Is a cycle computer more reliable than a phones GPS?

Takca

Hi All,

I've recently decided to do some cycling in order to get myself out and about (I've pretty much spent the last 15 years on my ass). So I've got myself a bike and in a burst of January enthusiasm I've managed to get myself out cycling 6 or 7 times in the last 2 weeks.

I've been tracking myself using the android strava app. The problem is that twice so far sections of my 12km route were missing, which will quite likely frustrate me a lot once I start doing longer rides(since I've set my self a goal in KM for the year).

Essentially I'm wondering if I've just been unlucky or if this is common when using the GPS on phones and if I splash out for a GPS computer could I expect it to be more reliable?

diarmaidol

Are you keeping the phone somewhere that it will keep a gps signal? Your probably unlucky or the Strava apps is having trouble on your phone. A bike computer is best but the phone is grand if you just want to log things.

Takca

diarmaidol wrote: »

Are you keeping the phone somewhere that it will keep a gps signal? Your probably unlucky or the Strava apps is having trouble on your phone. A bike computer is best but the phone is grand if you just want to log things.

Its sitting on the top tube in one of these maybe it is just the phone. In todays example, everything was fine for 3km then all of a sudden nothing was logged for the next 2km(at which point I did turn on the screen on the phone for a bit, after that the rest of the journey recorded fine.

magicbastarder

may just be your phone; i've never used anything but a phone, and only once has it glitched seriously on GPS readings (placed me 20m east of the road i was cycling for about 10km). if you're having GPS lock issues, it's more likely the phone to blame than the strava app - it can only work with the data it's given.

Lumen

Check power saving modes. My Sony has a "battery saver" mode it goes to when the battery gets to 30%, and that causes Strava (and radio streaming) to cut out.

PaddyFagan

I certainly had problems with the app - I used the app for about six months last year, and after the third ride in couple of weeks that had nothing recorded, including my longest ride last year :mad: I got a Garmin!

In the end it wasn't the only factor, I was getting paranoid that on longer rides having the app running would leave me with very little charge if I had a problem. Then once I started looking at the gps computer options I was seduced by the extra features

My own experience with my phone (iPhone 6S) the app worked completely about 80% of the time. The Garmin has never failed to record a ride or section for me, although I have struggled with some features like live tracking - no technology is ever 100%.

Paddy

Ps like a lot of bike related things, once you start with a basic model the drive to upgrade kicks in! The good news for today is that often means you'll see used gps computers in the ads here

magicbastarder

Re battery use, my experience is that strava barely has an effect on the battery. The phone does not need to broadcast anything to use gps so it's light on battery.

diarmaidol

On my phone I use the Wahoo Fitness app to track. Then I export it to Strava and Dropbox.

Before getting a bike computer, I think getting a Wahoo TICKR would be a better investment... It's ANT+ as well so will work with practical any GPS bike computer and BTLE phone. Even at the sametime!

Takca

magicbastarder wrote: »

may just be your phone; i've never used anything but a phone, and only once has it glitched seriously on GPS readings (placed me 20m east of the road i was cycling for about 10km). if you're having GPS lock issues, it's more likely the phone to blame than the strava app - it can only work with the data it's given.

Lumen wrote: »

Check power saving modes. My Sony has a "battery saver" mode it goes to when the battery gets to 30%, and that causes Strava (and radio streaming) to cut out.

Ya, its probably more likely to be phone related then strava App. Battery saver mode was disabled though.

PaddyFagan wrote: »

I certainly had problems with the app - I used the app for about six months last year, and after the third ride in couple of weeks that had nothing recorded, including my longest ride last year :mad: I got a Garmin!

This would likely drive me crazy too. I'm likely gonna stick with the phone for a bit and if I have 1 or 2 similar failures look at alternatives.

PaddyFagan wrote: »

My own experience with my phone (iPhone 6S) the app worked completely about 80% of the time. The Garmin has never failed to record a ride or section for me, although I have struggled with some features like live tracking - no technology is ever 100%.

Good to hear that the Garmin seems to have far better reliability (at least to what I've seen so far)

magicbastarder wrote: »

Re battery use, my experience is that strava barely has an effect on the battery. The phone does not need to broadcast anything to use gps so it's light on battery.

Ya, I was out for an hour today and strava only used 7% of the battery so I'm not so worried about battery either, unless maybe I decide to go out and don't have it charged, that could be annoying.

diarmaidol wrote: »

On my phone I use the Wahoo Fitness app to track. Then I export it to Strava and Dropbox.

Before getting a bike computer, I think getting a Wahoo TICKR would be a better investment... It's ANT+ as well so will work with practical any GPS bike computer and BTLE phone. Even at the sametime!

I had never heard of Wahoo gonna check it out, thanks

ED E

OP you still havent posted what handset you're using? That has a big impact.

Qualcomm based handsets:
-This generation. GNSS(GPS is just one tech, you get Russian sats too) is stellar. Really surprising in benchmarking I've done. Any device with iZat 8c will be guaranteed to be great unless the OEM nukes the antenna. Better than your average "SatNav".
-Last gen, very good but little longer TTF and more drift. On par with "Sat Nav".
-Gen before: Good for walking.

Mediatek based devices:
All over the shop. Some are horrendously bad, some do fine.

Note BeiDou is irrelevant as its CN only and a small constellation (for now).

The other important thing is the phone can use A-GPS to improve TTF so you can get going quicker.



If Strava is stopping its most likely as the background process is being killed. Even with battery saver off its now common for the OS to have a "Memory Manager" feature that clears what it thinks are not important apps. This means you specifically have to "Protect" apps that need to act consistently in the background.

Takca

ED E wrote: »

OP you still havent posted what handset you're using? That has a big impact.

Opps, that was a little stupid, its a OnePlus X

ED E wrote: »

Qualcomm based handsets:
-This generation. GNSS(GPS is just one tech, you get Russian sats too) is stellar. Really surprising in benchmarking I've done. Any device with iZat 8c will be guaranteed to be great unless the OEM nukes the antenna. Better than your average "SatNav".
-Last gen, very good but little longer TTF and more drift. On par with "Sat Nav".
-Gen before: Good for walking.

Mediatek based devices:
All over the shop. Some are horrendously bad, some do fine.

Note BeiDou is irrelevant as its CN only and a small constellation (for now).

The other important thing is the phone can use A-GPS to improve TTF so you can get going quicker.

So it has A-GPS, GLONASS and BDS, when positioning is working it appears to be fine

ED E wrote: »

If Strava is stopping its most likely as the background process is being killed. Even with battery saver off its now common for the OS to have a "Memory Manager" feature that clears what it thinks are not important apps. This means you specifically have to "Protect" apps that need to act consistently in the background.

This seems likely, on both occasions when it stopped recording, the point at which it started recording again was when I pulled over and looked at the app(and presumably restarted it).