Originally Posted by
lightbulbjim
Went for a ride yesterday, had my phone with me as usual. When I started out all the numbers on the Mini display looked normal and it seemed to be recording properly. About twenty minutes later I noticed that the ride time and distance were at zero. Speed was still working although I'm sure whether it was coming from the GPS or wheel sensor. The Bluetooth icon was displayed on the Mini screen but the phone app wouldn't detect it.
I ended the ride on the Mini and, after restarting it and the phone app, got them connected again. About 3/4 of the previous section seemed to have saved, but distance and time only. No GPS track. I started recording again and continued my ride and that section saved correctly (as a new ride) with the track and all stats.
When I got home I happened to notice that the Mini system menu showed 0% free space. Not sure if that was a cause or effect of the problem I saw (or totally unrelated) but I ran a factory reset and fingers crossed it won't misbehave again.
One thing is for sure, the next computer I buy will have its own GPS.
The nice thing about the Mini is that you can use any decent cycling app with it. The only reason I can see for using the companion app is to pair it to the phone so you can set up the Mini or to change something later on. Since you don't receive notifications on a Mini, the companion app is sort of useless once the setup is done.
You can pair your speed (or any other dual band) senor to the Mini via Ant+ and also pair them to your phone, through the cycling app, via BTLE. You can now use your third party cycling app as you would the companion app but with all the features of the third party app not found in the companion app.