CLIMBER - Feedback and change requests!...
Answered
Dear HH-Team,
First of all I want to congratulate you that you listened to the community which is asking for this feature since over a year. I know that its difficult to "just" create a new feature and therefore was patient.
Frankly, I love the CLIMBER idea and also how you tackled it!
But at the same time I am also seriously disappointed. Why?
Please find my illustration attached below.
There was once an e-mail asking to become beta-tester. Why haven't you received such a feedback from the testers? - I applied, but never received any feedback...
Seriously I love Karoo and also the idea behind the product and the community, but now you rolled something out which is difficult to read with e.g. sunlight and 25% brightness (sun, sweat...fingerprints THIS IS CLIMBING) and the worst: the feature is not working. I am at least happy that this problem of the fantasy figures was reported many times before and I am not the only one.
Please could you take this feedback seriously into consideration???
Community: is it helpful to collect further Improvements here?? And we may need to vote this up to get more visibility,...?!...
Many thanks and please HH-Team take this feedback as an open and constructive feedback which has the purpose to really make K2 the best cycling computer on the world!
All the best and many thanks
Andi
-
Hello Andi,
Thanks for your feedback. I have shared that with the team for consideration. I'm sorry that you find aspects of it disappointing. The CLIMBER feature has been in testing both internally and with the beta tester group for a couple of weeks. The feedback has been very positive from both groups.
I will respond to your points. This is just the logic behind why these things are as they are now. I have shared your feedback with the team. If we have a large number of responses with similar feedback, these things may change in future updates.
- Feedback on the background color was that it needed to be dark for contrast. The lighter colors in the CLIMBER graph can be harder to see on white backgrounds.
- The tab is part of the drawer system and each drawer category has a tab.
- with the 100 meter/yard segments (displayed metric or imperial depending on your settings), the color and displayed grade is the average for that 100m/yd - since it is an average, the instantaneous measurement you are looking at may differ from the average. White lettering was found to be harder to read on the lighter-colored gradients.
- Distance and ascent to the top were highly requested metrics by many. VAM and Grade are accessible by swiping CLIMBER up to full screen.
As for point 3 and the grade vs displayed - if you are seeing numbers that do not align, even as an average, we are very interested to see those instances so that they can be investigated further - please open a ticket with Support (support@Hammerhead.io) and include the GPX route you were using, the FIT file from the activity, and a description of what happened and at what point in the route you saw the issues. The more details you can provide, the more it will help us to troubleshoot any problems.
Thanks for the feedback, and for your help!
-
I just tested Climber yesterday.
@Andi, you have great suggestions which will benefit all K2 users. Thank you!
@Jami, does HH plan to migrate and integrate the Climber function as part of the of Upcoming Elevation graph? Could the Climber become the enhanced Upcoming Elevation graph? Currently floating this function on the screen blocks other metrics.
-
Hi Jami,
many thanks, I really appreciate that you took your time to answer in such a comprehensive way!
Let me respond and please still see my input as a kind of positive gift as I only want to make K2 better with my input!
Quote Jami: The CLIMBER feature has been in testing both internally and with the beta tester group for a couple of weeks. The feedback has been very positive from both groups.
Answer: Jami, seriously... I am not about to say anything personally against your selected "beta-tester"-group, but I would rather ask myself (HH-team), if the selection of the "beta-tester" is really working. Take 5 or 10 of the most encouraged users here in the forum and I promise you will have better results!... Or do you really think that the below snapshot is a great gift?? Its only a selection, but clearly shows how badly your pre-testing worked out.1.) Climber Tab obscures Varia display
https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/community/posts/4402686919067-Climber-Tab-obscures-Varia-display2.) Climber hides navigation arrow
https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/community/posts/1260804070509-Climber-hides-navigation-arrow3.) The new Climber tab has a bug
https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/community/posts/1260804050549-The-new-Climber-tab-has-a-bug4.) CLIMBER offset by a few hundreds meters
https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/community/posts/4402677392923-CLIMBER-offset-by-a-few-hundreds-metersQuote Jami: 1. Feedback on the background color was that it needed to be dark for contrast. The lighter colors in the CLIMBER graph can be harder to see on white backgrounds.
