First Ride Out - Impressions
Took a first ride out - 35 miles - I'd say the product is at late-stage beta or early adopter phase. There are a number of issues, including some real usability things - that I would expect to be fixed before making a product GA.
In no particular order:
[usability] - [route screen] - no down swipe action (or other mechanism) to force refresh
[usability] - [route screen] - no indication of sync activity / network connectivity issues preventing sync - screen is just silent -
[layout] - [map screen] - map is clipped to non-display area - huge black area at top of screen - i get that (depending on the hardware) compositing can be a battery drain - but this seems to be a massive lost opportunity - you should allow me the user to decide if i want to make the trade off - if your screen drawing and item refresh rate is efficient it shouldn't be a massive issue
[defect] - [settings] - [units] - unit selection of "mixed" isn't synced to device
[settings] - [units] - no mechanism to select mixed units on device
[route] - [data item] - missing item "next town on route" - this is really useful when looking at signs so you know where you're heading to
[hardware] - [buttons] - pressing button took too much force for my 1/4 turn mount - so when pressing a button you also have to hold the opposite side of the device
[gps] - [accuracy] - comparing previous routes on garmin vs ride today - accuracy seems much lower - tracks can be far off the main road i was on
[gps] - [ghosting] - many screen "kicks" when riding in a straight line, perhaps implying the gps module is sensitive to noise from buildings or something?
[audio] - [audio design] - [high priority] audio design very poor - default sound is *super annoying* it is hard to hear - especially when navigating in london where there are many turns. after 3h on the bike i was kind of hating it and it was giving me a headache. Need audio designer - think Tokyo station, not london bus.
[audio] - [navigation tones] - [high priority] no differentiation between "upcoming", "imminent", "off route", and "on route" audio alerts, except number of repetitions. This is very confusing, as when there are frequent turns, you can't tell between anything. I think i had about 8 tones in succession at one point.
[display] - [compass] - would be useful to have textual current heading "NW" other instead of or overlayed on top of compass - i don't really care which way north is, only which way i'm heading.
[display] - [navigation] - overall good with arrows
[navigation] - large number of "fake turns" on my route
[navigation] - some how managed to click "return to start of route" on journey, but was able to get out of that, and pick up route again part way through - good
[recording] - good warning when cycling without pressing play
[display] - [ turn-by-turn] - turn by turn instructions frequently were rendered on top of "me" in the map display, so the road layout was invisible under the instructions. This can be swiped away, but a nicer solution may be to (1) make the map extend over the whole display, meaning that the "me" icon can be more central and/or (2) create bounding box for text instructions and use fontmetrics / dynamic font size to fit the text into that bounding box
[menu] - not sure of value of having workouts / sensors menu items if no accounts or devices
[display] - [data item] - due to title and borders, seems like the text of the data items is very small compared to the screen estate they take up.
[display] - [data item] - when there are only a couple of data items on the map page, there is no need for a title, especially if the units are rendered. this means the value could be rendered larger, or the map could be allocated more space.
[display - [data item] - no units rendered in item (e.g. m, m/h)
[strava] - [livesegment] - should sync your segments on route selected, and offer option to sync them when selecting route
[strava] - [livesegment] - should sync segments that you use a lot, without having to "star" them - should "just work"
thanks!
-
Some valid feedback here.
I also noticed the TBT taking up just a tad too much space, also Strava segments. Would be more user friendly if the map re-centered you into the adjusted screen while the segment or navigation prompt took place. I can see this being too tedious for all tbt navigation, so perhaps just a slightly smaller banner would suffice.
Of note @james that the unit does notify you fairly quickly if you start cycling without pressing ‘play’. I’m not sure of the exact time but for me it’s within 5 seconds. Perhaps this is something that is affected by the ‘auto-pause minimum speed’ setting? ( just a guess )
-
Yes, there's some really good stuff here, James. I'm guessing you're a UX/Product guy as well? ;-)
Some of your feedback has come up on here before and I completely agree about the Workouts/Sensors icons if you don't have a TrainingPeaks account/sensors connected. It's just noise. Get rid of it. I suspect it's only there to upsell TrainingPeaks. This all comes back to the personas that they've been building it for. We're not all 60kg racing snakes that train 5 times a week; some of us just want to ride our bikes and enjoy the view.
Poor GPS accuracy may be down to the lack of Galileo support (especially in central London), which the latest Garmin and Wahoo devices do have. Karoo 2 doesn't have the hardware for Galileo support.
