Garmin vs Phone (for strava)

Palladium

Hello,

First of all, appologies if I am asking a 'frequently asked question', but I can't find any threads comparing the phone vs garmin. (apart from this one:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12890994, which is from 2012, potentially outdated)

At the moment I am using Strava to keep track of a few things, I use my iPhone7 with a quadlock on my handle bars to keep track of my avg speed, segments etc. I also noticed a lot of 'pros' use the garmin fidgets instead of a mounted phone which made me curious as to what the benefits are of using a garmin device opposed to a phone

Afaik, these are the extra features the garmin has compared with a mobile device:

• Much better battery life
• More accurate data on max speed (afaik it doesn't offer a better representation of the avg speed as the gps on the phone works well over a long distance)
• Gives you a live power output
• Am I missing anything important?

Battery life doesn't bother me as I don't have time to train for 2+hrs, more accurate speed/power would be very nice, is are there any other distinct advantages the garmin has?
Furthermore I have a few questions:

• How does the garmin work out your power output without using a power meter? Can it differenciate between being in somebody's slip stream (i.e if you cycle in somebody's slipstream does it show as less power)? I'm not entirely sure what their mechanism is for working out the power. Whilst studying fluid dynamics it makes me realise how many things may affect the 'wind resistence', i.e how does the garmin know what your frontal area is?
• Does garmin work together with Strava? Or do they just make use of strava's open API?

Thanks for reading!

Edit: Maybe this is also outdated, but it seems that the iPhone came out on top in this comparison https://www.singletracks.com/blog/gps/gps-distance-accuracy-test-smartphone-apps-vs-dedicated-gps/, thoughts?

imafatman

Garmin only knows power if you have a power meter fitted to you bike. (£400-1500 ish)

Garmin and Strava integrate so my rides sync from my Garmin onto Strava instantly if you want it to. If you have your phone paired to the Garmin it works very well, 30 seconds after pressing save ride it's been uploaded into Garmin and synced to Strava.

Most people use a cadence and heartrate sensor too and use those figures when training.

Strava mount is for casual riders imo. Once you start doing enough miles through the year you will probably want to get a dedicated computer.

There are other very interesting ones out there, the Wahoo Bolt is worth looking at too.

Palladium

imafatman wrote:

Garmin only knows power if you have a power meter fitted to you bike. (£400-1500 ish)

Whoa, wasn't aware of that, looks like I missed some crucial details.

Garmin and Strava integrate so my rides sync from my Garmin onto Strava instantly if you want it to. If you have your phone paired to the Garmin it works very well, 30 seconds after pressing save ride it's been uploaded into Garmin and synced to Strava.

Hmm, doesn't my phone do this as well (if I only used my phone)? I mean as soon as I finish a journey it uploads it too

Most people use a cadence and heartrate sensor too and use those figures when training.

Yeah agreed this looks quite interesting.

Strava mount is for casual riders imo. Once you start doing enough miles through the year you will probably want to get a dedicated computer.

There are other very interesting ones out there, the Wahoo Bolt is worth looking at too.

So I guess this is just to make you look/feel more 'pro'?

Anyway so in other words, if I don't buy a power meter, the only advantages are more accrate readings of max speed? Any other rational arguments worth considering?

Anyway thanks for your reply

meanredspider

Some people worry about strapping their £700 phone to the front of their bike. It's more vulnerable in an accident and probably less able to cope with an impact.

fenix

I agree - for casual riding the phone works. If you're doing longer or more cycling get a garmin.

Not keen on a phone on the bars - bit exposed and do you really need to look at your speed ?

meanredspider

Fenix wrote:

I agree - for casual riding the phone works. If you're doing longer or more cycling get a garmin.

Not keen on a phone on the bars - bit exposed and do you really need to look at your speed ?

Given how cheaply a simple GPS device can be had or something like the Wahoo RFLKT (sp?), strapping your phone on there doesn't seem too sensible. If I use my phone for recording a ride, I start it and stuff it in my pocket.

