[Closed] What's GOing on with GPSs These Days?

Buy a replacement battery for your 705. It takes about 5 mins to fit.

Phone on flight mode?

Garmin watch? Or other smart watch if Garmin are the devil

Ordered a new battery, that's a good idea. Would still like to think about options though as I really like not having to mess around on the computer to upload rides.

Maybe a new smar****ch is the answer for sub 3 hour rides, but waiting for NFC to be more widely available on those before I upgrade.

You can get GPS devices that automatically upload, they connect to.your phone and do it.

I have a Garmin Vivoactive watch. The battery lasts several days in normal (non GPS) use, and I've never run it out of battery using the GPS tracker. Smart watches like the Apple Watch are designed to look pretty, not for functionality, so buying a proper sports watch would be worth looking at. I don't like the Garmin software, but just for uploading rides to Strava, it works perfectly. There are other manufacturers if you really don't like Garmin.

“Apple Watch are designed to look pretty, not for functionality”

Here we go again! Now for the truth. An Apple Watch has more functionality than a Garmin watch and can last days with non gps use too. However I would not recommend it as a gps tracking device just for cycling, proper cycling computers are far better for that task.

when used as a cycle tracker my Apple Watch will last about 3 hrs from a full-ish charge, though my mate did the London marathon the other week with his series 3 and it tracked is whole marathon run no probs, at over 4 hrs and lasted he rest of the day as a Watch, my iPhone 6 running strava will outlast my Garmin edge. Not impressed with my Garmin computer, as soon as funds allow it will be getting swapped out. Plenty of options out there now that are just as good and sometimes cheaper, Garmin are no longer the only game in town.

An Apple Watch has more functionality than a Garmin watch

As a smar****ch, yes. But that functionality isn't any use if your priority is a GPS tracker with good battery life. I wouldn't recommend the Garmin to someone who wants a proper smar****ch, but I would recommend it for consideration to someone who wants GPS and heart rate monitoring and needs long battery life.

Here we go again! Now for the truth. An Apple Watch has more functionality than a Garmin watch and can last days with non gps use too.

Days, really? Everyone that I know who has one needs to charge every day. The Garmin Vivo range, in my opinion, are still the best for fitness tracking. Forerunner aren’t bad for cycling either.

Vivoactive HR as hols2 says. Last weekend rode for 6 hours on Sat, 3 hours on Sunday, 30 min run on Sun morning and again another 30 on Monday morning, battery lasted right through. Takes hardly any time to charge - i pop it on charge when I'm in the shower every day.

Brilliant wee watch, and new one is supposedly lots better.

3 hours from an apple watch? Jeez that's pish.

My garmin fr235 lasts about ten days on a charge if I don't use GPS. Obviously using GPS runs it down quicker. Uploads instantly to strava informs me if text and email which is all I want. Does other stuff too but I don't bother

Days, really? Everyone that I know who has one needs to charge every day.

My series 0 needed charge every day. I can get over 3 days out of my series 3 easily and do when traveling. At home its easy to charge every night. Generally uses about 15% a normal day.

Watch is perfectly fine for a long days cycling, but if you are interested in live data, live segments, etc then it's a pain as it's usually under a glove or sleeve. A computer on your stem is easier to read. So depends on what you need. Mate uses his for Strava just fine.

Lezyne Super GPS battery lasts 12+ hours, can be charged while recording and packs a lot of functions for ~£100.

+1 lezyne, my micro lasts about 10 hrs  synchs via phone etc & u can get it as a watch

There's a [url= http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/lezyne-micro-colour-gps-watch-w-mapping-and-hrm-2017/rp-prod164010 ]Lezyne Micro Colour GPS watch[/url] in CRC's Red Hot Drops this week; no idea if it's any good though.

Bryton 310 has 35 hour battery and costs £80, it uploads directly to the web your phone, or the Bryton 330 does it instantly via WiFi for £100.

