Originally Posted by
Steve B.
It's an interesting conundrum for folks who buy the Karoo. Unlike Wahoo and Garmin, it doesn't use BT to connect to the phone (excepting call and text notifications from the phone). They've skipped BT and use WiFi, from whatever source. If you feel you need data connectivity, you can either do the HotSpot route to a phone, which potential reduced battery life on the phone, or add a SIM card to the Karoo, at whatever that costs. I've been researching the SIM card route to find the cheapest option as I can see sideloading some Android apps for real-time weather (wind, alerts) and radar. Arguably the lack of BT makes the unit somewhat more reliable than a Garmin, whose BT reliability issues go back years and have never really been solved. HH decided to skip that nonsense it seems. But when you end with up with even a cheap SIM card, you are really close to being a cell phone, all that's missing is the ability to make a call and talk to someone.
The Karoo is interesting. It's basically an Android phone without the cell-voice support (
I said this before).
If making it a phone made good sense, Karoo would have done so. (One reason companies might not want to do it is liability.)
I think supporting data-only might be easier to do. I'd guess the Karoo only supports GSM. I think it also only supports the older data network (which is slated to go away).
On the Garmins, transferring routes over BT is much slower than WiFi.
Originally Posted by
Steve B.
But when you end with up with even a cheap SIM card, you are really close to being a cell phone, all that's missing is the ability to make a call and talk to someone.
There might be more missing than that. A DSP, a speaker, QOS issues.