Karoo 2 Take 2: Part 3

 Welcome to my third, and I think final, take on the Hammerhead Karoo 2 GPS cycling computer. If you missed any of the other two "Take Two" posts, you can find #1 here and #2 here. 

To recap: The interface regarding the GPS feature seemed to be smooth, but set-up initialy was a bit of a pain and I never did get the Bluetooth connection for my iPhone up and running. To be fair, after the first failed attempt, I abandoned the idea of doing that for the remainder of my testing. 

In Part Two, I field tested the GPS turn-by-turn navigation feature and found it to be satisfactory. However; it was difficult to read the screen in rough gravel. Plus- the battery life was not impressive.

Now, I wanted to discover what other features the Karoo 2 might have that I might find interesting. I needed to understand how the screens worked and what pages were going to be of use to me. By way of reminder, I first want to post an image from my first Karoo 2 unit which shows a specific feature I was keen on. Here is that image.....

I really enjoyed the historical climbing data page with elevation gain data.

Okay, keep that page there in that image in mind as I take you now through an image dump from my latest test I conducted last Monday. These images are in chronological order. The captions will explain what is happening. 

This is what my "Basic" page looks like in recording mode. I was impressed that the map showed where the gravel started, (thicker border on road)

But the fun stopped when I kept getting this screen. It was happening on both the Basic and "Got Hills?" pages. I could ride maybe 500 feet and the unit would default to this screen.

With "recording" not engaged, this is what the basic page looked like. It was the only way I could get the computer to stay "on".

I decided to try the "Got Hills" page without recording the ride. NOTE: I turned off the head completely, fired back up, and started fresh.

I didn't even get my camera put away, (note background here and above are the same) and the screen defaulted to the home page. Weird!

Re-selected Got Hills, ride loads, ride 50 feet, and then this.... AGAIN!

Start again- and this is the page I got.

This is what it looked like if I swiped that page above to a new page in "Got Hills". I kept getting missing data on the map in random splotches.

Swipe again and this is the only page in "Got Hills" that actually worked and that not well. (Big blank area? Why?)

Okay, several disappointments here:

• Recording a ride mode was an absolute fail. I could not get it to work for more than several hundred feet. NOTE- This test was conducted under clear blue skies with NO tree cover and out in a rural area which is well documented on mapping software. Oddly enough, it worked perfectly using turn-by-turn from a saved ride.
  
• Basic page is pretty weird. The landing page has no current speed. Why not?
• "Got Hills" was a major disappointment. Missing data, pages not working 100%, and where is that cool historical climbing data graph from the first head unit I had? (NOTE- I did not have to dig up special editing choices back then, but also- THAT page disappeared on the original unit as well.)
• Battery went down 25% on a sub-two hour ride? Wow! Not very impressive at all.
• A comment on charging from the second part of this review had me research the charging protocol for this device, There are no directions given for charging upon set up, and with no user manual, there is NO direction given. Only a charging cord is provided and it is up to you to figure it out.  
• Upon researching the Hammerhead site under "Charging Karoo2" I found that there is no charging device, and "quick charging" is not advisable, since it could damage the unit, so my slow charging experience is pretty much the only way to recharge the device. This means that recharging a Karo 2 takes many hours. (I had mine on the USB port of my computer for six hours to recharge it to 100% from near zero)
  
• Charging port on the device is covered with a rubber plug that sort of snaps into the port. It is not tethered to the device and can easily be lost. Fortunately Hammerhead provides one extra in the box, but this also is pretty lame for such an expensive device.
  

Final Take: While I still think this unit is 1000% better than the first one, the Karoo 2 is a major letdown. Besides the turn-by-turn feature, this unit does absolutely nothing better than an old wireless Cat Eye computer which costs significantly less money than a Karoo 2 does. Editing? Possibly. Maybe I could get into some deeper editing to make the unit perform in a way I found fun and interesting. However; my beef with Hammerhead all along has been that it doesn't work "intuitively" or like a smart phone, as they claim that it does. 

And finding what you want to know is a dive into their home site to wade through endless pages of different users tips and whatnot. The FAQ is pretty useless, and I did not find a page telling me about that cool historical climbing data function that- if this unit had it and it worked- would have softened my take a bit. Maybe it is possible to find that and install it, or dig deeper into the unit, but my take is it shouldn't be this difficult to get what you want. 

Again- I'm not impressed and only slightly less frustrated than before. Maybe I am not fit for a GPS unit. Could be, but even my wife, who is well versed in how to get programs to work, (Epic Medical Record keeping, for instance) finds this device to be frustrating as well. While it is entirely possible I am the problem, after two Karoo 2 units and the way they have acted, nope.....I don't think so. 

This will go back in the box and maybe I'll use it if I have an event that offers GPS files for routes as its only option, but I don't think I will ever use it again otherwise. I'd not recommend the device to anyone. 

Comparing To My Lezyne Experience:

I had a GPS that I did not have issues with at all, and which had features I enjoyed, plus it generated data I was interested in, and it had a user website which was VERY easy and useful to use. It was Lezyne's ROOT and Ally app for their GPS devices. 

Lezyne has done a major overhaul of their ROOT and Ally app since I had my Super GPS crushed in an accident at the 2021 Gravel Worlds event. I checked it out here recently. 

While Lezyne still tethers your smart phone to get turn-by-turn directions to work, they do offer offline maps within the device now, which I might find useful on outings where I am riding in unfamiliar territory. Plus, even without actually having an account with Lezyne, anyone can download a user manual. So, they have a resource for you to actually have information in your hand to learn about their devices whenever you want. 

Furthermore, Lezyne has kits which have the sensors you want, or kits without anything, available at purchase. So, I can get a Lezyne GPS with a heart rate strap, or cadence sensor, or with lights which are operable from the GPS head. Neat!

GPS Ally app is also really easy to use, plus the historical data gets uploaded to the ROOT page under your account automatically if you save a ride. Data include elevation profile, temperature range throughout the ride, speed, stopped time, and more.

This is just by way of example to contrast my experiences with another competitor's GPS range. Lezyne certainly has its negatives, (Difficulty starting that old Super GPS at the beginning of a race, for one, which was mostly user error), but the user interface/experience is NOT one of them, and my device NEVER let me down once. Plus- 48 hour battery life. Right? So, there is maybe a reason to go back to a Lezyne GPS unit. OR take a chance with a Wahoo or Garmin, (both of which I've heard complaints about as well). 

For now, I'm not going to do anything. But I certainly am not happy with Hammerhead and their Karoo 2.