Turn-by-turn (by itself) isn't enough. I'd like to try their app on a phone but it still has all the problem of smartphones (and the limitations of the RFLKT+).

Ridewithgps is very focused on bicycle navigation (and they are fairly smart), which might make them a good candidate for doing it right. Of course, to use the app, you need a $6 month subscription, which you have to include in the analysis of cost.

Most of them characterized by various degrees of suckitude. Ridewithgps might be an exception. These might actually not taking over market share much at all (they may mostly appeal to people who would never buy a Garmin in the first place).

For your limited use, the 1000 was a silly purchase. The 1000 isn't really targeted to "most cyclists" anyway.

But not "a LOT" of cases with batteries that are also weather resistant. Not even a lot of the better weather resistant cases that don't have batteries. And you need a mount too. And it would be huge.

The same things that would make the RFLKT+ better could be applied to the Garmins. The barrier isn't that "low" either. (It doesn't seem that people are buying the RFLKT+ in droves either.)

Garmin sells the Touring, which is mostly a 810 with some features disabled (and no WiFi/BT capability), for $250.

What may happen is that Garmin is driven out of the market leaving cyclists with something that doesn't work as well for them.

The Garmin phone was a not a good product. It's not the "same movie". It wasn't reasonable to have expected that Garmin could have been able to compete with established smartphone manufacturers in a mature industry. We don't have any details of the development process of the Garmin phone anyway.

It doesn't make sense to make the 1000 a cellphone and it appears that smartphones will not be well suited for a long while to what the 1000 does well. To me, the "connectivity" stuff is a secondary function.

Still, as you said, the "PND CEOs" might be worried. It's possible that the cyclists that find the 1000 useful should be worried too.

For about the umpteenth time - it's not an either/or thing. But it is a seriously disruptive problem for the PND guys.

I very specifically used the word "sidle". For your reference, here's the definition: "walk in a furtive manner, unobtrusive or timid manner; especially sideways". The idea being that they are carefully sneaking into the PND suppliers market and taking away market share - classic guerrilla marketing. They come in cheaply, gain market share, then gradually keep extending their position without confronting frontally. That's exactly what's happening here.

I'm not arguing that Garmin SHOULD be driven out of the market, I'm arguing that this disruptive technology is a serious problem for them and going to get more serious and I'm wondering how they will address it and if they will be successful in NOT being driven out of the market. On the other hand, wishing for this to go away and leave PND based solutions alone is never going to happen - that ship sailed a couple of years ago.

J.

It could be an issue for the "PND guys". But (some) cyclists might not be well served by the "disruption" either. What cyclists end-up with might actually be more expensive too.

I haven't argued that the "disruption" won't happen. You just keep seeing "little functional difference", when there are obvious differences (just because they are diffences that you don't care about doesn't make them go away).



Smartphones are general purpose computers. The cycling-specific stuff is being provided by niche companies who are "marketing" their products in a direct/transparent way. No "guerilla marketing" going on.

It could be more of a steam roller crushing everything to the same level than "sidling".

A few things:

(1) I use that feature on a regular basis, literally every time I ride with cell reception.

(2) What you're talking about is actually the reason companies make more than one product. For example you can buy a 510 that does Live Tracking, or for $100 less you can buy a 500 that doesn't. If you don't care about or understand a feature, you shouldn't pay for it. That doesn't mean other people also find something unimportant.

My girlfriend wants to know when I'm coming home, if I don't use Live Tracking she'll text or call me during my ride to ask. If I do use it, she has a cold glass of iced tea waiting for me when I get home.

It doesn't actually tweet your position on a regular basis. The watch or computer sends your position to the phone which relays the data to a server. When you invite people, they're given a link which pulls your data down from the server. Twitter is one way you can send the link out; I don't have a twitter or facebook account so I just use email.

It's a neat system in that it combines the strong points of the phone with those of the watch. You could do the same with just a phone and a third-party app, but GPS is hard on phone batteries and you would get much less time out of it.

Plus, who knows what some of those apps are doing with your data?

Find my Friends app does that without a bike computer. And it doesn't cause a drain on the phone's battery because it doesn't look for the position until it's queried by, for example, by your girlfriend. There are other ways to do this within the software of some of the cycle apps.

I agree that's a neat feature. As a family, we use find my friends all the time.

J.

It already is. Go ask them. I have.

Quote:

But (some) cyclists might not be well served by the "disruption" either.

Unfortunately, that's not how markets work.

I'm looking at the larger picture. By far the majority of bike computer functionality is already available in the cycling apps and smartphones. It's by going upscale and trying to stay ahead of it is the strategy that the PND mfgs are using now. Whether that is sustainable is what you and I are arguing about.

Disagree. Abvio (Cyclemeter) - for example - is not a company big enough to go head to head with Garmin. So they address it by nibbling away at the market. Multiply Abvio by ten. Go read Reis and Trout, "Marketing Warfare." Shortest and most succinct discussion of this that I know. It's an easy read and it's been true for decades.

What this winds up being is Gulliver being tied down by the Lilliputians. One way out of it is for Garmin and the PND suppliers to buy the little guys up. Apple has done this successfully before. Leaving them to be and to grow is probably not the path to sustainability for the PND suppliers.