Answer: Jami, obviously your beta-tester did use the feature with 100% brightness on a couldy day. The snapshots below represent the reality. Its 25% brightness (otherwise with Powermeter, Speed-Sensor, Heartrate connected) you won't ride longer than 4hrs - which is nothing if you are riding in the alps. How good can you read the white-mode figures from the top two lines compared to the CLIMBER tab??
Do you understand my 1.) from my initial illustration above?? Can you see why the blue color is totally unpractical? Correct, it fades into the different segments...
Could you imagine what would happen if the tab "to top" would be in white mode? Most likely you could read them
Quote Jami: with the 100 meter/yard segments (displayed metric or imperial depending on your settings), the color and displayed grade is the average for that 100m/yd - since it is an average, the instantaneous measurement you are looking at may differ from the average. White lettering was found to be harder to read on the lighter-colored gradients
Answer: Please try to understand my point by answering a simple question: If the average grade for a segment is higher then ANY single instantaneous measurement (e.g. average 6% and NOT one single instantaneous measurement is higher then 4%) in this segment, don't you think that something goes totally wrong?
Quote Jami: Distance and ascent to the top were highly requested metrics by many. VAM and Grade are accessible by swiping CLIMBER up to full screen.
Answer: Distance and Ascent to the top are excellent figures! Yes, totally agree. My number 4.) is only about to remove this "to top" lovely looking words. Its unnecessary, we are in climb mode and everybody knows that. Instead of that "to top" put in VAM or something useful. Why I don't want to switch to full screen? Because then all the other important KPI's are gone. Climbing is about cadence and not to over-boost if you are climbing for 40-60mins - therefore Power is important as well. As I can't configure full screen I can't use it if I don't want to loose those metrics/KPI.
@Jami: Thats a fair point. I will provide you with the fit file and would be very happy if this will help you to understand whats the main problem.
Please can you stop to develop new features and first fix the well known bugs?
@John Woo: Many thanks for your kind words :) I want the K2 unit to be a unit where we all can have seamless fun with it. Unfortunately I did a lot of suggestions in the past like "Timer" where K2 reminds you to eat after a certain amount of calories is burnt or where you can get a reminder to charge your batteries for sensors or to maintain your bearings etc... (depending on km/miles driven)... and other things, but all were only answered with a glossy shiny unhelpful comment.However... HH-Team, despite those open and blunt words, I need to express that I am happy with you guys and the unit itself. Please don't stop to focus on your asset: the community and its users!
Best regards from Munich, Germany
Andi -
@jami i think sometimes it is just better to admit a mistake than trying to justify it. Climber is a great idea, but it clearly only works when simulated on a nice desktop pc and not in the real world.
Right now it is not usable. If I were a beta tester, I would be happy to provide feedback and accept that the feature is not finished, but as an end user i expect it to work!
Time to improve your qc process… -
Hey Pit. I agree 100% about HH needing to QC firmware updates before releasing to the public. This has been an issue from the beginning of time. The one that annoyed me the most were cadence and power meter sensors not pairing and this issue persisted for several iterations (despite numerous reporting) and before being finally fixed. Even a nascent, community based technology must have QC. I'd rather have less frequent updates that work and than frequent ones that don't. I am curious if the advance testing group is part of the QC process and who qualifies to be in the group.
In addition to QC, HH needs to communicate with our community because we have no transparency about future plans for the Karoo. I recall the frustrations and aggravations of K1 when debuted few years ago. Many early adopters like me went through hell with problems and spent countless hours reporting issues and suggesting improvements. K1 evolved into a nicer working platform and now K2 takes it to new higher level.
