iPhone 5s as bike computer?
 

Hello everyone,

I'm purchasing my first road bike in a month (Specialized Secteur). I plan on riding mostly in group rides in the South Florida area. I've been doing a lot of research on items I'll be purchasing with my new bike and I'm not clear on the whole bike computer issue. I currently have a Lifeproof case attached to my hybrid that I plan on moving over to my road bike. I've been using the Wahoo Fitness app and it seems to be working fine (no sensors connected). The data that I would like to have during my ride is speed, cadence and heart rate, I'll also be purchasing a speed and cadence sensor along with a heart rate strap.

Should I use my phone as my bike computer or should I buy a stand alone unit?

Thanks for your help.

I can't guarantee cadence or anything, but I use my iPhone with Strava. If you upgrade to the premium service, I think you can use heart rate monitor and such.

Using the phone for GPS does eat up the battery, and you don't want to be too low in case of an emergency. For long rides you ought to have a mounting case for the phone with an auxiliary battery.

Just get a Garmin Edge 500. No hassles with battery life and water/crash damage.

I started using my iPhone 5s with Wahoo Tickr. Today I rode for about 90 minutes and it used up 25% of the battery. I had the screen on the whole time but dimmed at 50%
Wahoo Fitness works great but if you can avoid having the screen on the whole time, you will save battery.
I hear of those using Wahoo Rflkt which works with your iPhone to display everything and thus save your iPhone battery. But it isn't cheap. The base model is $99. I decided it was cheaper to get an external battery charger which can be used on and off the bike.

Right, it is an auxiliary device that takes over the display function from the phone. The powerful phone functions give a lot of utility, but the phone doesn't carry the burden of the display.

I started out cycling by using my iPhone 5s as a bike computer mounted on the handlebars running Endomondo app recording course, distance, and speed. I quickly realized I wanted ANT+ sensor support (HRM, cadence, and speed), and longer battery life. In came the Garmin Edge 510 and I'm a happy camper.

Several reasons to have a separate cycling computer. One is battery life of the phone. Second is phone damage from a crash. Third is a computer for just speed, cadence and HR cost about the same as the pieces you need for the phone. Finally people look like a dork with a phone on their bars. :)

Since you're planning on buying speed/cadence and heart rate sensors, I'd recommend you purchase sensors that do both ANT+ & Bluetooth. They're minimally more expensive than ANT+ only sensors. That way you can start out using your iPhone, and if you decide you don't like it, you can purchase an ANT+ based stand-alone cycle computer.

I just recently got Trek's new Duotrap S sensor, which broadcasts in both ANT+ and Bluetooth. So far, it's worked great broadcasting simultaneously to my Garmin 500 via ANT+ and my iPhone 5s via Bluetooth (using Strava). My HRM is ANT+ only, so that data is only recorded on the Garmin. On the two rides I've had thus far, the Garmin data and the Strava data were identical (speed & cadence only).

I'm contemplating swapping over to using my iPhone 5s as my only cycling computer because I'd like to utilize turn-by-turn navigation on pre-loaded courses, and I'd only need to purchase a bluetooth capable HRM and an iPhone mount, which is considerably cheaper than buying a new Garmin 810 (yes, I know the 500 does turn-by-turn, but let's be honest with each other, it's pretty crappy compared to what an 810 offers). I'm going to start experimenting with various cycling apps to try to find one that has turn-by-turn navigation that meets my requirements; if that happens, I'll swap over to iPhone-only.

FYI, the HRM I've been considering is the Mio Link:
http://www.mioglobal.com/i/46X_2.jpg

Transmits both ANT+ and Bluetooth, it's worn on the wrist, and it's only $99.

Unless you already have a handlebar mount for your iphone, save your money and get a regular cateye computer, and run strava/endomondo/whatever sports app on your phone in your pocket/saddlebag to record your ride details. Having your phone display on 100% of the time will eat up your battery on long rides, and as said above, a great big phone sitting on your bars looks dorky.

