First time use

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Well I used the cradle and app proper for the first time today. Set it to fastest to get to a local watering hole/bikestop took me there exactly the way I would have gone “just to get there” On the way back I selected winding roads set on the middle setting and it found a route home with some roads I know and use and some I haven’t but was a really good road with no “stupid silly routing” so for road use and get me there directions I think it works really really well.
I’ve resided to the fact it can’t hold a candle to a garmin for off road use and have to decide whether I’m happy using phone apps for off road exploration, honestly I don’t think so, the screen just isn’t bright enough when wearing dark visor or goggles and wanting to see the detail of the trail. I will keep the cradle and use it to power the phone when using the ico apps when rallying and the connect app for road use. For off road discovery I think it will be a Montana 700 on another mount somewhere.
 
Having managed to drop my iPhone 11, taking it out of the cradle and smashing the screen, I’d be very wary of using a phone as my only method od navigation and communication. Other than that, I think the Connected app works well, except that it doesn’t yet show via points (points you must pass through).
 
I’ve said before it could have been an awesome app but it just falls short. The nav 6 is to unreliable and the 5 isn’t bright enough for my liking. I used a 600 Montana for many years and really liked it but it had no Bluetooth as such so the 700 could be the next step.
 
Well my opinions on this cradle and app are changing slightly. Yesterday I plotted a route on base camp and sent it to my iPhone, road only route. Unfortunately one of my riding buddies was late so the route to meet my other buddy had to be shortened. So we rode there on a direct route, I left the app running on the original route, the app continually tried to route me back to the original route I sent it, which I think is what I want, but this is where it gets interesting. The route had no waypoints, just shaping points, just start and finish points only. So for the app to try and get me back on route and not reroute me to the destination I found intriguing, now I’m not sure if this is because the app switches to its default winding road setting I had it set on and by pure coincidence it matched my route or it really was doing all it could to put it back on the route, who knows. Now there was road closures near our route and the app was showing these with no entry ⛔️ signs in the right places, that’s a It blended directions in without cutting out the intercom but did interrupt my podcast by pausing it briefly.
All good for me.
Now further along the trip I missed a turning on the route by accident, so I let it try and reroute me, this was not perfect. It lead us down to someone’s big house in the country on a private road which we couldn’t follow so we had to turn around, the next turning it sent us on was correct and I could see the blue route line coming up in front of us then all was good.
So for road use I’m really starting to like it, it’s simple to use, less clutter and wireless charging. I thought I’d miss all the data the nav 6 provides but it’s no biggie for me, and I found myself less distracted.
I still wish it displayed speed so I could just look at one screen (no tft on my bike) and had speed cameras but I’m really starting to like it and like I’ve said before the winding roads option is far superior to the garmin curvy roads on the nav6.
Would I change back to a nav6? Well with the issues I had with all the ones I had that’s a no, if they could sort all the ghosting issues out and the curvy roads was better then I may consider it. But I think we all know bmw and other brands are stepping away from dedicated gps units.
 
Thank you for the update.

Like you, I am getting to like the app. Yesterday I went on a 250 mile’ish ride, to test out the beta version of the app, which is basically the same in operation as the existing version. I had deliberately made the bespoke route of 250 miles complicated, in the shape of a figure of eight ie. it crossed over itself twice, which is usually a good test of any routing software. The app managed it perfectly.

I also went off route deliberately, just to see what happened. Whilst you can’t opt to turn recalculation off, the Connected app’s recalculation was always fast and, as far as I can tell, always brought me back onto the complex bespoke route I’d designed originally. I checked this by having my XT running at the same time. The XT was set not to recalculate, so I was able to see that the recalculated route matched with a route that hadn’t recalculated.

One thing I should have done with the bespoke route was to make it fully and completely circular, with the same start and end point. That is something Garmin took years to perfect. I don’t even know if it’s possible to create a fully circular bespoke route in the Connected app?

The voice instructions were clear and it links well with the small TFT screen on my 850. I think the Connected app should work well with the big TFT colour screen that is coming on my 1600, that bike having the advantage of having a powered cubbyhole to put the phone into, rather than a cradle.
 
Yes it does seem to try and get you back on route as its earliest convenience and not reroute the whole route to the next waypoint which it what my garmin did, I do like that.
 
OK, that matches what I thought on the recalculation front, task you.. It was the speed with which the Connected app did it, which also impressed me. As a test, I turned my XT’s auto recalculation on at one point, just to compare. The Connected app was much faster. The XT us a powerful device, so having it beaten - and accurately - by an app on a phone, is quite something.
 
Yea the app is really fast, much quicker than any garmin.
 
Mine will get a good test this weekend as I have a 5hour ride up to the keilder 500 rally this weekend then I want it to run in the background behind my ICO app tracking/logging the route of the course itself.
 
Sounds good.

Let us know how you get on, please.

I’m particularly interested to learn how it responds to rejoining a bespoke route (one you’ve created yourself) if you stop the route running completely (closing the app down) and then restart the app. And, of course, anything else you discover. Thanks,.

Richard
 
I have the route ready in my phone, dirt 3 hours is mundane riding up the A1 etc then I've got it to cut across the Pennines on the last bit.
 


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