Joule with GPS
So, I had a little impulse buy last week....
I have been a Garmin guy since I got serious about exercise and subsequently about training. In my mind, the distinction is one has a plan and one is not training. First was a FR 305, then a Edge 705 and now currently I am using a Edge 500 (cycling), a FR 610 (running), a Garmin Swim (for, well, swimming) and the FR 910xt for multi-sport. It makes for quite a little family photo. I tell myself if being a gadget junkie is my thing, well, it's cheeper than a drug problem and playing with my toys keeps me working out, I mean training. You could also say I know just a bit about the Garmin device, but certainly not an expert.
Last week I spotted the new Joule GPS in the wild and for sale. I decided to see what all the fuss was about and see how the other half lived outside of team Garmin. I had always turned up my nose at the Joule before because I really like the mapping that a GPS device provides after the ride and I wasn't a real fan of the styling quite frankly. It looked like it was desinged for indoor uses to my eye. The Joule GPS changed the game for me and got me to pull the trigger.
In honor of my gadget hero, the DC Rainmaker, I give you the box.....
Not really that sexy, I know.... How about the gadget itself?
I think the size is just a bit bigger than the Edge 500, but not by much. I also think the styling is right there with the 500 and gives it a nice "pro" look. The trade off with the larger size is a bigger battery (20 hours advertised) and more memory. I think it looks pretty good hanging out on my bars on the "barfly" style mount that comes with it. it also comes with the identical Garmin-style rubberband thingy, but they are not interchangeable. They basically knocked off the idea, but not the same dimensions.
So far I have only done one ride with it, but should get in quite a few rides with the OS kicking off next week and SoCal affording riding outside year round. Based on a little early experimentation, here are my initial thoughts:
1. This unit is deffinately designed from the ground up for riding with a power meter. It has many fields that the Garmin (recently updated with WKO metrics) is still missing. Things like Lap IF, Surges, etc. The marketing is that it offers data on "where you are, where you have been and where you need to go". So far it looks like it delivers.
2. The data fields are interesting in that when you highlight a field it gives you two sub-fields that dive deeper into that area. Highlight power and it will pop-up display NP and IF. Highlight Cadence and it will pop-up display Max and Average. The Garmin will show this, but this seems a little slicker. Maybe because it is new to me.
3. No "on" or "off". No "start" button either. This can drive you nuts at first, but again is an interesting new take. Any button turns it on, motion starts the clock and there is is no "off" button. This can make you mad, because the fooking manuel doesn't spell it out, then you waste a ton of time and find that little fact out on-line.... So, now you know.
4. Most intersting to me is that you can configure it to remember ALL your gear and MULTIPLE users with custom names. You can name things with the unit, but it far easier to use PowerAgent, once you set it up, which was a whole other little bit of drama.... Anyway, with PowerAgent, you can link to the unit and then type in your name, name ALL your bikes, any other users, mulitple power meters, heart rate monitors and speed/cadence devices.
I set up three bikes, a powertap, a quaq and an SRM on the laptop with unique names and then went out in the garage and did the pairing for all three power meters and the Joule. I was also able to do this with three HR straps. Then, you just select the bike and and activate the proper power meter and HR strap. It will remember the combinations unitl you choose the bike again and activate other monitors. Slick!
5. PowerAgent will automatically, without touching any buttons after the intial set up, push the data to both STRAVA and TrainingPeaks. How awesome is that! And, it is way faster than the STRAVA website. To me this is cool!
The only issue I had other than the whole "off" button thing has been with PowerAgent. This is the weak link so far. It will not run on my Mac with the most current OS. It just crashes everytime before it even launches. Ok. I pull out the dreaded PC/ WKO+ device. PowerAgent will launch and run, but it will not detect and talk to the Joule!?! WTF!?!? I call support at Cycleops and get a real person right away. He is very nice and explains "yeah, we have heard about that...". Then he suggested pluging things in a specific order, facing the East, lighting candles, making a scrafice... Just nuts! None ot if worked. According to the support guy, they are working on it....