I think the "Mixed" unit selection is new and the Karoo software doesn't support this until the next update which, I understand, is targeted for March 25th (why deploy it to the Dashboard if it doesn't work on the device yet, Hammerhead? Doing this will just attract support cases which are a waste of your time and your users' time).
Completely agree on the audio side of things. Turned mine off. Sounds like a cheap Chinese toy. I suspect the hardware is incapable of supporting anything more sophisticated.
Hopefully things will improve. I can see a lot of potential. Agree on your late-stage beta/early adopter assessment. I've been with them since Karoo 1 but I feel not that much has moved forwards since then, really. Just incremental updates. It's certainly not production ready and feels a bit like a science project with the bugs that have been introduced - and not fixed immediately - recently.
I really want to like it. The cloud architecture is a neat idea and the ability to connect other services seems to work well (when it works). I've recently started enjoying 4G connectivity by putting a SIM card in it. For me, the hardware is let down by the lack of Galileo support and that horrendous beeper that sounds like it was added as an afterthought. Tactile feel of the buttons was also more positive on the Karoo 1, IMO.
On the software side, a slightly weird UI (may not be weird to existing Android users? I'm an iOS guy), poor quality maps, and too many bugs let it down. Loads of potential, though.
I look forward to seeing what's coming with Karoo 3 (assuming there will be one?). I'd be interested to see what Hammerhead can do with voice control by adding a microphone to it. It really needs to support Galileo to be truly accurate in built-up areas in Europe.
-
Quoting:
[gps] - [accuracy] - comparing previous routes on garmin vs ride today - accuracy seems much lower - tracks can be far off the main road i was on
I'm glad to read i am not the only one who seems worried about accuracy. This, together with poor mapping out of urban areas, is making me think of returning the device. Still holding back to take that decission... i like almost everything else in the k2
-
Had my first big ride navigated by Karoo 2 today - London (UK) to Cambridge. Route downloaded from Komoot.
Really, really pleased with the device. When I first got it a few days ago I was bewildered by some of its features and buttons. Physical buttons still a bit of mystery (this page doesn't help - tap B once or double tap does the same thing, what's the difference between 'back' and 'previous. Since buttons do different things at different times, explain what A,B,C,D do in each of the different contexts - don't mind reading more).
But everything I wanted. All I need now is the etube, Ant+ Di2 transmitter - on order - and the whole bike is integrated.
Just two improvements, if I may:
- when approaching a turn into a road with long name, the yellow instructions take up so much room on the bottom of the screen that you can no longer see the arrow or the junction. There must be an easy fix for this - maybe there already is. My suggestion would be that on coming up to the junction the info on the top of the screen disappears and the whole screen moves up (recentres).
- I've turned all the bleeps off. So frequent and annoying. BUT it would be really nice to have a double bleep if you go off the route by mistake. Can do a U-Turn quickly.
Other than that I'm very happy so far.
-
@jeff
Did you try showing turn info only (icons) and not street name? that saves a lot of space for the map.
When i know the street names i probably don't need turn directions.
When i don't know the street names i probably don't have time to have an eye on the karoo and another on the street names at every corner (better just trust the map indications on the screen)
A solution if you still need the street names info could be showing one line only (not the whole name of the street)
-
Just a couple of other items from non-route ride:
[navigation] - no 'get home' function
[display] [navigate to location] - routing displayed in very different form from "route" - no arrows, thin line - when navigating home, distinction doesn't make sense to me
[display] [navigate to location] - by changing "Destination" to "Dest" there would be room for "distance to destination" - which is very useful as you wouldn't have this data field configured usually. e.g. "Dest - 2.6km"
[display] [GPS trail] (trail = where have i been on this ride) - no indication of _when_ on the ride GPS trail was created - can be confusing if trail crosses - could have distance / time indicators overlaid ----- 10km ----- 20km --- or ---- 20min ---- 30 mins etc.
-
Go Home function is documented here:
https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/articles/360051734534--Take-me-Home-POI-
Agree that the distinction between normal navigation and navigating to a POI/Location doesn't make a whole load of sense. Should be the same user experience as navigating along a route.
-
Also worth understanding the differences between "Account Level POIs" and "Route Level POIs". This is quite a nice feature and enables you to store a bunch of POIs (coffee stops, conveniences, etc...) at the account level which will always be available to you on the Karoo, regardless of your route (or freestyle ride).
The method of managing POIs and navigating to a given POI on the Karoo is not as intuitive as it could be but I hope they might be working on this sometime soon. I'd like to see a POIs app, alongside Rides and Routes so that you can navigate directly to a POI just by tapping on it in the list.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
11 comments