This community helped to build Karoo. Let's hear from the CEO about QC, how many units have been sold, the direction of Karoo, any merger ideas with other technology, etc. We've been kept in the dark from the beginning and deserve to understand the thoughts behind the scene.
-
Hi John, Hi Edgar,
Many thanks for your flattering words. I applied for the ATG and never received any feedback on this application.
Nevertheless I would be more than happy to join it and would definitely provide HH with an uncensored feedback - even if I am half a "fan-boy" and recommended K2 already to a couple of friends who now participate from the discount packages all the first customers can't receive... (what is a shame regarding customer loyalty!!) I even paid more then my friends as they didn't manage to get it tax free within the same tax-trade-union the EU)@Pit: So true! Thats one of the most annoying things, that you report a problem and then you get a reply which is totally useless, but perfect "apple-washed" marketing. And then your open question or entry received an "answered" tag which is pretty much useless... That's just creating a certain level of frustration.
@John: Wow, you suffered for a long time! Many thanks that you've ben a part of the community that made K2 possible! All your points are valid.
@CLIMBER: Just coming back from some after work ride...with a small 1,5km climb with 150meters of elevation... would have been nice if you would have been triggered because you could know that there is only one way to the top and you could have activated yourself (without prior planing via creating a route)... ;-P At least after the second or third time of the same climb... ;-P
I am concerned that all our feedback is just directly send to the bin. It seems that the HH-Team is 75% programmers which have never been riding... :/
Hope that I am totally wrong.
Community, lets keep the pressure on the pipe... Think a constructive feedback should always be seen as a gift. The problem starts when nobody provides any feedback anymore, because this will mean that HH lost us.
All the best and a happy start into the new week! :)
Andi -
About point 3) in the original post, I am seeing the same completely off-scale numbers, and it's always like that. I have no other issues with CLIMBER and I bought the Karoo2 just because I knew that Hammerhead would have released new great features like this one.
It's a shame that, with almost-random gradient numbers, the whole functionality becomes almost useless. Yes, if you see all orange and purple it's coming, you know that it will probably get steeper, but you have to take it as a very rough indication.
To be clear, on ascents that are always between 6% and 9%, I am seeing numbers from negative to +15/+20, and this happens all the time. As well I am seeing often negative numbers, while in reality the ascent is fairly regular and for sure not negative. I once saw +53% followed by -35% and, in the end, there was nothing, just the same more or less 10% as before and after.
I will try to open a ticket with Support, as suggested by Jami but, at least in my area (north Italy), every climb has the same issues.
-
Hi all,
Regarding Climber:
I just got my Karoo 2 and did a few test rides. I'm under the impression that the difficulty with the Climber numbers is caused by the underlying Map data.
When creating a route in the HH Dashboard I get crazy elevation data - even importing fit/gpx files from other platforms the Dashboard shows 50-100% larger climbing numbers.
For example Komoot say 500 meters and HH Dashboard 800 meters for a given route.
This in turn seems to result in incorrect grade data as well as Karoo expects far more meters to climb than what's actually happening on the road which in turn seems to confuse the device (in particular meters to top).
Either Open Streetmap data is really awful with elevation data (in which case HH can't do much about it) or HH's Dashboard algo to compute elevation data needs some work.
Either way I hope HH is transparent about the underlying cause - if Open Streetmap is the issue we do have a serious problem HH won't be able to tackle easily.
Overall I just wanted to also mention that I'm pretty happy with the Karoo 2 as a device! -
As an avid climber I am content with the upcoming elevation graph and current grade % reading. I don’t race so knowing, for example, the % grade of a section ahead is not that important to me. Having said that the data in Climber should be reasonably accurate before this featured is released in the wild.
What other devices, like Garmin or Wahoo, has a Climber like feature? Is it a third party app we can download to K2? If available HH should not waste time to reinvent the wheel.
Please sign in to leave a comment.
Comments
11 comments