Out of desparation I try the wife's older Mac with the an older version of the OS. Worked like a charm! It took three laptops, but I got it to work. And, it worked well with device set up, but I would not use it for analysis. TP or WKO+ is just better, in my opinion. This laptop set up is not ideal, but not the worst work around either. Plus, I keep telling myself it is temporary. Her computer is always on and available. And, since I use STRAVA and TP in the cloud, I am good with her machine pushing and then keeping the data, which I moved to drop box on her machine to then... presto.... appear on my machine. Automatically.
So far, I am pretty stoked and eager to do more rides. I will check back in once I get to use the interval functions and other features next week as the OS kicks off.
Comments
One thing I don't get with the mapping thing everyone likes. I have lived in my home a few years and have biked all over plus driven around, as I'm sure most folks do in their communities, so why do folks need this mapping thing ? I mean are you really going to get lost ? Don't you remember the route that you rode a dozen or so times ?
Just saying..
The real benefit in the GPS is three things for I think for most users:
1. Analysis of the ride is just WAY easier with a map after the ride on Training Peaks. When you look at your profile or watts spikes, and peak power, it helps a ton to have the map to look at versus making assumptions about miles 37 or minute 83. With a map next your power file you can really understand the ride better in my opinion
2. I use TP, Strava and the like as my primary training log. When I go back and look at rides months later out of either the needs to look at some time on a course or just to remember a great day, having the map is much better than a little dialogue about the route.
3. Aside from the Garmin 800 and 705, these units will not do address based navigation like the unit in your car. What they will do is "courses". You download a course from your laptop to the Unit and it will steer you a long a sort of bread crumb trail or turn sheet with no reference to street names. This feature can be handy for a few reasons:
A. If you do Century rides, the race director generally provides the course file online. You can put it on your device and ride the course with confidence since these little local rides are often poorly marked. I did this for two out of town events this year. One in Santa Barbara and one in the Santa Monica Mountains. In both the course is long and there were periods where I was riding alone and made turns on my own. They were marked, but poorly.
B. you can trade files with friends and then ride their course for time.
C. Ever want to go train on a race course alone weeks before the event? This will let you do that. Example, if I go to Idaho before IMCDA, I will load the course on my GPS and then ride it with ease. I did this with my big bike week training camp this year as well.
3. Finally there is a wow factor for friends and family. After you download your ride to the web (Free TP, Strava or Garmin Connect) you can share the map with people. It is a great way to demonstrate the work and your capability to people that do not ride.
Well, have I sold you??
Thx
@Dino
You're living my dream man, if I drew a venn diagram of my interests the three primary sets would be {gadgets, triathlon, writing}. Ever since I first started reading DCR I was like "that should have been me!" but where as Ray seems to have this uncanny ability to balance his time between his site, his career, triathlon and his personal life, I mostly get tired and just sort of go to bed.
As for the separate discussion of Garmin v. Cycelops and more specifically the practicality of having a GPS equipped bike computer, I too have been historically a 'Garmin guy' when it comes to these things. However, back in 2010 I got sick of using my tiny 310xt as my primary bike computer and was prompted to pick up a Joule both for the larger display and the power metrics, which of course would not appear on Garmin devices for some time yet. Likewise, while I definitely enjoyed having GPS, I did not feel that I absolutely needed it.
My experience with the Joule itself I can best describe as "quirky". I very quickly noticed some of the same things you describe above, such as the no dedicated on/off or start, but more painfully learned that the Joule at that time at least, really was designed to be used in conjunction with a PT hub rather than my Quarq. While the Quarq was technically supported, the Joule lacked some basic functions such as torque offset zeroing ('calibration'), and the absence of GPS necessitated the installation of a ANT+ speed sensor in order to both get/display speed as well as start/stop the ride time. This wouldn't be an issue with a PT due to the built in speed reporting from the hub, and shouldn't have been an issue if it were not for the ANT+ speed sensor being incredibly unreliable. The reed switch in the GSC10 is notoriously frail, and after I had broke my second one in some months my enthusiasm for the Joule had greatly waned.