J.

Yes, sometimes markets work in sucky ways (not something I was commenting about anyway). But that's not the same thing as claiming "little functional difference" (which is one thing commenting about).

The alternative, racing to the bottom, isn't going to work.

I've actually made no comment about sustainability.

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

"Guerilla marketing" isn't just "being tied down by the Lilliputians". (If everything is "a disruption" or "guerilla marketing", then nothing is.)

Apple is quite a different company than Garmin. The "little guys" might not make any or very much money (and there are a lot of them!). And they are competing against open source alternatives.

With what is being discussed in this thread, you are running the GPS continuously on one or another device. So, for this discussion, this feature is moot.

Does Garmin still manufacture the 500?

This is getting really absurd. You win the "last word" contest. Happy?

J.

Yes.

I don't know, but as a cyclist you can get one, new-in-the-box, in the $150 ballpark.

I don't think Garmin is manufacturing them. They are cheap basically because Garmin isn't making them.

It's still a good opportunity for anybody for whom it would work (the 500 is very well liked).

The same opportunity existed for the 800 (it still may be available). If one doesn't need the features the 810 has that the 800 doesn't, the 810 doesn't work any better than the 800.

(This wouldn't apply in the case of the 500. If Garmin isn't actually making them.)

Neither of us really knows whether they're being made, but that isn't relevant. What's important is that they're being sold en masse.

The question everybody is spilling so much ink over is what's the best alternative; the fact that this is a capable performer, widely available at a fair price makes it an alternative, whether new ones are currently being made or not. If you couldn't go out and get one, it wouldn't be relevant or an alternative (to smart phones).

Garmin is still selling the 500 (it isn't still selling the 800).

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/cInt...ycling-p1.html

But I believe the 500 software is listed as mature and no further upgrades.

J.

That shouldn't be a practical issue (I don't think it's a reason not to consider the 500).

The 500 appears to be an odd case. Clearly, it's an old unit. I suspect that Garmin isn't making it anymore (but who knows!) but they still have some/many to sell. It sits at a price point much lower than its "replacement", the larger 510. So it makes some sense to still make the 500.

That is, Garmin isn't making it from some conscious intent to have it as an option to its customers (contrary to what Seattle Forest first said). But, due to other circumstances (that is, luck), it is still an option at least until the stock goes away (as Seattle Forest said later). It still being made intentionally to provide options and there still being old stock around are not the same thing.

The 500 is very near end of life. Besides market reasons, there are also going to be component reasons. The guts are long in the tooth and likely also heading for EOL.

J.

Possibly.

Or, it's now cheaper to make (tooling investments would be paid-off). If the components are custom, then Garmin can have them made as long as they like. The 500 is a case, a battery, and a chip. It's not likely any of these are "off the shelf" components.

Or Garmin expected the sales of the 510 to supplant sales of the 500 and didn't see that happening. The 510 is a lot bigger and more expensive: there may be number of people who prefer the 500.

There wasn't much of a reason to keep both the 800 and the 810. The Touring fills in for people who don't need the extra features (for more money) that the 810 has. The 810 keeps customers for whom the 1000 is too expensive.

I said that Garmin has several products that appeal to different segments of the market. That was unrelated to the Edge 500; it's just a general truth. (We're not talking about ancient history here.) You latched on to the 500 and got all obsessive because I pointed out that you can buy one today for much less than the cost of a new phone (which is true). You're tilting at windmills.

No, you what you said later was different that what you said at first.

It's possible that the problem is that you weren't clear but that's your problem.

If they don't make the 500, this can't be the reason. If the 500 is "unrelated", then it isn't an "example" of the reason.

No, there is way, way more to it than that. These sorts of devices are either an MCM (multi chip module) that includes a DRAM and a FLASH part in a single package (looks like one chip but isn't) plus CPU or they are a CPU with some mobile DRAM and FLASH on a small PCB (I believe this is the 500's set up). Then there is the whole RF (i.e. GPS receiver and ANT+) and display portions of the PCB as well.

Density changes in the memory can cause obsolescence easily and is a characteristic of these sorts of devices. The other big issue is that semiconductor process changes drive component obsolescence. Semiconductor suppliers move to more cost effective processes and it is quite normal for EOL notices to be issued to OEM mfgs for the end date on support. The process changes cost the IC guys billions and billions (Samsung's latest announced fab costs $15B) so they are pretty ruthless at cutting off old processes and the chips that go with them. If you're Apple with 80 million phones a year, you get your own factory - everyone else has to go with what is available.

The 500 is really an old device at almost 4 years old - ancient in the semiconductor world.

Garmin's volumes are not big enough for a total system on a chip device for a bike computer. Bike computers are niche products and in the world of consumer products are medium volume at best.

J.

I think I get it, you're confused because you thought two entirely different posts were both expressing a single thought. You make way too many unfounded assumptions in a lot of threads, I think that's why you wind up confused so often.

No, you don't get it. I'm talking about one paragraph (two sentences) in ONE post.

You don't understand what you write!

This makes no sense unless Garmin is actually making the 500.

And you people are myopic. You're trying to talk about "the end of the world" for value-added GPS makers, and you're being obsessive about a single unit from half a decade ago from a single company. Context? Understanding? Not here.