Palladium

Well the phone mount does seem to be pretty secure- having said that if my phone becomes detached, or something else hits it I'll most likely be down to Carphone Warehouse later that day :oops:

Personally I quite like being able to see my average speed, it gives me a goal to work towards while training, (i.e maintain 25 km/h for the entirety of my journey, but I guess each to their own. Although @meanredspider does have a fair point, I could buy a cheap little thing instead.

StillGoing

Palladium wrote:

Hello,

First of all, appologies if I am asking a 'frequently asked question', but I can't find any threads comparing the phone vs garmin. (apart from this one:
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=12890994, which is from 2012, potentially outdated)

At the moment I am using Strava to keep track of a few things, I use my iPhone7 with a quadlock on my handle bars to keep track of my avg speed, segments etc. I also noticed a lot of 'pros' use the garmin fidgets instead of a mounted phone which made me curious as to what the benefits are of using a garmin device opposed to a phone

Afaik, these are the extra features the garmin has compared with a mobile device:

• Much better battery life
• More accurate data on max speed (afaik it doesn't offer a better representation of the avg speed as the gps on the phone works well over a long distance)
• Gives you a live power output
• Am I missing anything important?

Battery life doesn't bother me as I don't have time to train for 2+hrs, more accurate speed/power would be very nice, is are there any other distinct advantages the garmin has?
Furthermore I have a few questions:

• How does the garmin work out your power output without using a power meter? Can it differenciate between being in somebody's slip stream (i.e if you cycle in somebody's slipstream does it show as less power)? I'm not entirely sure what their mechanism is for working out the power. Whilst studying fluid dynamics it makes me realise how many things may affect the 'wind resistence', i.e how does the garmin know what your frontal area is?
• Does garmin work together with Strava? Or do they just make use of strava's open API?

Thanks for reading!

Edit: Maybe this is also outdated, but it seems that the iPhone came out on top in this comparison https://www.singletracks.com/blog/gps/gps-distance-accuracy-test-smartphone-apps-vs-dedicated-gps/, thoughts?

Strava doesn't give you an accurate power output anymore than a Garmin without a powermeter. Its merely an estimation based on your height, weight and speed and therefore inaccurate. If you want accurate power readings, you need a powermeter.

imafatman

Palladium wrote:

So I guess this is just to make you look/feel more 'pro'?

Nothing to do with feeling pro?? Try doing a 5 hour ride in summer with the beating sun and let me know how well the phone works out for you. Hell most phones will struggle with 2 hours on screen time at full brightness.

A phone is just not fit for purpose as a cycle computer unless you are a casual cyclist. You don't need a pro unit, I've ridden with £20-30 cycle computers for 15 years and they are 10x better than a phone mount.

jameskliu

I've been road cycling for about 4 years. I started out with strapping my phone to the bike and loading up strava (actually I started with map my ride then moved to strava because it was a bigger community), then moved to a garmin 520. A lot of times I turn on both just to see, they are always a little off. my phone always thinks I burn more calories for some reason. When I'm riding by myself I still strap my phone to the handlebars because sometimes I play music. you can save batteries on strava by having the screen go to sleep after a certain amount of time. I like the garmin because you can put routes on there with turn by turn prompts if I am riding a newly planned route. And the form factor is sleeker and easier to scroll through, to get elevation, maps, etc. You can put the map up on the strava on your phone but sometimes its hard to see.

