Per Strava data, Garmin has a greater than 97% market share in the multi-sport vertical -- measured as devices used in long course triathlons -- and I think that's about to finally change (and I hope quite dramatically). The Apple Watch Series 4 was released last week with a health focus, including EKG technology, and the Karoo Hammerhead's use of Android OS for cycling technology promises a similarly powerful back-end tech for the device on your bars.
I have spent more money on Garmin products in the last 5 years than I have with any other company aside from maybe Felt and 3T, and their customer service is in fact amazing. But their products are terrible in practice. If you want to see how great Garmin devices are in theory -- along with every other device that is great in theory but doesn't work in practice -- you can read DC Rainmaker's reviews. But the fact remains: Garmin devices are terrible -- in the golden age of personal technology, the quality of these products has become almost farcically bad.
Last week, I headed out for what should have been my longest ever (by time) bike ride with three devices set to record my data: Edge 820, Forerunner 935, and my iPhone (using the Strava app). This is how I now ride, because I am so accustomed to one or more of my units failing to function that I have to prepare for that failure. Not even a mile in, I had to stop and reset the 935, which did not fully emerge from hard reset until half an hour later. The 820 lasted to the turnaround point. The Strava app on iPhone crashed, as it often does, when I took a picture from my phone.
Enough is enough. I ordered the Karoo Hammerhead and I'm picking up the new Apple Watch today. I already have the Wahoo Bolt thing, and while I haven't used it much, I don't think the Wahoo OS is sufficiently robust to allow for the advanced uses we should all have for these very expensive devices. At $500, these things should work as well as your phone and do basically what your phone can do, but better, because it is purpose built for the specific sports use case.
Why is this not a reality yet? I think it's about to be...I think (and hope) we will within the next year witness a sharp reversal in Garmin's share of multi-sport tech wearables and cycling devices. My sense is that commodity hardware products can and should proliferate around a unified Android OS tailored for sports tech (as they do in phones) and that software developers (like XERT, Strava, etc.) can and should develop products for Android OS and for iOS. Developers are wasting their time developing for the Garmin API, because the end result, no matter their efforts, is that it doesn't even work.
Hey, did you hear that Pioneer and Wahoo are going to work well together? Big yawn. Who cares? Everything should (and soon will) work with everything, just like it does on your phone. If you buy a $100 or $1,000 power meter device (or aero stick, or smart tail light), the fucking thing should have an app on your phone, on your watch, and on your cycling computer. It should be sold by a company with a customer service and support infrastructure that reflects the fact that it's 2018, and even the best companies aren't there (is it 9am in South Dakota yet, because I need some help with my Quarq).
Am I crazy here? Is this not about to happen? It seems so completely obvious that sports tech as an ecosystem should look like the cell phone space, and it feels like the pieces are finally there. Until then, you'll see me running with a 935 and an Apple Watch, and riding around with a 4 lb Karoo android tablet on my aero bars, with the 935 and Apple Watch as backups.
I have spent more money on Garmin products in the last 5 years than I have with any other company aside from maybe Felt and 3T, and their customer service is in fact amazing. But their products are terrible in practice. If you want to see how great Garmin devices are in theory -- along with every other device that is great in theory but doesn't work in practice -- you can read DC Rainmaker's reviews. But the fact remains: Garmin devices are terrible -- in the golden age of personal technology, the quality of these products has become almost farcically bad.
Last week, I headed out for what should have been my longest ever (by time) bike ride with three devices set to record my data: Edge 820, Forerunner 935, and my iPhone (using the Strava app). This is how I now ride, because I am so accustomed to one or more of my units failing to function that I have to prepare for that failure. Not even a mile in, I had to stop and reset the 935, which did not fully emerge from hard reset until half an hour later. The 820 lasted to the turnaround point. The Strava app on iPhone crashed, as it often does, when I took a picture from my phone.
Enough is enough. I ordered the Karoo Hammerhead and I'm picking up the new Apple Watch today. I already have the Wahoo Bolt thing, and while I haven't used it much, I don't think the Wahoo OS is sufficiently robust to allow for the advanced uses we should all have for these very expensive devices. At $500, these things should work as well as your phone and do basically what your phone can do, but better, because it is purpose built for the specific sports use case.
Why is this not a reality yet? I think it's about to be...I think (and hope) we will within the next year witness a sharp reversal in Garmin's share of multi-sport tech wearables and cycling devices. My sense is that commodity hardware products can and should proliferate around a unified Android OS tailored for sports tech (as they do in phones) and that software developers (like XERT, Strava, etc.) can and should develop products for Android OS and for iOS. Developers are wasting their time developing for the Garmin API, because the end result, no matter their efforts, is that it doesn't even work.
Hey, did you hear that Pioneer and Wahoo are going to work well together? Big yawn. Who cares? Everything should (and soon will) work with everything, just like it does on your phone. If you buy a $100 or $1,000 power meter device (or aero stick, or smart tail light), the fucking thing should have an app on your phone, on your watch, and on your cycling computer. It should be sold by a company with a customer service and support infrastructure that reflects the fact that it's 2018, and even the best companies aren't there (is it 9am in South Dakota yet, because I need some help with my Quarq).
Am I crazy here? Is this not about to happen? It seems so completely obvious that sports tech as an ecosystem should look like the cell phone space, and it feels like the pieces are finally there. Until then, you'll see me running with a 935 and an Apple Watch, and riding around with a 4 lb Karoo android tablet on my aero bars, with the 935 and Apple Watch as backups.