Buy a cheap phone as bike computer?

garnett

Is this a terrible idea? There are a number of well-reviewed budget smartphones coming out of China in the £60-70 price bracket. If I stuck a Pay-As-You-Go sim in one, I could leave my phone behind.

All I'm really after is SatNav - so I can plot a route and it can show me, and guide me home.

brit66

I've been thinking alone the same lines. Install Google Maps on your budget phone and download the area where you cycle as an 'offline map' — so no need for a constant connection.

One issue might be battery life on a ride.

kingstongraham

With the screen always on, battery life will be your major concern. As long as it isn't raining.

drlodge

I have a cheap phone for cycling (Galaxy S3) but its just that, a phone for making calls. Garmin 800 does the Satnavving.

brit66

A cheap (and small) external battery pack could be the answer to phone's limited battery. I saw DC Rainmaker found one such item for a Garmin Satnav which he said had limited battery life. It's on his YT channel somewhere.

garnett

I had wondered about waterproofing... There are a few waterproof phone options, but also there are plenty of cases around for that problem. My current thoughts are to use a combo like an Otterbox and a Quadlock.

Battery life could be addressed by spare replacement battery if needed, but I'm not sure how phones fare versus dedicated solutions like Garmin sell.

3wheeler

Really interesting idea - I've also been looking at cycle computer options recently and when you're looking at £200 plus for a good one, it does seem that when a samsung phone has gps, ant+, touch screen etc then maybe that could do the job. samsung phones since around s5 i think are waterproof, but battery life on a ride over a couple of hours would be the issue - I guess you can switch off the screen on long sections, or get an battery pack.

Are there any cheap cycle computers that don't have GPS but can connect to your phone for GPS and do routing/directions?

fenix

OS map in the back pocket is a lot cheaper and won't break or run flat.

garnett

I'm looking at the Xiaomi Redmi 4A as a potential candidate - £58 at the mo from Aliexpress. It's not waterproof though. There are a few cases there that look pretty water-proof, or water-resistant. It also doesn't have a replaceable battery.

I know a Garmin Edge1000 is going to have advantages over the Chinese phone, but the phone also trumps the Garmin in some respects:-the abilty to leave my regular handset at home, still have access to the Internet, be able to take some photos, wider (albeit less bespoke) compatibilty with other fitness services, and in a crash I've potentially only trashed £60 worth of electronics compared to £250...

And it's a spare handset when not in use on the bike.

Sportiveman

How about a second hand garmin ? This would be only slightly more !!

lettingthedaysgoby

You'd need the cheap phone, an ugly waterproof case and a backup battery, plus some way of cabling the battery to the phone.

At which point it all seems a bit of a faff and I'd go buy a Wahoo.

kingstongraham

Or put your phone in your pocket and only look at it when you aren't sure where you are going.

supermurph09

lettingthedaysgoby wrote:

You'd need the cheap phone, an ugly waterproof case and a backup battery, plus some way of cabling the battery to the phone.

At which point it all seems a bit of a faff and I'd go buy a Wahoo.

This, absolutely this. I'd wager quite a lot of people go down this "cheap" route then end up with something that was built for the job, a phone is not designed to be sat on the handlebars. If money is the factor, just save a little bit more and wait.

New devices from Garmin and Wahoo will surely push down the values of older units so you might even get a bargain.

Andymaxy

Garnett wrote:

Is this a terrible idea? There are a number of well-reviewed budget smartphones coming out of China in the £60-70 price bracket. If I stuck a Pay-As-You-Go sim in one, I could leave my phone behind.

All I'm really after is SatNav - so I can plot a route and it can show me, and guide me home.

I think Nokia, yes Nokia, is the best choice for your purpose. Nokia smart phones have built in gps that requires no internet connection(I believe this is something they've patented, no other phones can do this), which is awesome, so you don't have worry about using too much data.
Also Nokia phones have very good battery life compared to some others, so it's worth considering.

ayjaycee

It's just my personal opinion but I have always thought that a phone mounted on the bike looked a bit wanky but I suppose cheaper ones could look better as they would tend to be smaller. However, small phone usually means small battery etc. plus once it's in a waterproof case on an ugly mount, you will probably be back to it looking wanky again. If you must use a phone why not just leave it in your pocket with the screen off and dig it out when needed. You can also stick to in a ziplock sandwich bag for weatherproofing. Although I only use a Moto G5 myself, I've no experience of really cheap smart phones but I could imagine that stuff like GPS on them might also be a bit flakey. I actually used a Moto G4 until I wrecked it a little while ago and I was quite impressed with it, particularly as it was waterproof out of the box. They can be had quite cheaply from eBay and I reckon would be a much better buy than something at £60 new.

ayjaycee

Andymaxy wrote:

I think Nokia, yes Nokia, is the best choice for your purpose. Nokia smart phones have built in gps that requires no internet connection(I believe this is something they've patented, no other phones can do this), which is awesome, so you don't have worry about using too much data.
Also Nokia phones have very good battery life compared to some others, so it's worth considering.

Maybe I'm being thicker than usual but what has built in GPS got to do with an internet connection?

trek_dan

You can get a used Gamrin 500 for £40 or £50. If your reasonably handy with a soldering iron buy one with a failed battery for pennies and fix it. Kit is about £10 off Amazon. You still can't beat the Garmin 500 for a basic cycling computer in terms of functionality and battery life.

supermurph09

trek_dan wrote:

You can get a used Gamrin 500 for £40 or £50. If your reasonably handy with a soldering iron buy one with a failed battery for pennies and fix it. Kit is about £10 off Amazon. You still can't beat the Garmin 500 for a basic cycling computer in terms of functionality and battery life.

