Touring GPS under $150
 

Looking at some of the Lezyne and similar GPSs, and my main concern is battery life. What's got the longest life with HR, cadence and preferably Bluetooth to the Android Strava app under $150 base price?
Ideally, I'd like enough life for two or more days between charges, but I'll probably need a power bank for my phone anyway.

Have you tried using your Android phone GPS with an app such as Osmand or Maps.me?

Both apps (as well as others) work with pre-downloaded maps and your phone's GPS signal only (no cell signal required).

What's a "Touring GPS"? Sounds like something you'd use for navigation.

There are quite a number of GPS units that will record your position/track/ride.

Some of the cheaper ones will let you load a route and follow the line on the screen and provide basic turn notifications.

http://www.lezyne.com/product-gps-supergpsY10.php

You probably want to indicate how long you are riding for.

Phones can work fine, but yesterday my Samsung S4's display said it used 22% of its power in a 70 minute ride in which I tracked only speed, distance, and route and had all data turned off. The battery is a few months old.

I'm less concerned with realtime nav than basic computer functions, with cadence, heart rate and tracking for Strava. That's how I generally keep up with my weekly miles, and get an overall idea of how much I've improved from month to month. I also find HR/time to be a much better indicator of calories burned than any guesswork from other metrics. That said, next turn distance would be handy as both a motivator ("I can do this for one more mile and then I'll rest at the turnoff") and in case I need to take a very convoluted route.

I'd like to see 12+ hours of active battery life, to be able to do two 6 hour days between charges. Some leeway in that is handy, as ideal (so I want to keep riding) or terrible (so I still need to go farther to get to a good overnight spot) conditions keep me in the saddle for a while longer.

That's the problem with my Kyocera; the battery wouldn't last a full day of tracking even with very little screen use. The Lezyne and others use plain LCDs that don't eat up so much power, but none of them specify a battery life.

You aren't looking hard enough. The link I posted earlier says "22h runtime". That might not include navigation.

The Lezyene says 22 h. If that's optimistic, 12 or so hours out of it might be reasonable.

Depending on the size of the "power bank" you are considering, it shouldn't be too hard to recharge (the battery isn't likely to be more than 1000mAh).

Note that keeping your phone off is something to consider (especially, if you are in a area with no or poor cell reception).

Every model on the Lezyne website lists typical battery life.

The Super GPS states 24 hrs. but is the priciest.

I knew a guy who did a self-supported NYC to SF tour, used an iPhone to navigate, plus a solar cell pad on the rear panniers to charge a separate cell phone battery, then used the battery overnight to charge the iPhone.

Not sure how I missed that. Guess I was expecting it to be a big bragging point, considering how bad GPS battery life used to be. (Had a Lowrance GM100 back in the day that ate 4AAs in about 3 hours, and both a Garmin and a Magellan that would eat two in less than two hours.)

That's the main reason I want the GPS function elsewhere. OTOH, airplane mode battery life is pretty darn good with the screen off, so if I can find an app that will deactivate airplane mode, sync email, check voicemail, and Facebook Messenger, then turn airplane mode back on, at configurable intervals or set times, that might be a good option so I don't forget to power up and check at rest stops.

Check out Bryton Ryder 530E
About $150.00

The Garmin Edge units do much better than that. Not 22h. But with navigation and the map displayed, I get 8+ hours out an old 800.

I don't think there is such an app but I'd like to be wrong.

The facebook apps are notoriously horrible for battery life.

I picked up a Cateye Stealth 50 pretty cheap and it lasts all day, has a reasonably large display, has Ant+ and uploads to Strava, but not through your phone (no bluetooth). Have to upload using your computer, but it is very simple and works well. Can get one for well under $100 (I think I paid around $50 on ebay for mine).

my Lezyne super gps will easily last at least 18 hours. this is using their proprietary heart rate monitor, speed/cadence sensor, and having my phone synced to the unit for directions.

it works pretty good. ive been able to charge it also using a very small power bank from 2% back up to 80 percent while in use in about an hour.

