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| I did get the Karoo 2 to function 100%- for a little bit! |
Longer Version: Last week I got two bits of help after posting my "Part 3" of the Hammerhead review. Apparently, you cannot work an upload from a PC computer to the Karoo 2 head unit. You have to do it by your WiFi connected phone, or phone-like device of choice.
One would think that would be front and center in the set up for the Karro 2, but neither my wife, nor I, saw this. We had to find out via other people who had gone through this. That's not right. This is not how you sell a device and have it be used by a consumer. Not such an expensive device as the Karoo 2. THAT should have been communicated during the set-up procedure. Had I known that, one of the several strikes I have against this device would have been mitigated. But I still would have nixed this in my review as being a bad product. At least the example that was purchased by my wife for me.
Second strike? That I had to back out of a turn-by-turn ride to keep the unit from randomly shutting down while riding. In other words, if you choose a saved ride and want turn-by-turn directions, you choose it from your "Collections", and the Karoo 2 says it is preparing the ride for you. Then the screen pops up with the map and icons ready for a ride. You roll off, and everything seems okay. You get a prompt to turn, and the map is showing your progress and the data is compiling. All good, right?
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| I got this message repeatedly until I bailed out and started up the unit again. |
Nope! I kept getting the above message and despite restarting the app, I had to completely back out, by using the power off button, refire the unit, and then it would behave. But only then. Does that seem right? Is there anywhere in the instructions that details this? No. there is not....
And then to top it all off, I got everything working Friday on my ride, but the map froze, so the tracking was stopped at a couple miles into my ride. I was still getting correct and punctual audible and readable turn-by-turn prompts, but nothing on the map was moving. Oh,. and time, speed, and whatever else was fine as well.
On a stop I rebooted again, and then the evil message prompts came back, and well, I had had it by this time.
Final Words: When one buys a device, one should not have to hop through hoops and have to spend hours to "figure it out" to get it to work. That is simply not an acceptable way to have consumers deal with any electronic device. There is no reason a device shouldn't be intuitive, easy to figure out, and run smoothly. For instance, Hammerhead touts the "smart phone" power that the Karoo 2 has. The "app" style navigation with a swipe is supposedly intuitive and makes for a great user experience. I say that is simply not the case at all with regard to this unit I have had.
I recently had to learn a new smart phone for work. A Motorola phone. I use an iPhone and have for years, yet it took all of about 15 minutes for me to figure out how to operate the Motorola phone. Now that's intuitive. Additionally the Motorola phone doesn't randomly shut off, require me to visit a website to "research my problems", because, well, there aren't any. Furthermore, there is no need to dig through hundreds of queries from other dissatisfied users on the company website to see if your question has been asked before. Contrast that to the literal hours I have spent online, in Hammerhead's FAQ, on their user forum, and dinking around with the unit itself, and I still do not have a clue as to how it works.
My contention is that this is not tenable. I shouldn't have to be running around trying to find out how this unit works after all the hours I have tried to interface with it. The company should have a cleaner, easier to understand interface, and their FAQ is literally useless. The user forum is fine, but if this unit is all that and a bag of chips, why are there literally thousands of queries- many with no answers?
Speaking of no answers, I sent in a question to Hammerhead and still haven't seen an answer. Nice customer service there....
Yes, I am upset, and I am frustrated, and this unit has been shipped back to Hammerhead with a note. We'll see what happens...... Frankly, at this point, I don't care if I ever see one again, but we'll see.
I suppose it goes without saying, but this was not a sponsored product and it was bought by my wife as a gift to me.
10 comments:
So sorry to hear, GT. If I had known you were going to get a Karoo, I would have cautioned you. I was one of the many many disappointed and angry purchasers of the original Karoo. All of your complaints are things I experienced in spades. I was basically an unwilling beta tester for Hammerhead for 2 years until the infernal thing finally bricked. I went right out and got a Garmin 1030 plus and haven’t looked back. Fast, reliable, intuitive. Garmin has come a long way since the edge 500.
Greets GT, …just like when the fork mount sensor would get bumped on the Avocet 25 cyclometer and you would have to pedal all the way home at 0mph. 😛
Man, I’m really sorry to hear about this, Brother. Your hard earned cash doesn’t deserve to be wasted in such a manner, and you’re right. It’s totally unacceptable in this day and age.
I have to agree with @JGMar here. Garmin’s game has really been upped in the past few years. The Edge 830 I’ve been using has been very user friendly and reliable, as has my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. I highly recommend both.