I much prefer the 330 to the edge 25 I had

Wee tip for the Vivoactive watches. Turn the Bluetooth off when you're using it as a GPS tracker. It massively improves the battery run time. Just turn it back afterathe ride to upload it

When I finally have the money to replace my crappy Garmin Edge 500, it will be either with a Lezyne Super GPS, or if I am feeling particularly flush, a Wahoo Element Bolt.

Thanks that's all useful, I've been mulling it over this morning.  I think my watch/phone combo is fine at the moment while I'm just pottering about, but eventually I'm going to want to be able to easily add a route and follow it, especially if I'm riding away from home or riding a bit further away where I don't know the roads as well.

And I'll want to be able to see the climbs, how much climbing I've done and how far I have left to go etc.  And it'll annoy me if I use either the Edge 705 or 500 that I have as I'll have to go into the workshop to get stuff up/down loaded.

And at some point I'll get my mountain bike out again and need a more rugged solution that isn't going to get smashed to bits when I hit a tree.

So I should probably bite the bullet and get an Elemnt Bolt.....

I got a cheap TomTom spark to replace my old Garmin forerunner.

Gets used on the bike (if i forget my other gps) and for running & treadmill - syncing with the app and linking to Strava is pretty easy.  Will also support speed/cadence sensor too.

Think I paid about £50 delivered from the TomTom outlet store .

Also have a Lezyne SuperGPS which is also good - great connectivity with phone and the app & linking is fairly straightforward too. Battery life is pretty impressive too.

Just for recording rides - phone GPS chipsets have got a lot more efficient over the years and I find if they're in your bag with the screen off then they'll happily log several hours of riding no problem. The screen is usually too power hungry keeping on while it's on your bars navigating though.

Garmin Edge Touring can be had cheap and works great for navigating along a preloaded route. No fancy training features, no phone connectivity (plug into computer to upload rides) but works fine.

I've got a Bolt for the Road Bike, and a RFLKT for the MTB (which is now discontinued but replaced with the Mini) which works well for me.

Just don't need a full blown head unit when on the MTB (only usually display HR, elapsed time, time of day, and distance - with other metrics there if needed), don't need to worry about battery and I'll always have my phone on me anyway. I also won't cry if I kill it with a crash, and I've had a few!

The Bolt is great, my only word of caution is that it is a bit fragile. I managed to crack the screen by being a bit cack handed when pressing 'start' when setting off. It was replaced FOC, but I'm quite careful with the second unit. I think the Garmins are more robust...

I went ELEMNT rather than RFLKT as I had a few times where my phone ran out of battery. I do love my ELEMNT more than my 520. I vote for the ELEMNT or the BOLT. I like the bigger screen and the LEDs (which I use to display HR zones). Allegedly the ELEMNT is sturdier than the BOLT.

ELEMNT doesn't come with a lanyard / leash eye. However you can loop one under the scree holding the charge cover on. I recommend that - mine hasn't come off, but a few times it's been twisted half off, no idea how. I run mine on the stem top cap (maybe vibration).

Garmins are indeed robust.  I broke the screen of my 520 in a crash and it subsequently filled with rain, but kept working for months after, albeit steamed up.

The weak point seems to be the updates - it just upgraded to the latest FW and now won't record temperature or elevation (it sticks at 20,000m no matter how many times I set the correct elevation manually).

+1 on both the Lezyne and Wahoo options

The only issue I have with my Wahoo Elmnt is the upload over Bluetooth is glacial, however the upload over WiFi is fantastic. The only other problem was when I changed my RWGPS password and never refreshed the link with Wahoo, the device doesn't tell you about upload status so had to synch with phone over Bluetooth before I found out the link was failing.

Stated battery life of 10 hrs is realistic if you turn off the LEDs, don't use the navigation and turn the backlight down; a full charge is about 30% of my PowerMonkey Explorer 2 and can be done when riding handy for 300Km+ Audaxes and multi-day MTB...

With the Lezyne Super Mini, the 20+ hr battery life is realistic, the navigation is breadcrumb only and don't dare not pass the start point or it'll tell you to turn round for the rest of the day.
The User interface isn't ideal, the buttons change purpose, something I must reluctantly give Garmin credit for on the Fenix2 for getting right. Oh and being a lefty the buttons feel the wrong way round.

