Losing patience with this device
Answered
I really like the idea of the Karoo 2. Having struggled with Garmin for years I have been looking forward to a reliable device with a really good screen that performs well. I’ve watched the videos of how well it integrates with Strava and have been looking forward to building new routes that will take me to new places and then uploading them quickly and easily to the device then getting out there and riding. I have to say that my experience with the device to date has fallen disappointingly short of this.
I spent an hour trying to upload a route from Strava to the device yesterday. I had to open up the laptop in the end and even then the route didn’t appear on the device. Why? Eventually I found out that it wasn’t logged into my Hammerhead account. I kind of stumbled into this.
The device downloaded the latest software update whilst I was struggling with it. When I got out on the ride, it didn’t seem like the device completely knew where I was. The directions it was giving me weren’t quite right. Almost a turn or two behind where I was. Then it repeatedly returned to the home screen. I could still hear it beeping. I had to keep stopping and taking my gloves off to try and fix it. I guess you can probably use the buttons but it isn’t obvious which buttons you should press. They aren’t labelled. I could have done with zooming in on the map but again it isn’t obvious when you are out on the bike how you do that? I also notice that its quite unresponsive. You press a button and are never quite sure whether it is doing something. Eventually I gave up and switched it off. I used my Garmin watch to ride a route that I know. Definitely not the experience I have invested in
Is there a simple user manual that will explain to me how to use the Karoo2 properly?
Another thing I wanted to try was Strava segments. But when I try and enable this feature it tells me that I need a Strava summit subscription. Now Strava Summit doesn’t even exist anymore! I have a full Strava subscription and am logged into it from the Hammerhead account so what more do I need to do?
I am feeling quite disillusioned with the Karoo2 so far. Its at the point where I just don’t trust it and find it so frustratingly difficult to use that I am reluctant to switch it on. If I have a couple of hours for a ride I don’t want to be spending half that time struggling with a head unit.
-
- elevation and distance recording is inconsistent - different from Strava and their own Dashboard
- no auto brightness - night riding is too bright and day riding not bright enough
- battery drainage is inconsistent - sometimes 10% and hour and other times 20 - with same sensors and settings
- interface is extremely laggy - hit go and the riding page takes forever to load
- no auto turn off or sleep - only screen off. Cold start every time which take over a minute for any operable interface to come up
- address navigation without SIM just not working
- garmin adapter has the device move very easily if operating using physical buttonsAfter a year I would’ve thought at least the basics would’ve been sorted. I haven’t even gone into the actual riding experience and connection with sensors, etc.
Sold my edge 1030+ hoping this would be the answer.
Far from it...seems like I’ve left one beta testing platform to just join another...
-
@Sorry to hear about the negative experience you had with the unit. We want to get these issues resolved for you as soon as possible.
Since third-party platforms such as Strava, RWGPS, etc are linked to the Hammerhead account, you need to login to the Hammerhead account in order to sync the Routes and Rides.
For the issue with the TBT banner, could you please share the GPX file of the Route and FIT file of the affected activity at support@hammerhead.io for us to investigate the issue?
We have created a KB article that helps you to understand the functionalities of each button.
Please see: Karoo 2 - Physical Buttons
We have dozens of help articles here that helps you to get hold of the functionalities on Karoo 2. :https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us
Since you already confirmed that you have the Strava premium account, could you unlink the Strava account from the Dashboard and link it again? When you tap on the Strava icon under the "Connected services" on your Karoo 2, are you still seeing "Basic" under the Account type?
-
@hayden durrant
Did you manage to resolve these issues, I've had the K1 for 2 years and now own the K2 and 90% of the time use routes imported from strava along with strava live segments on rides. The integration is very good, so i'm sure it must be a few teething issues with how you initially have set the device up. Both my devices are very responsive, faster than any garmin I have come across, if you are still having that issue it may be worth doing a hard reset.
I used the karoo for rides sometimes in excess of 200 miles and over 10 hours on the saddle and they have never let me down.
I use an iphone and have set up a short cut to the dashboard, with in a few clicks I can sync any starred strava routes or import any route URL with in seconds. Just make sure you start the karoo up a minute before you leave the house and ensure wifi is on, large routes can take a minute to calculate as the Karoo process the TBT and elevation data, it may say install map over the route until this has finished.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
7 comments