BRounsley
Veteran
I’ve seen a lot of posts with people asking about using a smartphone as an alternative to a dedicated standalone cycle computer. So I thought I put my personal experience into a post. I’ve used several models of iPhones over the years so this post is written from this angle. I currently use an iPhone 5.
The USP of a standalone cycle computer devices is it has been designed and packaged to be mounted on a bicycle. The hardware is streamlined resulting in advantages such as superior battery life. Mounting your phone is never going to be as convenient but I think the phone has other advantages that I believe make up for these minor inconveniences.
I’ve seen people post about bad experiences with phones. I was an early adopter starting with the first GPS enabled iPhone (iPhone 3G) and the first cycle apps. This was a trying time. Rubbish multitasking (a phone call closing your app). Below par apps/software. No external devices support for things like heart rate monitors. Not the greatest of GPS reception. Originally there was no dedicated handlebar mounts, I had to make my own. It was second class solution and a standalone cycle computer was undoubtedly the better option. These days are over.
Battery
The number one concern with the phone approach is also one of the easiest to solve. My iPhone5 with everything blazing (GPS, Screen, Data 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi) will scrape 4 hours. If you’re out all day or dependent on it for navigation, then this is not good enough. This is easily solved by hooking the phone up to an external battery. I currently use the Topeak Power Pack which is a neat solution that velcro’s under the stem. I previously stuck a cheap (£20 off Amazon) battery in a frame bag. Both of these battery charge the phone 3+ times so with a fully changed phone to start (4 phone battery cycles in total) you’re talking 15+ hours.
Phone Mount
The assumption is you’ll want to see the phone screen while pedalling, so you’ll need to mount the phone on the handle bars. It’s a real advantage having a popular handset. The more popular the phone the more likely a company will produce a dedicated cycle mount for it. It’s something to consider when choosing your next phone. The iPhone is very well catered for. I currently use the Topeak Ride Case II for iPhone 5 which I’ll give 8/10. Topeak have some new interesting cases coming out, including one that has the battery built in (I know this had been done before but Topeaks stem cap mount is excellent).
External Devices
Traditionally external devices, such as heart rate monitors, cadence sensors used Ant+ to communicate. So for your phone to work you would need some sort of plugin Ant+ dongle. Ant+ is still alive but more and more devices are moving to Bluetooth 4.0 (the low power version of Bluetooth). Bluetooth has advantages over Ant+, the biggest being it’s used in just about everything else where Ant+ is more just in the fitness world. It now means you can get heart rate monitors, cadence sensors, power meters etc. that will communicate with your phone via Bluetooth. I use the Wahoo heart rate monitor, which is excellent and the Topeak cadence sensors. The first iPhone to support Bluetooth 4.0 was the iPhone 4S any iPhone since supports it (4S, 5, 5S, 5C…).
Apps /Software
One of the killer advantages of the phone approach is it’s just a platform and you’re not tied to a piece of software/app. This has allowing developers to go out and do some clever stuff. Most phones will support multitasking so you can run many apps at the same time for different purposes.
Cycle apps fall into 3 broad functions with some Apps doing some or all of these functions.
Cycle Computer – How fast, how far, how long, what’s your heart rate etc. Typically these use the Phones GPS to calculate this. There are too many to mention.
Social/Tracking – This is tracking where you have been and getting that ride data onto a website. It could be for a competitive reason, Strava segment hunting. It could be to analysing your metric for improvement. It can just be a diary of your rides and a way to share them. I use Strava, for a bit of all the above. It was nice reviewing my Northern Ireland adventure before the pros tackled the same roads at the Giro. With the a phone being online it makes this a one button process to wirelessly upload
Navigation – This is a more complex subject. You can have “turn by turn” navigation, like the sort you use in a car. The example being you put in an address and the app routes your there. I rarely use this type but when I do, I use the TomTom SatNav app, which has a cycling mode (no motorway cycling for me). TomTom is pretty pricey but I original bought it to use in the car. The app is great and I’ve got my money worth over the years as a car satnav. Being on my phone it’s always in my pocket.