The other aspect that always got me was that it was simply apparent to me through the day to day use of the device that Garmin is very much more a software-centric company with much more experience in terms of UI design and ergonomics where Cycleops is much more of a hardware company. Garmin devices simply seem to make more intuitive sense to me in terms of their operation, and objectively offer much more customization and configurability in terms of the number of and specific location of data fields on the display. To add insult to injury, Cycleops had notoriously slow turnaround in pushing SW updates to address known bugs at the time of launch, just further illustrating to me that they just didn't seem to 'get' software.
Some of the frustrations I had with the Joule (which ultimately prompted me to abandon it and go back to Garmin) definitely would be addressed through the inclusion of GPS, freeing me of a separate finicky speed sensor, an invite to the Strava party (and everything else Dino mentioned), etc, however more endemic issues I am not quite so sure of.
Trevor, You forgot to mention your amazing grasp on aerodynamics in you passion list
The much more direct competitor for the Joule GPS is the Garmin Edge 500, both are the same form factor and roughly the same size, display similar number of fields, and are basically equivalent in base MSRP (~250). And at that, it’d be a tough choice between the two. The Edge 500 has a very proven track record and would have better software integration on the desktop side versus having to deal with PowerAgent and MapMyRide (due to no native mapping software). But there were things I liked about the Joule as well, and in a way it almost seems a ‘better deal’ to buy a new product, the Joule GPS at $250, then it does to buy a several year old product at the same price.
But, to answer your actual question, I’d first ask (because I can’t fully remember) if you already have a 310xt, 305 or other similar device? If you don’t have GPS for the run right now and can only afford one device, then the 910xt is sort of a no brainer. With the 910, you also get the lap and stroke counting that was added to the swim mode, another perk if you don’t have a device like the FINIS SwimSense. The downside versus either the Edge 500 or the Joule will be the screen size and therefore the amount of fields that you can display on screen at any given time. However, the Garmin (unlike my first Joule) at least quickly allows you to switch between multiple display pages to see all your data (just not all at the same time), and of course price. The 910xt is still appreciably more expensive than either the Edge 500 or the Joule GPS, but probably cheaper than buying an Edge/Joule and nearly any other GPS running watch.
Empathise on the redundant systems, I raced IMWI in 2010 with both my Joule mounted on the bike and my 310xt on my wrist, so I'd have redundant ANT+ display in case of the failure of one or the other. Didn't repeat that this year, but would consider it if I had something sleeker than the 310xt (like a 910xt).
If you were to compare the benefit of upgrading the Joule to a Joule GPS to that of a 305 to a 910xt, the 910xt will certainly be a more substantial upgrade. You will gain a lot of nice features, including simple things like the fact that the 910xt acquires satellite signal several orders of magnitude faster than your 305, less bulky device, plus all of the software features for cycling, swimming, etc.
Joule GPS looks pretty cool, but if you are cool with using your current Joule for when you want lots of data on screen, then having a wrist watch for GPS-y things, then that seems like a pretty good combo to me.
The 910 is a good, really good, all-a-rounder, but not not really strong at a single discipline. In that sense it is a triathlete's watch. For pure cycling, my key sports and the element of SBR that I enjoy the most, the 910 is just not the bomb. It is basically a running watching watch that has power capability. The screen is small and it only shows 4 things on it. The 910 swims really well, but for just over a $100 you could get the dedicated Garmin Swim.
UNLESS you want to race with a single device, like the 910xt. I would probably upgrade your Joule to the GPS model. If you have concerns about the Joule or want to see how the other half lives, like I did, then buy the 500.
I really like my 910xt, but not enough to recommend for cycling over the 500 or my initial thoughts about the Joule GPS.
I like the unit a great deal, but still think PowerAgent is crap and it is so new that many 3rd parties don't yet totally support it yet (strava, TP Agent, ect.)
As an update, here is a MUCH, MUCH better review from the DC Rainmaker that he posted to his blog yesterday. Check it out!
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2012/11/cycleops-joule-gps-in-depth-review.html