I hope you find the resolution you seek with this. As it stands now, you basically had your money stolen by Karoo.
@JGMar - I felt a bit like you- that Karoo users are being made to be test riders for a company that hasn't thoroughly vetted out their product. That's definitely how it looks to me right now.
Thanks for your comments.
@Skidmark - Sure- everything has a flaw in use, but take that Avocet 25 and tell me how long it took you to figure out how it worked. There is a big difference right there, yes? I'll take the occasional malfunction in the field due to a mechanical issue that I can easily rectify over what I've been dealing with any day.
@MG - Thanks Brother! Yeah...this really sucked the life out of me. Actually, I feel a big sense of relief that the thing is no longer in my possession.
I'm probably going to take a long look at Garmin stuff next. Thanks!
I'm commenting as a long-time Karoo user (both model 1 and 2). Unlike @JGMar, I wasn't an early adopter, but waited long enough for the glitches on the Karoo 1 to be figured out.
In that time, I've never experienced your "Ride has stopped" error, so I have no suggestions in that regard. What was the source of the route you were following, out of curiosity? That is, RideWithGPS, Strava or something else?
Regarding the map "freezing", I bet you tapped on the unlock icon on the map screen - what you would do to pan around the map. When you do that, the map will remain stationary, but route prompts and tracking will continue to work, just as you describe. Tap the lock icon again and the map will jump back to your current location and proceed to redraw as you move.
Not to nitpick, but your statement that "you cannot work an upload from a PC computer to the Karoo 2 head unit. You have to do it by your WiFi connected phone, or phone-like device of choice" is actually incorrect. You are correct that you can't upload a route directly to the GPS directly from a computer, PC or otherwise. To upload a route, you have to connect the Karoo 2 itself to wi-fi,as described in their on-boarding instructions (https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/articles/360057311074-Karoo-2-Onboarding). However, the Karoo is essentially an Android phone (but without the actual phone capability, although it can optionally use a SIM card to download routes etc.) and does not use a "phone, or phone-like device" for any purpose. You can, should you wish, connect it to your phone using Bluetooth, if you want to receive email and text notifications on your GPS as you ride.
Instead, the Karoo head unit itself talks to Hammerhead's Dashboard (https://support.hammerhead.io/hc/en-us/sections/360010173974-Dashboard-Basics) - their "cloud", if you will - via wi-fi. You import whatever routes you want to follow to the Dashboard (using a browser on your phone, laptop etc.) and they are then synced to the Karoo over the aforementioned wi-fi connection. This is the same basic workflow used by Wahoo (think Wahoo Cloud instead of Hammerhead's Dashboard) and Garmin's current models (which pipe everything through Garmin Connect). However, in the case of both Wahoo and Garmin, you do have to get your phone involved and, IMHO, the complication factor goes way up.
@Fear rothar - First of all, I appreciate your detailed and considered comments.
A couple of notes: I never touched the screen before the map "froze". Only afterward.
Secondly- We tried using WiFi from my PC- No go. This was reading the same instructions you link. My wife, who is something of an IT expert, couldn't even figure this out. In her opinion, she thought the Karoo 2 had a bad chip in it, or some other fatal flaw not negotiable as the unit was sent to us.
Third- The ONLY way I could get a route from the dashboard to the Karoo 2 was via my phone connection by WiFi and THEN and only then would it work if I turned the Karoo 2 off and back on again. This happened twice.
Fourth - Your own, very detailed, and helpful comment is exactly what I refer to in the post- That Hammerhead doesn't give you this information plainly and easily. I have to wait to get a comment- like yours- to find out anything of this nature.
Finally- It doesn't matter anymore. I'm finished with that particular unit and it is currently on its way to Hammerhead headquarters and they can do whatever they want when they get it. I'm not interested in this device unless I can deal with it easily and simply on my end. Much like the phone I mentioned in my post.
Thanks again for trying to help out.
- I was optimistic after you left my house and we had the phone and the Karoo on WIFI together seeing each other, and we could pull up maps fine.
- If you decide to go GPS again, i would suggest Garmin or Wahoo.
- Wahoo if you are comfortable with Bluetooth and WIFI, you can PC upload but it is not perfect, but doable. Wahoo wants you on the app and Bluetooth.
- Garmin, if you are more comfortable with PC uploading.
That is my opinion between wahoo and garmin. Garmin is better with use on a PC, and wahoo is better on Bluetooth.
@Fear rothar - Yes. It would not connect via our at home WiFi. See N.Y. Roll's comment above.
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