Request: Stop developing new features, fix what you have first
So I received my Karoo yesterday, and I did my first test ride today. And I have to say, I feel like a beta tester. Only that I paid 399€ for it.
Don't get me wrong, I think the Karoo 2's hardware is great, and the software is promising. It's just so much work still to be done to be taken serious as a competitor to Garmin and Wahoo. And it's not the missing features, it's the bugs.
Just after two hours of playing around with it, I found so many bugs its not even funny anymore, and I seriously question your reviewing process.
At least in my opinion, by far the biggest and most important issue is stability. That's the number one thing a bike computer just needs to have. Be rock solid, no matter what. You can have all the features you want, but it's worth nothing if it's not usable, or if it is frustrating to use, or worst case if your ride data is lost.
Of course I see and like the two weeks update cycle, but I have the impression that the focus is very much on implementing new features (as requested by the community), and some random bug fixes are thrown into the update as well. While new bugs ofc get introduced with the new features.
I was riding with my girlfriend today, who uses an Elemnt Bolt. She was laughing hard when she saw that I had no maps displayed on my screen, just the route in yellow. No streets. And I had downloaded the correct map. Also, my ride was 4k longer than hers according to the Karoo. I won't get her to switch anytime soon.
Please, focus on bug fixing and stability improvents. Also a ticketing system for bug reports would help. I would be happy to help and report bugs in detail, with instructions on how to replicate them, as would many Karoo users I suspect. If I started creating topics on this forum for every bug report I wanted to file, I am pretty sure that would get out of control quickly. Though, I can do that of course. I have a list on hand already, please give me a place to share.
Cheers
Malte
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I can only support this. I'm a former Garmin user who switched to Wahoo because of the constant bugs and unthought-out UI. Unfortunately, Wahoo's software quality is miserable. I was so annoyed by this that I was willing to invest 400 € and hoped that the Karoo "just works". I'm still not convinced that this was the right move, although I really like a lot of little things and features. But, I especially don't want to have to be frustrated about my bike computer before, during or after a ride. The thing just has to work, everything else comes after. What I really like, though, is the fact that I at least have the impression that Hammerhead listens to its users. That is absolutely not the case at all, especially with Wahoo.
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I read your issues and have to say I do not recognise them? I think all the initial bugs from a few months ago have now well and truly been worked out and the new features are amazing compared to what we had.
I use all sensors, nav, I'm not making it easy for the karoo, but no glitches/bugs whatever. And I can do 14 hours on a full battery. -
Former Garmin user here. I’m not having any issues with the Karoo 2 beyond a few UI annoyances. None of my sensors have any problems: cadence, speed, Di2, radar, and power meter. No problems. Following a route on K2 is much better than a Garmin.
Were you zoomed in on your route? If the route is started, I found there’s only a line if I’m too far out. Otherwise, there’s very easy to follow arrows. Did you enable turn-by-turn navigation?
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Seriously. You are telling me that I am using it wrong. Classic.
1) I downloaded the maps for the area I was riding in. When I started the ride, no maps were shown, and I did not have the time nor was I in the mood to stop and find out whats going on. When I came back from my trip, I restarted the Karoo, and started a new ride for testing. Still no maps being shown. I then went into the maps download section on the device and scrolled through all the areas, and I noticed that one area (that I was not riding in) was displaying "cancel" on the button next to it, as if it was still downloading. I clicked on the cancel button, and the button text switched to "remove", so it had downloaded. After starting a ride after that, the map was displayed and worked.
2) My ride was 5k longer than my girlfriends ride, also the speed was reading very high on the Karoo during the ride, much higher than the Wahoo my girlfriend was riding with showed her. I checked the auto-calibration of the speed sensor and compared it to the value Garmin had set it to. The Karoo auto-configured the circumference to a value around 5% higher than what my Garmin had set it to. The percentual differences between the values and the route length difference matches, so the auto-calibration is off. Sidenote: Why is the speed sensor data being used to calculate the route distance in the first place? GPS would be much more accurate, no?
3) I have multiple bikes, and multiple speed sensors. When I started my ride the Karoo searched for the sensors I had added before. I did not want it to connect to the wrong sensor, so I went into the sensor's settings and was happy to find a "disable" option in the sensor settings for the speed sensor I did not want to connect to. I toggled the switch, and the screen froze. The only button that worked was the power button, so I could restart the Karoo. After booting, the sensor was disabled.
4) I played around with the app switching machanism (double-clicking the bottom left button) where you can see all running apps. Using this function immediately after booting, it only shows one app - when clicking on it, the Karoo crashes and reboots.
