Companion Application, Development Roadmap and Offline Services
Answered
I bought a Karoo 2 a little under a month ago and in light of yesterday's outage, I am heavily considering returning my unit and replacing it with a Wahoo. At this point, my decision is basically hinging on the usability of the device and questions around the future of the platform.
Is it possible for a member of the Hammerhead team to provide any information on what caused the outage yesterday and what steps will be taken to ensure that we don't have another experience as such?
Having used a Wahoo before I love the Karoo 2 device itself, once I have my route loaded the device is wonderful to use, easy to navigate and seems well built. The only thing I have an issue with is the dashboard and its usability, which was amplified by the outage, are there any plans in the future to improve the process of importing routes from RWGPS and other services? I find it incredibly frustrating having to log into RWGPS, copying the link and then logging into the dashboard, pasting the route, then connecting my device to wifi to get it. When I go to meet up with my groups and a route is posted on the fly this is problematic and if I did not have a hotspot on my phone I would be riding blindly. If I get separated I am on my own if I don't know the area.
Are there any plans to provide a usable companion application to customers on both Android and iPhone? One from which we can import routes and configure other settings on the device. If so what timeframe has Hammerhead set to provide this to customers?
I understand the development process enough and I know these things take time but as a customer who invested my money into purchasing the product, I am at a crossroads where I need to figure out if I need to switch to a different device or if I should hold out for a platform that matches the quality of the hardware you have made. To reiterate I absolutely love the hardware.
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+1
Take your time for meetings and planning but we would like to know what to expect.
You have built an excellent device with wonderful service but its reliance on the internet connectivity for routes is exaggerated.
We need a way to manage routes on device without the services.
Open a crowd funding for it if you will and we will sign up but this device is 50% maps and the rest comes after so routes are fundamental. -
Hi Theo,
We can completely understand your concern here, and once again we would like to apologize for the frustration this outage caused you over the past weekend.
The dashboard outage was caused by a server issue. Fortunately, this was immediately picked up by our team who dived in to address the issue through Friday night and into Saturday.
While we are taking lengthy steps to ensure that such an outage is avoided in the future, there is always the small possibility of a breakage across the numerous systems that interact with one and other. Fortunately, this has proven to be extremely rare so far, and this weekend's episode has led to greater monitoring and system redundancy.
We are aware that the Dashboard is pending a facelift and we do have a few keys for improvements and implementations a little further down the pipeline. I would urge you to explore the Karoo Route grab extension as this would provide a much easier experience syncing routes on the dashboard and to your Karoo. This currently does work on the google chrome browser. Yes, we do have plans of improving the phone applications for the Karoo on the android/iOS front but we do not have a concrete timeline yet. Rest assured this is definitely on the cards.
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