Had a garmin edge 500 for about 4 years, served me very well. It has the breadcrumb type mapping which might be enough given that most people carry a phone anyway. Use the phone if you get lost etc. I'd highly recommend the 500.

I've recently gone to the Wahoo BOLT which is superb though

ayjaycee

trek_dan wrote:

You can get a used Gamrin 500 for £40 or £50. If your reasonably handy with a soldering iron buy one with a failed battery for pennies and fix it. Kit is about £10 off Amazon. You still can't beat the Garmin 500 for a basic cycling computer in terms of functionality and battery life.

Dan is spot on - I actually replaced the battery in an Edge 500 a few weeks ago and it was easy (and if I thought it was easy, it really must have been). Of course the Edge 500 won't give you mapping.

garnett

ayjaycee wrote:

It's just my personal opinion but I have always thought that a phone mounted on the bike looked a bit wanky

I think this is quite a common view - it seems like it's the fact the phone (plus case) is bulkier - is that the only reason?

fenix

Unless you're planning an expedition or moonlighting as a rickshaw driver - getting slightly lost is part of the fun of cycling.
You can usually spot the general direction and you find the best roads when you don't intend to.

Also there's a surprising amount of lanes on maps that no longer exist in the real world.

lettingthedaysgoby

Andymaxy wrote:

Garnett wrote:

Is this a terrible idea? There are a number of well-reviewed budget smartphones coming out of China in the £60-70 price bracket. If I stuck a Pay-As-You-Go sim in one, I could leave my phone behind.

All I'm really after is SatNav - so I can plot a route and it can show me, and guide me home.

I think Nokia, yes Nokia, is the best choice for your purpose. Nokia smart phones have built in gps that requires no internet connection(I believe this is something they've patented, no other phones can do this), which is awesome, so you don't have worry about using too much data.
Also Nokia phones have very good battery life compared to some others, so it's worth considering.

No GPS requires Internet. It’s a totally separate system.

Maybe this Nokia has a set of preloaded maps?

pblakeney

Andymaxy wrote:

Garnett wrote:

Is this a terrible idea? There are a number of well-reviewed budget smartphones coming out of China in the £60-70 price bracket. If I stuck a Pay-As-You-Go sim in one, I could leave my phone behind.

All I'm really after is SatNav - so I can plot a route and it can show me, and guide me home.

I think Nokia, yes Nokia, is the best choice for your purpose. Nokia smart phones have built in gps that requires no internet connection(I believe this is something they've patented, no other phones can do this), which is awesome, so you don't have worry about using too much data.
Also Nokia phones have very good battery life compared to some others, so it's worth considering.

I had GPS on my phones long before "smart" phones came into being, or had internet connection.
And I have never had a Nokia.

garnett

Fenix wrote:

getting slightly lost is part of the fun of cycling.
You can usually spot the general direction and you find the best roads when you don't intend to.

For sure. But then some people will say the same about how Strava isn't part of the fun of cycling. Or power meters. Or carbon. Etc etc.

Everybody's different I guess, and for me, as I've just moved to a new area, I want to be able to plough along some lanes and not worry about being able to find my way back.

kingstongraham

Getting lost isn't part of my fun of cycling. I've done it, and it's generally more annoying finding you need to ride back on myself than going the better way in the first place. It's especially not fun if you are trying to go from one place to another, and suddenly realise you are getting further away from your destination.

apreading

As I understand it:

I dont think any common phone uses internet constantly for GPS once it has a lock on position, otherwise they wouldnt work when you have no signal. They all have sattelite chipsets built in, they only use the internet connection to download the satellite positioning data more quickly than receiving it from a satellite after getting a lock, which allows them to fix your position much more quickly. They also use the Cell tower information to get a rough position while the GPS fixes you more precisely. The one thing that might happen is if the sattelite reception is really poor, they might seek to augment this with regular internet calls. This is all called 'assisted' GPS. Once they have locked onto sufficient satellites, they should all work largely the same way as the Nokia you desribe, just better.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

apreading

My advice would be to buy a second hand Garmin 800. I got one when they were making one and still havent upgraded because they havent launched a better device yet. Its not perfect but the niggles dont impact its use really and everything they launched since has problems which I would be unhappy with. Battery life is fantastic and It also allows you to use it while wearing gloves, unlike modern touch screen phones/gps.

garnett

By way of a bit of an update, I had a play around with an old Samsung Galaxy S3 Mini we had knocking around. Strava will not run on an S3 officially but I did a bit of research.

I now know a lot more about rooting phones and custom roms than I ever thought I would, but I now have it running a very lightweight operating system (SlimKat 4.4.4) and Strava, which is everything I needed it to. The phone's Bluetooth is able to connect to my Wahoo HRM chest strap too which is an unexpected bonus.

It's the same size as a Garmin, and I'm waiting on a cheap £6 mount from China... A new battery cost me £3.50



I've stuck a pay-as-you-go SIM in there to make calls if needed, so I can leave my main phone at home.

So for £10 plus ongoing as-and-when cost of the payg sim I've got what I needed.

Hope that's of help and/or interest to others.

drlodge

My bike phone is an S3 neo on three PAYG, just use for emergencies though as have a Garmin 800.