5) I have L-R-powerbalance displayed as a datafield, right next to the power data. When starting the ride, the Karoo searches for the powermeter, and when it was found the powerdata field showed 0, and the L-R-balance field showed "Searching for sensor". Only a UI annoyance, as it displayed the values when I started to ride - but I did not know that ofc before I started and was confused. Also I find it funny that the changelog for the May 20th update says:
These treatments have been applied to all types of data fields, so you won’t get any more mixed signals from different fields for the same sensor.
Thanks for the links to the support pages, and for downvoting this topic though. Very helpful.
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Dear Richard, dear Jeffrey, I am glad to hear that you are among the users whose device is running flawlessly. But unfortunately, that doesn't mean that all of the users' are doing the same. I had to completely restore my Karoo twice within the first 14 days and have already written several bug reports that I don't want to repeat here. @Richard we can gladly swap our devices. I was just on Thursday 6 h on the road with switched off backlight and just two connected sensors and arrived home with < 20% battery. My girlfriend with her Wahoo laughs at me in this regard - she still had > 60%.
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I tend to agree with the view that the basic platform should be more stable before the dev team chuck a load of new features in. Whilst my unit has been very solid more or less since I got it 4 months ago I would rather they make the mapping, screen layouts, UX/workflow, battery life, sensor integration much better than add climbing stuff and control for lights.
I appreciate different things are important to each of us though and suspect that the HH developers are split into teams for bugs/new features etc. It would be good to see the ticket list.
Lastly, to the OP, they are really good devices, I hope you sort the issues.
D
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@Malte the problem with speed / cadence sensors is a known bug for several weeks now.
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Over calculation of Distance/Inaccurate auto-wheel circumference calculation ( greater than 2% - 3% error): The issue is more prominent on some specific brands of sensors. We are collecting more information to find the root cause or any related pattern. Please share the details of your setup on this form “Auto-wheel circumference inaccuracies”. As of now, use a manual calibration for more accurate distance calculation.
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I fully agree with the title of your post but I don’t recognize your problems.
1. It looks like you didn’t wait till all your maps were downloaded. Be patient, it will take a while. When all your maps are downloaded they are always visible during your rides.
2. Don’t use auto calibration with the Karoo for the speedsensor, it’s never as accurate as setting the wheelsize manually. If you have several bikes and you don’t want to set the wheelsize every time you better not use speedsensors but GPS instead. GPS is very accurate on the road.
3. You never can connect a speedsensor from a bike which is not moving; the sensor will be actived when the wheel is turning. After that the Karoo will see it and connect to it.
4. You don’t have to do that. I don’t know why this option is available. Maybe if you sideload other apps it can be usefull.
5. I have no experience with powermeters.If you still think you have problems please try a factory reset, or create a new profile and delete your excisting one.
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I didn’t use the word buggy, I friendly recommend you not to use auto if you want to have accurate speed and distance.
I also want to help and advice to do a factory reset. Please try it and see if your problems are solved.
The Karoo is a very nice device but if you personally don’t like it you have 45 days to return it and but something else.
Good luck! -
I didn’t use the word buggy, I friendly recommend you not to use auto if you want to have accurate speed and distance.
Please stop being weird. This is the definition of buggy.
Listen, I don't want to argue with you, or anyone for that matter. I think I made it quite clear what the intention of this topic is: I don't want to switch to another device, I really want to give this thing a chance. Which is why I request the developers to focus on bugfixing. If you disagree, downvote the topic then, but please don't pretend that what I encountered is normal behavior and I should just use the device in another way. That's just not acceptable.
Suggesting a factory reset literally after the device came from the factory seems like a joke as well btw.
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+1 on the betatester feeling here, but also acknowledging that Garmin was not much better, and in fact probably worse. Then again, this being an Android platform means you can't blame the bugs on the complexities of embedded C programming, and so a lot of the current bugs should probably be addressed soon.
I value the user feedback loop and I think a ticketing system, as suggested by the OP, would really help move everyone forward. There'd be fewer duplicates to deal with, for starters and it would be easier for users to track the progress of certain bugs they're experiencing.
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+1 for me for a stable platform instead of billions of features. We already have a device on the market which is unstable as hell but has a ton of features. I'm not sure we need another one ;)
Also, jokes aside, I strongly believe that it is easier to implement new features when basic things are rock solid.
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I would agree that the software developers should consolidate the features which already exist, but should also add in fundamental features which are commonplace on other units:
* Auto lap - something easy to implement but which has been overlooked for years
* Custom button mapping
* Power meter calibration needs an auto prompt, or a button on the quick action menu
*The unit needs to re-acquire sensors better mid ride: after you've stopped for coffee and return to the bike, the Karoo seems to forget that it was connected to a Power meter and a HRM.
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