I press on a field and then can change the contence. On the Karoo you can only change those when you go to the bike profile.
Another thing I noticed was that my device was getting warm when I connected it to my pc for charging. Also when you charge the device you don’t see anything on the screen. You don’t see a small battery symbol which is charging or whatsoever. Hmmm find this rather annoying because how do I know if my device is well charged or not?
When you choose to power the device off something strange also happens. The screen turns b lack with the hammerhead logo in the middle (seems logically) and then poppes back on and then turns of. That’s a bit strange but pffftt doesn’t matter that much compared to the other shortcomings.
Normally I was planning a outside ride so I wanted to download some maps. It’s possible to download an area but the first thing I noticed that the area I could download was a bit small. You can zoom out (like on a smartphone) but it’s limited. Karoo can you change this please? The areas to download are just to small.
Also I find the maps just not good readable. The difference betwee n small and bigger routes is not to be seen. Oooh yes the highway is in orage but that’s it. Also I like to so mountainbike path and hmmm I just don’t see them. Karoo I thought you guys would offer the best navigation? That means also a great map but currently I have difficulties with the look of it.
Another way to make sure you have the necessary maps is doing the following. Go to the
https://dashboard.hammerhead.io/ and draw or import your route. After doing so the route will be synced to your device by WIFI or 3G. (If you use a simcard). Once it’s on your Karoo you can choose the route and make it available offline. I think that Karoo then downloads the map? This is a cool feature. Say you go for cyclo abroad then you put the route on it and Karoo will download the necessary maps of the area. That’s cool!
I was planning an outdoor ride, had a route drawn and put on the Karoo but then the rain came.
Yet I’ve checked the route on the device and it looked fine. What I missed was a height profile map. Apparently all height features are unexisting at this time. Again this is something basic which should be included.
I decided to ride indoors on Zwift so the the next I did was attaching my ANT sensor being a Favero power pedal (DUO sided ) and my heartrate sensor. I just choose scanning and they popped up.
You connect them, give them a name. All goes well. Something I miss that you don’t see the ANT id of your devices. This yet can be handy so maybe Karoo can show those
After that I started a ride and the timer immediately started. I didn’t like that much. I had choosen the wrong profile (choose outdoor ride) and apparently you can’t change from profile during a ride. From the ride screen you can’t go back to the home menu to change anything. Hmmm Hammerhead again something which is possible with other devices but the Karoo can’t do. Also when you start a ride the timer starts immediately and the auto-pause isn’t fast. The timer goes for about 10 secs before auto stop starts. My Edge 1000 reacts a lot faster.
After the ride (which I also recorded on zwift and my garmin) I compared the data.
I’ve put all the info on each other and the data looks fine. I don’t see any dropouts on power or big differences. This means the ANT sensors/antenna seems to work fine which is great news.
The karoo is build on Android and so acts like a smartphone. When you swipe down you get similar things like on your android phone being wifi, display settings, location (Gps?), Bluetooth, …. . This reacts really fast. Have to say the screen looks really good compared to my Edge 1000 and reacts also fast. During my Zwift ride where I swet a lot the screen worked fine and fast. It didn’t lock up like my Garmin does. So Hammerhead when it’s good you hear it too!
It’s also possible to choose between to themes. You have a dark one and an bright one (white). It’s a bit like on the Garmin where you have the daylight and night mode. Looks a bit the same.
Yet when you choose the dark mode only the ride screens are black. When going back to say the settings screen everything is back in white. Hmmm Hammerhead another thingy to work on? Also not all the fonts seem to be very sharpy.
Short summary: which what I know today I wouldn’t have bought the device. It just lacks too much. The things below I discovered just by using it today but a lot of other things lack to (think livetracking, texts, phone notificiations, ….)
For now it would be nice if Hammerhead could work on the following:
• I want more fields like height, gradient, heading, …. . There are just to many fields which are lacking. My polar CS600 dating from 1998 did better on those fields.
• Also putting maps on the device is just too limited. The area we can select is just too small.
• The readability of the maps is bad compared to my Garmin 1000 which I coloured myself with TYPFILEs
• When Charging the device it would be nice to also see something on the screen to know if it’s charging, fully charged, … .
• Height profiles and data of a ride or ridden route are lacking
• The Karoo is only a basic device where today paying $300 is just too much. Competitors offer cheaper devices with much more functionalities so please Hammerhead get those firmwares updates out there!
super er zit beweging in bij HH.
super er zit beweging in bij HH.
duidelijk. HH heeft nog een lange weg te gaan.