The Edge 25, which is now on sale for $120, or $140 with cadence sensor, claims 8 hours.

I wish you wouldn't keep praising the Lezyne, srestrepo. I want one, but it doesn't fit into my plans right now...I can feel my resistance weakening....:)

Sigma Rox 10. You can probably find one on sale for around $150. Pretty basic gps nav function, but it works ok for me.

Having to upload through a computer would kill a lot of the functionality on tour, since I'd be carrying at most a tablet with a keyboard for the occasions where wifi is available. Daily (or more likely twice a day) Strava uploads would make sure that my backup crew has an idea of where to look for me if I disappear.

Looks like unless something happens to be on deep discount right when I have the cash available, I'll probably end up with the Lezyne Macro Loaded package. 18+ hours of battery life should handle any two day stretch of a tour, and more likely three days if necessary.

At this point, I'm just trying to build up the full touring setup one or two things at a time. Not sure where that will fall on the overall list, but for the moment I've been rebuilding my old camping kit, and changing over to hammock based rather than tent based.

A refurbished Garmin Touring is on sale.

Search Results For: EdgeTouringPlus

Since I don't use any of those to tour (or otherwise), I won't comment on your choices, except to say that you seem to be asking for the sun, moon and stars all on a low budget.

If it doesn't insult you, I suggest you consider thinking about what you really want on tour, and go without what you don't, saving both front end cost, and battery life.

Gotta say I adore my Wahoo bolt. It is awesome

You can get a refurbished (new case, new battery, and factory warranty) Garmin Edge 800 for $170.

Other makers GPSes are worse for long rides on unfamiliar roads, with worse or non-existent

• Maps (buy a micro-SD card and download from openfietsmap.nl). The 800 maps have roads, street names, and can be panned when zoomed in so you see where roads go.
• Turn-by-turn navigation. The 800 switches to the map screen .1 miles before a turn, and can highlight the road in white.
• User specified data-points from .tcx files for things like food and water stops
• Routing to nearby Points Of Interest like bike shops for emergency repairs and public water sources if a stop is closed.

Garmin claims 15 hours of battery life; although I run mine off a dynamo hub and couldn't tell you what the actual life is. The mini USB power connector faces the rider so you can run it riding with a USB cable that won't fall out - I use a 90 degree cable on my K-Edge XL out-front mount. Unlike the older 500, it allows charging while riding with a standard USB cable.

The newer 810 sometimes crashes based on what's on the map, with roundabouts a common problem.

The 800 can crash on long rides, although splitting them up into smaller files and joining them later using fittools.com avoids that.

I tried an ELEMNT and returned it. The Bolt is smaller and costs less, but uses the same software.

While the software may now be past its teething pains, Wahoo made the wise business decision to rely on users' smart phones where they leverage software written by other people to do things like routing and mapping and I wouldn't want to rely on that with cellular internet access not 100% reliable and battery life poor.

You can't see cycling roads on the map without zooming in, and can't pan while zoomed in. Street names aren't included on maps so you can't recognize different parts of long roads you're familiar with. There's no routing in the ELEMNT.

Before the ELEMNT and 800 I used a Garmin Edge 500 with bread crumbs but no maps. I upgraded because I made too many wrong turns on long rides where multiple roads came together nearby and the street signs weren't readable, or I took a circuitous route getting to a food stop.

I also tried an 810 (newer garmins have Bluetooth which makes them more attractive), but had a software crash on my first ride and lost data within the first week.

The Edge Touring and Touring Plus are the 800 hardware with different firmware that omits things like support for a power meter.

I thought about giving up on smart phones for bike GPS navigation when I completely exhausted my S5 battery on a hour ride with the screen turned off and phone in my jersey pocket. I completely abandoned the idea when I didn't make it through a 200K ride only starting ridewithgps and enabling GPS when I was confused.