I prefer the other approach, which is to the follow a line/route on a rolling map. I typically pre-plot my route online (I use GPSies with a bit of Google Street View to make sure I’m not on a dual carriageway or a farm track) taking in the back lanes and the road less travelled. I upload these planned routes to my phone as a file (I just email it to my phone, no plugging a wire in). The route appears as line on the map. I then navigate by following this line on a rolling map with me position always in the centre of the map. I can also re-cycle any routes I’ve done in the past by saving it as a track/route. I use MotionX mainly because it was the first app to get it right and it does everything I need it to do. Most organised rides also provide these files in advance and having the route has saved me couple of time from taking the wrong turn (onto a different but very similarly signposted ride!!).
With any navigation apps the thing that costs the money to produce is the maps. Google provide “free” maps but in reality it’s a tool they uses to make (lots of) money in other ways. Therefore Google don’t let just any app developer store their maps locally on the phone, what’s in it for them! This means a lot of navigation apps (often the free ones) bring the map tiles down “over the air”, as and when you need the next map tile. This is because Google allow them to do this. It has an advantage as the app will take up very little of your phones storage (maps are massive) but it has some big disadvantages. It can cane your phone data, it can be really slow to bring the maps tiles down and at worst you can be somewhere without phone reception (so no map). Some apps come with the maps installed, like TomTom hence the big cost. Some apps allow you download the maps in advance. MotionX allows you to download “Open Cycle Maps” in advance. “Open Cycle Maps” are open source built by their users so that’s why they are free to use.
One thing I get askes a lot is does GPS uses phone data and therefore will it cost money. The answer is no. You can use GPS abroad and not come back to a £1k phone bill! But the apps you are running may be using data (the example downloading the map titles over the phone network) so it may be something you need to check for each app.
Online Cycling
Software developers are latching onto the fact your Phone, so therefore your ride, is online. MotionX for example allows you to broadcast your position (pin on the map) so other rides know where you are. Great if your mates know you’re 1 mile down the road so they will wait an extra few minutes in the café. Strava now does live segment updates. It will be interesting to see where this all leads.
It’s telling that the new features on the Garmin range (e.g. 810) are playing catch-up to the features you natural get from using a phone (posting location, uploading rides over the air, weather! etc). It’s more telling they do this by tethering it to your phone!
I’m obviously writing this as an iPhone fanboy by my personal prediction is the bike satnav will become a niche product in the same way very few people still use iPods, because of the all-conquering smartphone.
I hope this helped.
The USP of a standalone cycle computer devices is it has been designed and packaged to be mounted on a bicycle. The hardware is streamlined resulting in advantages such as superior battery life. Mounting your phone is never going to be as convenient but I think the phone has other advantages that I believe make up for these minor inconveniences.
I’ve seen people post about bad experiences with phones. I was an early adopter starting with the first GPS enabled iPhone (iPhone 3G) and the first cycle apps. This was a trying time. Rubbish multitasking (a phone call closing your app). Below par apps/software. No external devices support for things like heart rate monitors. Not the greatest of GPS reception. Originally there was no dedicated handlebar mounts, I had to make my own. It was second class solution and a standalone cycle computer was undoubtedly the better option. These days are over.
Battery
The number one concern with the phone approach is also one of the easiest to solve. My iPhone5 with everything blazing (GPS, Screen, Data 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi) will scrape 4 hours. If you’re out all day or dependent on it for navigation, then this is not good enough. This is easily solved by hooking the phone up to an external battery. I currently use the Topeak Power Pack which is a neat solution that velcro’s under the stem. I previously stuck a cheap (£20 off Amazon) battery in a frame bag. Both of these battery charge the phone 3+ times so with a fully changed phone to start (4 phone battery cycles in total) you’re talking 15+ hours.
Phone Mount
The assumption is you’ll want to see the phone screen while pedalling, so you’ll need to mount the phone on the handle bars. It’s a real advantage having a popular handset. The more popular the phone the more likely a company will produce a dedicated cycle mount for it. It’s something to consider when choosing your next phone. The iPhone is very well catered for. I currently use the Topeak Ride Case II for iPhone 5 which I’ll give 8/10. Topeak have some new interesting cases coming out, including one that has the battery built in (I know this had been done before but Topeaks stem cap mount is excellent).