My bike phone doesn't do GPS, Web, 3g or 4g, email, etc. but fits nicely in a small corner of a bag or back pocket and weighs about 30g... It is an ancient Nokia though. Sod taking an expensive smart phone out.

I'm one of many who have sworn to never buy Garmin again...

I've got a Wahoo Elemnt, it is excellent.

Smart watch is a good call I’ve Vivoactive HR+ it’s very basic a smart watch but works well for recording GPS data and HR. It’ll last around 12 hours or more with GPS on and Bluetooth off unlike Apple which will last 3 hours which is the truth.

I've not had much luck with my GPS devices.

Edge 810, regularly power off mid ride when following a route. Rubbish battery life. Bluetooth connectivity was poor, sometimes it would connect, then drop out a short time later.

Edge 520, horrible UI and buttons - didn't feel intuitive. Some rides would show a straight line and average speed of 100mph rather than the route I followed. Would also power off mid ride. Bluetooth did work fine.

Lezyne Enhanced Super GPS, current device. Records rides with no problem. However connects to Bluetooth fine but then I can't upload rides from the device to the app. A sync problem every time (using Ally app on either iphone or ipad). So needs to download via a PC each time - quite a common problem I've since found out. As I travel a lot it means I can't review my ride until a week or so later when I return home. (My work PC doesn't allow USB storage device connection) The Lezyne connects to my Watt Bike and picks up the power/speed/cadence sensors each time with no problems which is a bonus. Battery life is very good, no idea on the actual time but I've never had it down below 50% even after 5 hours of recording a ride.

I think its going to the Bolt for me next. I should have just bought the Bolt instead of the 520.

Love my Vivoactive HR, I wear it every day and probably charge it once a week at most.

i also love my ELEMNT BOLT, I use it on road and my “gravel” bike and it’s faultless, to date.

I've played with using my phone and my watch, both basically do the same thing but the watch I can put on the bars.  Both have GPS built in obviously, so they can work independently or together.  I'm not really sure what's doing what with Strava, but if I use Ghost Racer I can control which device is using it's GPS.

In theory I should use the Phone GPS talking to the watch, but the phone will randomly spank it's battery and die, the watch should then switch it's own GPS on, but it doesn't.  Maybe I could use something like Tasker to detect Strava running on the phone and turn off everything else automatically, it's probably radio signal that causes the random battery drains.  Regardless, the batteries on both *should* be up to 3 hours exercise, but don't seem to be reliable.

I've been digging out all my old kit and found an ANT+ HR strap I'd forgotten about, can't use it with either my watch or my phone, they're bluetooth only, so there's a man-maths saving there if I change as I don't need a £40 HR strap.

No point getting a better watch until NFC is more widespread, best option currently looks to be the Ticwatch range, but no NFC.  The NFC options are older tech.  I use Android Pay all the time, so spending £200 on a watch and not being able to use Android pay makes no sense.

I don't really want to limit the phone either though, I tend to listen to music quietly on the bike as it stops wind noise and actually lets me hear traffic better.  And the wind annoys my ears too.  And it's useful to be contactable by the wife and I spotted that the new stuff like the Wahoo stuff will let me share my location with my wife live, which is actually really helpful where I'm time constrained and 'expected' home ages ago.  Manages expectations a bit!

The Garmin Edge 500 looks to be working still, but it's my Wife's and she'll likely want it back at some point, the Edge 705 is a £10 fix, so I will repair and eBay it or keep it for maps on my mountain bike.  Though the live tracking is perhaps more likely to be useful on the mountain bike.

I ordered an Elemnt Bolt as I think the extra stuff from a new device will be worth it, especially as my Wife will appreciate being able to keep tabs on me and I won't have to explain my complicated routes to her when I pop out.  New batteries for my HR strap and the cadence sensor in my frame and a subscription to Strava Premium and I'm good to go.