Ditch or switch

[Slowbee]

battery life on s4 ? and will it survive the way you ride mtn bike ?

[Christian van Zyl]

battery life on s4 ? and will it survive the way you ride mtn bike ?

With something like the RFLKT+ definitely. You lock the screen, which takes a lot of your battery life, the RFLKT+ then simply displays the data only that the phone sends. You can do a good 6-8 hour ride like that. Bluetooth Low Energy is very efficient when it comes to battery consumption. 

[raptor-22]

I'd look at the wahoo option mostly because garmin is **** expensive these days. You already have a phone so maximise what it can do for you. Why carry a phone + a garmin.

[Dicky DQ]

I've got ant+ speed sensors, cadence sensors and power meters on my bikes. Now I've got an iphone 6+ which doesnt support ant+, only BLE.

 

I have a few options.

 

1) buy a samsung phone to use for cycling. Added bonus that it plays music, runs strava, etc

2) buy a dedicated cycling computer

3) sell all my ant+ stuff and get BLE sensors

 

thoughts?

Go for No 2. Better battery life and cycling specific features, not to mention the better price.

[Spoke101]

The edge 520 bundle is around R6500

 

for less than half that I can get a second hand samsung S4, which also can show strava live segments and play music through bluetooth earphones

 

If i want to show strava live segments on an edge 520, I anyways need to carry a phone with me.

 

im definitely leaning towards buying a phone to use for cycling

FYI you don't need to carry a phone for live segments, just the unit.

[Christian van Zyl]

I've got ant+ speed sensors, cadence sensors and power meters on my bikes. Now I've got an iphone 6+ which doesnt support ant+, only BLE.

 

I have a few options.

 

1) buy a samsung phone to use for cycling. Added bonus that it plays music, runs strava, etc

2) buy a dedicated cycling computer

3) sell all my ant+ stuff and get BLE sensors

 

thoughts?

This is where the Wahoo tech gets really sexy. The RFLKT+ also acts as what they call a "Bridge", so you do not have to throw away your ANT+ gear. The ANT+signal gets pushed to your Wahoo RFLKT+, the RFLKT+ then translates the signal to Bluetooth and pushes it to your phone. Problem solved, money saved. 

 

Wahoo also considered the reverse. If you'd like to ever use your phone and your Garmin/Suunto/ANT+ Computer simultaneously all their HR belts and Speed/cadence sensors carry both ANT+ and Bluetooth so now one belt will talk to multiple devices i.e Phone and head unit. 

[PhilipV]

I strongly suggest that you do not get a Samsung, but that is only because my wife's S4 is excruciatingly slow. If you do go down that road, delete everything you possibly can off the phone to make it run leaner.

Or just get the wahoo

[RogerN]

I have tried many solutions to collecting ride data.  I recommend that you use a smartphone and a good app rather than buy an expensive dedicated bike computer.  I have used a Samsung S4 Mini with the IpBike app for a few years now and am very happy - more about the phone later.

 

Every second of my ride IpBike takes a reading of the GPS location, my Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and Cadence (CAD) sensor and any other sensors you may have.  Output data is prodigious and is far more than most people could ever use.

 

If I have to buy a new phone then I will definitely buy one that supports ANT+ rather than just Bluetooth. ANT+ was developed for the health industry and has standard interfaces. Thus all ANT+ sensors use a common protocol. Bluetooth on the other hand has grown more like "topsy" with each supplier developing their own interface.  This results in BTLE apps that may work with one set of sensors but not necessarily the next.  I also suspect that Bluetooth uses more power than ANT+.

 

The best thing about IpBike is the service provided by the author, Ifor Powell.  Ifor is a cyclist so knows what we are looking for in an app. Problems are quickly answered and upgrades come along every few weeks. The following websites will be of use to anyone looking for data solutions - www.iforpowell.com; www.thisisant.com.

 

IpBike interfaces with most of the web based health sites such as Strava, TrainingPeaks, 

[Bloukrans]

I have tried many solutions to collecting ride data.  I recommend that you use a smartphone and a good app rather than buy an expensive dedicated bike computer.  I have used a Samsung S4 Mini with the IpBike app for a few years now and am very happy - more about the phone later.

 

Every second of my ride IpBike takes a reading of the GPS location, my Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) and Cadence (CAD) sensor and any other sensors you may have.  Output data is prodigious and is far more than most people could ever use.

 

If I have to buy a new phone then I will definitely buy one that supports ANT+ rather than just Bluetooth. ANT+ was developed for the health industry and has standard interfaces. Thus all ANT+ sensors use a common protocol. Bluetooth on the other hand has grown more like "topsy" with each supplier developing their own interface.  This results in BTLE apps that may work with one set of sensors but not necessarily the next.

 

The best thing about IpBike is the service provided by the author, Ifor Powell.  Ifor is a cyclist so knows what we are looking for in an app. Problems are quickly answered and upgrades come along every few weeks. The following websites will be of use to anyone looking for data solutions - www.iforpowell.com; www.thisisant.com.

 

IpBike interfaces with most of the web based health sites such as Strava, TrainingPeaks, 

What HRM do you use?

[Paul Ruinaard]

I've got ant+ speed sensors, cadence sensors and power meters on my bikes. Now I've got an iphone 6+ which doesnt support ant+, only BLE.

 

I have a few options.

 

1) buy a samsung phone to use for cycling. Added bonus that it plays music, runs strava, etc

2) buy a dedicated cycling computer

3) sell all my ant+ stuff and get BLE sensors

 

thoughts?

I suppose it depends if you want to be an integrator and do all the work yourself or pay a bit extra and get it all out of the box.

 

If you look at all the hassles of updating it all and getting it all to work together then it is easier for me to just pay extra up front and leave all the complexity to Garmin.

 

I dont have the time to play with tech - you could do it all a lot cheaper if you really wanted to.