HH please explain not adding Rerouting OFF as an option
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Hi HH folks.
No doubt you've spotted the many adverse comments about rerouting. A big frustration amongst your customers is there has been no explanation why you won't allow rerouting to be user selectable.
Many users clearly find Rerouting unworkable - especially off road, yet HH apparently isn't prepared to allow us to disable it (at least until the many problems are addressed). There are several threads with many contributions on this topic - it appears the most problematic single issue you have and is pretty fundamental rather than an odd one-off problem for specific applications or individuals.
It might help if we could understand why this appears to be such an issue for you to change. Could you explain if it is a technical problem or more 'product' related?
Put simply - why can't you respond to these requests and feedback comments - other than just saying it's been passed to the software developers or something? How about a response from them explaining what the problem is with accepting it doesn't work adequately and at least allowing it to be disabled?
I personally don't see how it could actually work off road without a comprehensive database of accessible trails (and even then I feel the human brain is a better machine to make that sort of choice) - and in the UK certainly that isn't straightforward and would be a huge task. Maybe on road it might be simpler, but off road I doubt it. Garmin appears to have accepted this and just allow rerouting to be user selectable.
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Hi Dave, thanks for sharing your thoughts and we value your sentiments as well as everyone else's on the forum related to the topic. We get several feature requests each month and there are a lot of factors that go into our product development decisions, so we’re not able to respond to or deliver on all the requests we receive. Our product team spends time in these forums every week, as well as get on calls with Karoo riders through the feedback form provided in the release emails. The feedback directly reaches the Product team's bucket for reviews. Here's the form
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I'm sorry Ali but that dodges the question - many, many people want rerouting to be user selectable in some form because it is illogical and just plain doesn't work in the majority of cases. My request was for HH to explain what the big problem is responding to the specific request to allow rerouting to be disabled. If your product team spends time in these forums every week it will know this is the single biggest issue.
I'm afraid what you have written is likely to only cause more frustration. This by the way is not product development - it's fixing an issue which should have prevented this element of your product making it to market. It appears this issue has little or no priority at HH - unless someone explains differently.
Would it be possible for someone at HH to actually answer the question please?
What is preventing rerouting being made user selectable?
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Out of interest would HH regard the failure of rerouting, and the subsequent issues that causes, to be a warranty issue? If so, I'll send my unit back for a refund please as it does not operate properly as advertised.
That's a slightly ironic remark by the way - I know HH will claim it does work adequately.
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Definitely looks like a product decision to me. I would guess that rerouting is seen as a distinguishing product feature (as I understand, at least part of the competition can only offer very rudimentary rerouting along the lines of making a U turn to get back on route) and making it optional somehow makes the product less valuable or whatever.
And yes, in my experience, in many situations the rerouting function works really well*, but in others (road works, incorrect map data, off-road) it can be annoying or actively harmful.
* One of my personal favourites is urban riding in situations where I generally know which streets/paths I prefer to take but could use some help for general orientation plus actually navigating the last few blocks, just dropping a pin and letting the unit figure out which way I wanted to take by re-re-re-rerouting is so much easier than first manually creating the same route to follow.
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Hi Ali.
Thanks for the update - do we have a timescale specifically for that (I think updates are on a 2 week cycle)?
The question, though, was could we have an explanation why HH are so resistant to just making it user selectable ON/OFF.
I'm afraid I'm not confident an update to reduce the aggressiveness of rerouting will fix it - off road in the UK (and I suspect elsewhere) the issue is that the map doesn't include many suitable routes so any rerouting won't choose them. I accept that would be a major thing to fix, hence for those it's unlikely to work for just allow the feature to be disabled
Anna - I take your point about effective rerouting being a USP - and having it as an option would still be a USP, but for those applications (like off road) where it's unlikely to ever work particularly well, having an OFF button gives choice - and that's never a bad thing, eh? At the moment I'd say it's the opposite of a USP - it's a reason to buy something else...
The danger here for HH is that the (public) frustration at this apparent intransigence will become a bigger issue than the actual problem! In my experience good communication fixes many things and gets people on side. If for example HH said that it was so deeply embedded in the coding it's a major rewrite, I think we'd all get that. A stonewall isn't good; especially when HH now admit it's overly aggressive and dysfunctional - accepting that but refusing to add an off button is not a great move....
