Blackburn Atom SL 6.0 Cyclometer

[cbs]

Hi All,

Firstly, Happy New Year and hope many of you were able to take advantage of the lovely weather on 1st Jan

Anyway, in the holidays, we visited the local bike shop and bought my wife some goodies in the sale, one of which was the aforementioned computer. She wanted something to show speed and cadence, which this does, as well as altitude and temperature. Looks a nice unit, does a lot and comes with wireless sensors for speed and cadence that fit to the rear wheel, so ideal for the turbo trainer too.

However, having fitted it, there is a problem in that the wireless connection does not work if the unit is on the handlebars! At the moment, it is mounted halfway along the crossbar and works, but if you move it further to the front, the signal seems to just drop. I have tried replacing the battery in the speed sensor to see if that made a difference, which it doesn't. The instructions say that the unit and sensors need to be within 40" of each other, which they are - it's not a large bike after all.

We will be taking it back to the shop when we can get to it, but just wondering if anyone else has come across this at all? Does anyone have this model and it all works correctly? Is it worth getting a straight replacement to try?

Any comments welcome.

Colin

 

[cbs]

Well, we didn't end up taking this back as we just never quite found the time to take it and the bike back to the LBS. We have also since found that the issue is not one of straightforward range, but interference. My wife uses Endomondo Pro on her iPhone with a Wahoo! dongle and HRM, and the phone is mounted to the stem. It appears that the signal to the Atom is swamped or blocked by the ANT+ signal if it is placed on the bars next to the phone. It works most of the time if it is on the top tube, and works fine if the phone is not mounted or the ANT+ is not in use.

The Atom does allow you to reset the sensors so that they move to different channels in case you do get interference, but I have done this a couple of times and it has made no difference.

The phone can't really be moved as it won't pick up the HRM if it is in a back pocket, and she is now used to seeing the display when riding to keep an eye on HR, etc.

We shall have to see how this goes - ideally, if Endomondo did cadence and speed, then we could just get an ANT+ sensor like mine (the combined Garmin one) and have just the one device. On it's own the Atom is great and I expect would be easy to sell.

There you go - thought I would update as it's quite annoying searching for an answer and only finding the question :-)

Colin