I can't speak definitively on the accuracy, I have tried looking this up in different forums to see and never reached a firm conclusion, but strava is based on location as transmitted by your phone, so I would think that is subject to where you are, signal strength, etc. If you buy the cadence and wheel sensor to go with the garmin I imagine that is more accurate.

in terms of loading to strava, all you do is turn on the garmin phone app near your garmin and it sinks to your phone then uploads to strava if you have the functionality turned on. If you have strava on your phone as well, it will send both and you will see two different ride entries and you can compare before deleting one of them.

my conclusion is that I definitely would go for the bike computer. Not to say the garmin 520 doesn't have it stupid interface problems, but I like it separate to the phone

ugo.santalucia

• Much better battery life
• More accurate data on max speed (afaik it doesn't offer a better representation of the avg speed as the gps on the phone works well over a long distance)
• Gives you a live power output

Not sure... my Garmin decided that the max speed I reached coming down Edge hill was 89 km/h, which is probably a bit excesssive... maybe more like 75 Km/h
As for the power output, we all know those data are pure garbage... how can you estimate power output if you don't even know the wind direction or intensity? Let alone other minor factors that might interfere with an estimate.
If you need to know the power, then you want to measure it rather than estimate.

I would say Garmin for battery life and for navigation, otherwise a phone is probably just as good

craker

Doesn't screen brightness get mentioned in these discussions? B&W LCD display on my Garmin 500 is always on and always readable regardless of the weather.

I know in bright sunshine my phone struggles. Heck, there's not even room on my handlebars for something the size of a phone if I wanted to be on the tops of the bars.

and, TBH, after about of week of fixating on average speeds I found it better to concentrate on the funner aspects of riding a bike. Still, its your ride.

slowbike

ugo.santalucia wrote:

As for the power output, we all know those data are pure garbage... how can you estimate power output if you don't even know the wind direction or intensity? Let alone other minor factors that might interfere with an estimate.
If you need to know the power, then you want to measure it rather than estimate.

Oh - I don't know - it's probably accurate to the nearest 100w ...

ugo.santalucia

Slowbike wrote:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

As for the power output, we all know those data are pure garbage... how can you estimate power output if you don't even know the wind direction or intensity? Let alone other minor factors that might interfere with an estimate.
If you need to know the power, then you want to measure it rather than estimate.

Oh - I don't know - it's probably accurate to the nearest 100w ...

That helps, I only need another 100 W to be in Tour de France shape...

vinnymarsden

Having tried both I am definitely in the real bike computer GPS camp.... they are quite simply, just better.

wongataa

craker wrote:

Doesn't screen brightness get mentioned in these discussions? B&W LCD display on my Garmin 500 is always on and always readable regardless of the weather.

Garmin Edge screens are designed to be readable in daylight without any backlighting. Phone screens are not designed to be readable without the backlight on. This is why phones die more quickly if the screen is on all the time - the backlight is power hungry.

WilWooRW

Can STRAVA even show you your HR an Power output all at once? I mean if a phone can connect two Bluetooth devices.

trivial_poursuivant

WilWooRW wrote:

Can STRAVA even show you your HR an Power output all at once? I mean if a phone can connect two Bluetooth devices.

Which it can’t, problem with a phone, especially an iPhone is it’s ok for route recording but that’s it. You can’t connect more than one of a hrm, cadence, powermeter, speed sensor via Bluetooth so useless for being on the turbo. You can get a Ant+ dongle but they are the old 30pin which you need a lightning port adapter and then it has to be a rip off apple one or it might not work. Your always better off with a gps like Garmin. Wahoo, Lezyne and Bryton do half decent alternatives

shmooster

A lot of people these days (including me) start with a phone then move to a dedicated device when they start to do longer rides and want to keep their phone battery in case of an emergency. As a casual rider, phone is OK, but if you want more features and a decent battery life you really need a Garmin/Wahoo/whatever.

pep.fermi

Resurrecting this old thread...

What is the advantage of a dedicated device, Garmin or whatever, compared to a smartphone?

I'm not bothered with measuring RPM or power. Rain, smartphone battery not an issue (longest ride ca 9hr). Now being used to it, like most others, I would probably want to carry my phone with me anyway. Risk of my cheap smartphone falling off the handlebar is sufficiently low (used it the last 4yr, including MTB, never fallen off).