I really do feel like a beta tester...
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I saw that this topic is 'answered'? Full of hope i started reading, hoping that we indeed would have an option to STOP REROUTING because ofcourse in SOME occasions it might work, but in MANY occasions it just pure and uterly spoils the fun in riding with the karoo.
but again... the 'answer' is to fix some sort of aggressive rerouting. This will most likely NOT fix the continuous cursing needed when riding with the Karoo
If there is 1 thing needs to be fixed, it is to either SToP rerouting as a whole or to be able to disable it.
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Well, new update is out and re-routing is still an issue. I am appreciative of the fast feature update cycle, but following a route is one of the basic functionalities that should work. I can't have my device reroute me every time I stop to take a picture, or the path is a little off on the map. It would be a minor issue if the device would realize that it is off, but you get back on the original route and it doesn't switch back. Customer support solution "remove route and back it back up". Really? Try doing that 4 times in a ride while you're on the road going 20mph or off road trying to maintain balance.
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"It'll be fixed in the next next update - unless we can't and then it won't".
Anyone want to buy a K2? - I want a mature product from a mature company that properly tests things before selling them (or at least admits defeat with dysfunctional elements of their product and either withdraws that function until it's fixed or at least allows users to disable them). Bear in mind that when I bought my K2 I didn't just one-off buy a piece of plastic - I bought into a system which I should reasonably expect to function as an ongoing thing.
I like HH's continuous improvement concept, but there has to be a baseline of functionality when selling a product (as opposed to a beta testing program.)
I can't think of any other product or service I buy where the functionality is in such a constant sate of flux and partial fixes. It smacks of either incompetence or an inability (or unwillingness) to properly field test before sale.
I'd suggest to HH, concentrate on getting the basics right first instead of just adding more and more features (it appears at the expense of getting the basics sorted).
Or, shut a lot of your customers up by ADDING A DISABLE BUTTON!
Why is that so hard? Please Ali - explain to me. And don't just give another politicians' answer of 'it will be in the next update' or 'I've passed this to our product team' etc. WHAT IS THE PROBLEM HERE?
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Dave you have my full support what you write about.
For now, I am dealing with this problem by turning off what I can, so that the screen does not display in red from time to time. I still have better than others because I do not drive off-road, only on roads.
Unfortunately, Karoo2 also shows me an off-road route when I have 100 km of a planned route on asphalt roads. In the mountains, this is a tragic and very dangerous mistake of the Karoo2 system.
This feature just isn't working properly and you should turn it off immediately or give users the option to turn it off. Didn't it happen in this update then when?
From mid-September I am also waiting for the repair of the error of incorrect slope and calculation of the defective height difference HH promised in the email that he would do it, and of course it was a lie on their part. It looks very bad.
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Unit returned to Wiggle for refund, Garmin Edge 1030 Plus ordered. I tried the Ferrari but am returning to Ford - not as flashy but reliable and does the job. Komoot app preinstalled on unit, rerouting has three options plus OFF, mapping is better, battery last 3x the K2, company seems competent if a little staid, but likely to be around for a long time! A mature product from a mature company.
Sorry HH - you're fired. Get your priorities sorted and listen to customer feedback - especially if you're going for this 'community iterative process' approach.
I really wanted to like the K2 but the only USP is a nice screen - and as long as the Garmin is viewable that's good enough. I'm out biking, not watching TV! All the other features of the K2 are there (and more), except they will work reliably.
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Most of the time having rerouting on is great, especially on the road. But there are times, especially when riding off-road, in remote areas, that if the computer reroutes you, you can end up in a dangerous situation. This has happened to me, where I carefully curated a route, and then the rerouting kicked in and I couldn't find my initial way anymore. I got a bit lost, the K2 was trying to route me onto private land with big warning signs, and I could have been stranded out there. Please consider having a way to turn rerouting off, or at least prompt before doing so.
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I totally agree with the critiques expressed here by the other forum members. It's not just on this annoying rerouting item that HH falls short. For more than 2 years now forum members have complained that it is not possible to navigate from a certain point in the vicinity of a route to the nearest point of that route instead of always being guided to the start. My next cycling GPS will definitely NOT be an HH anymore!
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Hi All, this feature was released in recent update on June 13th
https://www.hammerhead.io/blogs/change-logs/karoo-software-build-version-1-482-1861
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