I used to use my iPhone as my cycling computer. I had the Wahoo Cycling app which would automatically upload my rides to Strava. It did a decent job for me, but I had a few issues. First, I had a few occasions on hotter rides where my iphone shut down due to higher temperatures. Secondly, I was always worried about water or sweat dripping down on my phone. As others have said, if you leave your screen on constantly to monitor speed, cadence and mileage, it drastically ran my battery down. I thought it was lame to even consider carrying a battery charger on longer rides. Lastly, the climbing/elevation data on my iPhone was waaaaay out of wack. It would over exaggerate my climb data and give me false confidence.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a Garmin 810. Obviously not the cheapest option, but it addressed most of the issues that I described above. It automatically sinks up my data to my iPhone and uploads ride data to Strava. On longer solo weekend rides I can send my wife a link where she can track my route in real time. This comes in handy should a problem arise.

To keep things cheap I started with my Iphone and Mapmyride. After adding a HRM, I find no reason to swap to another means of recording my ride.

Its battery life will suffer for sure.

You could mount an auxiliary battery on the top of your top tube tho.

I think the phone aps are great, but currently I run a very simple cyclecomputer, and then some aps on the Iphone. The Wahoo ap for me anyway is pretty energy efficient even leaving the screen on all the time, it uses a LOT less juice then Cyclemeter and leaving the screen on.

For longer rides I let the screen blank out........292 minutes riding with cyclemeter like that only ate 20% of the battery.

I'm kind of looking at all the options for a new road bike purchase this fall......sort of leaning towards the barest bones cycle computer that does cadence...then using the phone for stuff like HRM and mapping. I do not do cross country stuff so my needs/wants are not the same as some other folks needs/wants

Bill

Thanks for the tip. The garmin HR straps have been fine but they tend to die after about a year. Garmin has been good about replacing them under warranty, but the wrist approach has appeal. Might have to get one of these. Anyone know how well they work? Accurate? Battery life? Do they die like the Garmin straps?

EDIT: Amazon reviews are all over the place with quite a few saying it doesn't work well. Disappointing.

How do you like mapmyride? Have you ever used it for navigation (if so, how'd it go?)?

I'd just go with a normal bike computer. like a garmin 510 / 810 ... (or 500 if you to go cheap).
Dedicated computer displays are always on
Don't have to worry about draining iphone battery on long rides
Ant+ sensors
When I'm climbing hills, I drip tons of sweat all over my bike computer. I wouldn't want to do that to my iphone
They're also more accurate. Iphone is off for distance / elevation.

my buddy uses the Wahoo Rflkt with Strava. it works.. but it's only as accurate as the GPS calculations. on one of our days where we climbed 8k feet. It read something like 14k climbed and extra couple of miles during the ride. After he uploaded it to strava, it got GPS corrected and dropped down to 9k feet of climbing... miles were still high. Stuff like top Speed is also way off on GPS on apps. On rides where he maxed out at 40-45mph, his Strava will say 55+ mph top speed. (he also has a cheap bike computer that came with the bike.. so he knows his iphone is off when it comes to speed / distance).

Thanks everyone for your help. Based on the responses I'm leaning towards buying a computer. Now the daunting task of selecting the right one for me. I would have never thought there was so much to cycling, from the bike, pedals, shoes, bibs or shorts, jersey, helmet ... :( and nothing is inexpensive. So as you may all imagine, I'm trying to make the right choice from the start. Thanks again.

Last year I converted from Garmin dedicated units to Cyclemeter (iPhone app) on my iPhone 5. I added the wahoo fitness speed and cadence sensor and have been extremely happy with it. I've had them all from the wired computers back in the day, to Cateye wireless, to GPS based units, and the phone version is the best by a fair amount. The display is better, the functionality is better, the sensor availability is the same or better, the connectivity is useful and the biggest reason of all - I'd have my phone along no matter what so this means one less thing to fool with.

With the iPhone 5, the battery is good for 3-6 hours depending on what you have on your phone and what you do with the display. If you go to the RFLKT+ the battery usage is something around 12-15% of the battery per 90 minutes in my experience. I also have a very short lightning cable and a battery that I can velcro strap to the frame (it's about the size of a pack of gum - a little bigger) and that adds another 5-6 hours.

So my advice after using the all, is to say that the iPhone makes the best bike computer.

You already have the mount, it seems so you should be all set.

J.

It does everything I need and use it all the time. It has a GPS and does live mapping as you ride along. It does speed, distance, heart rate, coaching, goals and calories. You can add sensors to it for cadence and power, and I think it now works with stuff like fitbit and other sensors. Like I said, I see no reason to switch.