You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Anyone use their phone as a GPS? I'm not wanting to but a dedicated unit just yet.
Why are quad locks so much £££ and what alternatives are there? (They done seem to do one for my phone).
You can get garmin quater turn mounts off ebay for £5, add a generic phone case and bobs your uncle.
Yeah, used a phone in the past. One had a dedicated mount, others I've adapted to Garmin mount (seeing as I have a ready stash of mounts) by cutting down an SRAM adapter and Sugruing/gluing the Garmin part to the back of a common or garden case (for phones with no removable rear cover) or to a spare battery cover.
Personally I find them really unsatisfactory, though. All the apps I've tried have had a fairly poor navigation user experience, the touchscreens haven't worked in the wet or with gloves even with waterproof phones (one of which died in a particularly monsoon-like downpour anyway), and the battery life has generally been hopeless.
If you're just dipping your toe in the water then, unless you have a burning desire for immediate uploads to Strava etc, I'd recommend buying a cheap secondhand Edge 800/Touring/810 and then if you don't like it you can sell it and lose less money than you'd spend on adapting a phone to fit on the bars. In fact in the past I've found them cheap enough on eBay that I've ended up a few quid up after selling them—especially if you can find a bundle with sensors and/or maps which you can then split.
Cheers Bez, right up my street
Phone clamp type mounts are about a fiver on ebay. I use my old Android motorola moto E 2nd gen phone, solely as GPS routemap & record now it's been replaced with a cheap Sony. 2 hours riding & 20% battery used. Plot routes on line & transfer to phone. Great Britain Topo Maps is great for route following & finding new tracks. Wet weather (proper wet...) screen performance is pants though. The moto E was £80 new 3 years ago & probably have little value now.
[slightly off topic]
Agree with @Bez on touchscreen in wet and battery life. This frustration got me working on a waterproof handlebar mounted bluetooth remote control that I can use to switch the screen on/off, pan and zoom the map also control media. I initially hacked a headphone remote control (I wrote a fake media player to grab the headphone controls https://github.com/ptd006/Biketweaks), which was quick but I wanted better functionality and waterproofing. So for the last few months I have been writing firmware for a bike specific remote focused on OruxMaps and Strava. The current test chassis is a little joystick and 2*AAA batteries taped to the bluetooth dev board. I even taped this to my handlebar for testing and am pretty happy with the functionality now. I'll change the joystick though as it'll definitely be too fiddly with gloves.
[url= https://i.ibb.co/KXt6vSt/image.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.ibb.co/KXt6vSt/image.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
My current work is on a 3d-printed waterproof I-spec case with much bigger buttons, something like below:
[url= https://i.ibb.co/p4NmCgz/image.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.ibb.co/p4NmCgz/image.pn g"/> [/img][/url]
What started as a minor irritation has turned into a 30+ hours project over the last 6 months! It's on track for autumn riding though 🙂
For commuting and no power meter duties, I use the Strava app on my watch that syncs to my phone either in my pocket, or when I get home.
The Series 5 always on screen will be a big help in this regard as activation requires a motion that is atypical for cycling but normal for walking and running.
I still rely on my phone on the bars for navigation, with a quadlock mount, which I used before I got a Garmin for speed, etc data. Not I use both. But highly recommend the QL.
QL's are brilliant, one on my MTB another on the motorbike, by far the best solution I've found.