What GPS tracker? Anyone used an i-gotU?

bartimaeus

I'm quite keen to get something to track my rides, but I don't want to spend a lot, and I'm not sure I really need a full Garmin-with-mapping as I rather like using my O/S maps, and I already have a bike computer.

I've just come across the i-gotU GT-120 (£35) and i-gotU GT-600 (£57) which look like a good option - acquire your satellites, stick the 20g (37g for the 600) unit in your pack, and forget about it till you get home... then download!

Does anyone have any experience of these things? Are there any other options I could look at in the same price range... I've also started looking at the GPS watches runners have but these seem much more expensive?

bowtimer

plenty of mobile apps about sport tracker or endomondo are both free and pretty good

bartimaeus

I don't have any sort of GPS hardware - so I'm afraid I've nothing to run a free app on

I may just take a punt on the i-gotU GT-120: at £35 is seems much cheaper than anything else I have seen. When I'm feeling flush I may get a proper Garmin unit.

bugmonkey

My brother's got an i-gotu (gt-120 i think) and it seems pretty good. It really is as simple as turning it on, chucking in the top pocket of a bag and riding. The new one seems to be a lot better than the older ones, gets a lock pretty quick and seems fairly accurate.

£35 seems a lot cheaper than they were the last time I looked, I'm tempted to pick one up as well. The website you've linked to seems to be down at the moment though

bartimaeus

Hmm... that was the igotU site. Anyway, Pixmania - £35 for the GT-120

onlyonearrow

I've been using an igotU GT-200e for the last 3 months. Got it in Maplins for £45. The GT-200E has more memory and better battery life than the 120 and adds bluetooth, so you can link it to a phone or other device that has bluetooth but no GPS to using mapping apps.

I'm pleased with it. It seems as accurate as other GPS devices I've used. It seems to keep the satellite signal well and i haven't experienced gaps in data even when under tree cover.
You can set it to record data points at different time intervals, depending on your speed. I have mine set to record every second if going faster than 10 mph and every 3 sec if slower than that.

As with all GPS devices, altitude and speed data can be questionable and subject to spikes at times.
The supplied software is OK if not completely intuitive, but it allows you to export the data as GPX file, so you can import it into other mapping software or web apps.

There's a review of the igotU devices here:
http://www.filesaveas.com/igotu_gt600.html

Anonymous

Bartimaeus wrote:

I don't have any sort of GPS hardware - so I'm afraid I've nothing to run a free app on

If you've got a smartphone but no GPS in it, you can get Bluetooth GPS units and can then use the freebie software. But depends on the phone and software, and the BT GPS units cost £50 anyway.

bartimaeus

Cheers, guys. I'll probably go for the GT-120, as by my calculations it should manage to log a day's ride quite happily.