External Devices
Traditionally external devices, such as heart rate monitors, cadence sensors used Ant+ to communicate. So for your phone to work you would need some sort of plugin Ant+ dongle. Ant+ is still alive but more and more devices are moving to Bluetooth 4.0 (the low power version of Bluetooth). Bluetooth has advantages over Ant+, the biggest being it’s used in just about everything else where Ant+ is more just in the fitness world. It now means you can get heart rate monitors, cadence sensors, power meters etc. that will communicate with your phone via Bluetooth. I use the Wahoo heart rate monitor, which is excellent and the Topeak cadence sensors. The first iPhone to support Bluetooth 4.0 was the iPhone 4S any iPhone since supports it (4S, 5, 5S, 5C…).
Apps /Software
One of the killer advantages of the phone approach is it’s just a platform and you’re not tied to a piece of software/app. This has allowing developers to go out and do some clever stuff. Most phones will support multitasking so you can run many apps at the same time for different purposes.
Cycle apps fall into 3 broad functions with some Apps doing some or all of these functions.
Cycle Computer – How fast, how far, how long, what’s your heart rate etc. Typically these use the Phones GPS to calculate this. There are too many to mention.
Social/Tracking – This is tracking where you have been and getting that ride data onto a website. It could be for a competitive reason, Strava segment hunting. It could be to analysing your metric for improvement. It can just be a diary of your rides and a way to share them. I use Strava, for a bit of all the above. It was nice reviewing my Northern Ireland adventure before the pros tackled the same roads at the Giro. With the a phone being online it makes this a one button process to wirelessly upload
Navigation – This is a more complex subject. You can have “turn by turn” navigation, like the sort you use in a car. The example being you put in an address and the app routes your there. I rarely use this type but when I do, I use the TomTom SatNav app, which has a cycling mode (no motorway cycling for me). TomTom is pretty pricey but I original bought it to use in the car. The app is great and I’ve got my money worth over the years as a car satnav. Being on my phone it’s always in my pocket.
I prefer the other approach, which is to the follow a line/route on a rolling map. I typically pre-plot my route online (I use GPSies with a bit of Google Street View to make sure I’m not on a dual carriageway or a farm track) taking in the back lanes and the road less travelled. I upload these planned routes to my phone as a file (I just email it to my phone, no plugging a wire in). The route appears as line on the map. I then navigate by following this line on a rolling map with me position always in the centre of the map. I can also re-cycle any routes I’ve done in the past by saving it as a track/route. I use MotionX mainly because it was the first app to get it right and it does everything I need it to do. Most organised rides also provide these files in advance and having the route has saved me couple of time from taking the wrong turn (onto a different but very similarly signposted ride!!).
With any navigation apps the thing that costs the money to produce is the maps. Google provide “free” maps but in reality it’s a tool they uses to make (lots of) money in other ways. Therefore Google don’t let just any app developer store their maps locally on the phone, what’s in it for them! This means a lot of navigation apps (often the free ones) bring the map tiles down “over the air”, as and when you need the next map tile. This is because Google allow them to do this. It has an advantage as the app will take up very little of your phones storage (maps are massive) but it has some big disadvantages. It can cane your phone data, it can be really slow to bring the maps tiles down and at worst you can be somewhere without phone reception (so no map). Some apps come with the maps installed, like TomTom hence the big cost. Some apps allow you download the maps in advance. MotionX allows you to download “Open Cycle Maps” in advance. “Open Cycle Maps” are open source built by their users so that’s why they are free to use.
One thing I get askes a lot is does GPS uses phone data and therefore will it cost money. The answer is no. You can use GPS abroad and not come back to a £1k phone bill! But the apps you are running may be using data (the example downloading the map titles over the phone network) so it may be something you need to check for each app.
Online Cycling
Software developers are latching onto the fact your Phone, so therefore your ride, is online. MotionX for example allows you to broadcast your position (pin on the map) so other rides know where you are. Great if your mates know you’re 1 mile down the road so they will wait an extra few minutes in the café. Strava now does live segment updates. It will be interesting to see where this all leads.
It’s telling that the new features on the Garmin range (e.g. 810) are playing catch-up to the features you natural get from using a phone (posting location, uploading rides over the air, weather! etc). It’s more telling they do this by tethering it to your phone!
I’m obviously writing this as an iPhone fanboy by my personal prediction is the bike satnav will become a niche product in the same way very few people still use iPods, because of the all-conquering smartphone.
I hope this helped.
Last edited:
