GPS logging of bike rides has become significantly more popular lately, thanks to sites like Strava. The biggest problem is the cost of entry can be very high, with the cheapest Garmin Edge 200 coming in at $150. I was curious to find out what would be the cheapest option to get reliable GPS data logging unit for this purpose. I did a bit of research, and decided that for logging mountain bike rides, I wanted to have the following features:* Simple and cheap, don't need a display during the ride, just want to see the results afterwards. Features cost money.
* Excellent battery life.
* Small and easy to carry. Option to mount to the helmet so it has the best view of the sky. (improves the GPS signal reception)
* Enough recording capacity for even the longest of days in the saddle.
* 1 second logging intervals. On a twisty MTB trail, you can cover some ground between the default 5 second interval found on most loggers, so you need to be able to log more points to get a better indication of how far you rode.
I narrowed my search down to the following four loggers:
* Holux M-1000C (this unit)
* Holux M-241
* Amod AGL-3080
* iGotU GT-120
The Holux M-241 looks very interesting, and has a display so you could actually see speed and things like that. However, it and the Amod AGL-3080 used normal AA or AAA batteries. Although that makes finding fully charged batteries pretty easy, I decided I liked the Li-Ion battery option better, as I can recharge the unit when I connect it to the computer to download the tracks. Otherwise, with AA/AAA rechargeables, I'd have to pull them out and recharge them in a dedicated charger. So, it's a matter of what you want as to which battery you'd prefer. The iGotU looked very tempting because of its size, but I couldn't confirm that it could be configured to a 1 second logging interval, so decided to pass on it. Finding actual information on these units is challenging, and the iGotU "documentation" is just marketing junk, they give almost nothing of actual usefulness.
There are also other dataloggers which look promising (especially the Qstarz stuff) but those are more expensive, and when you're nearing the entry price of a Garmin, it's less of a draw, so I capped my search in the $60-70 range.
The Holux is a nice little unit. Not listed as waterproof, so that's a downside, but I would think that in a light rain it'd be okay. Worse comes to worse, it could be put in a small ziploc bag. It's wickedly simple you slide a switch to turn it on, and once it gets a lock on the GPS signal, it starts logging, indicated by the orange "GPS" light blinking. To stop logging, you turn it off. Couldn't be much easier. I attached the unit to my helmet using velcro cable tie straps, one around the long way, then one around the unit and through the helmet vents. The strap around the unit in the long direction helps keep it from sliding out. This mount is very secure, and stood up to repeated hits from low-hanging branches on an endurance MTB race. I even managed to get some foliage stuck beneath it, and it was fine.
The software that comes with it is not spectacular, and that's being polite. It's kinda ugly. The auto-scan function didn't work for me, and each time I reconnected it, it chose another COM port, which meant I had to figure out which one each time. (I think that's probably a Windows thing, though) The software that comes with the unit is back-levelled and gives errors about the Google API being invalid, so the maps don't work. You have to download the newest version from Holux's website. Then, you have to type in a 28 character product key. This software is essentially useless without the hardware, but they're still so concerned about piracy, they make you enter a longer product key than a Windows installation. And seriously, if you're pirating this software, I'm sorry. While the unit itself is five star worthy, I had to take off a star for the software. I believe there are options available in third party software, but I haven't really investigated that.
That said, doing basic things with the software isn't too difficult, once you've found the device and connected to it. Configuring it for the 1 second logging is easy. You can also download the tracks, rename them, and save them to a standard format like GPX, which can then be uploaded to Strava or your tracking site of choice.
After purchasing the Holux M-1000C, I also found out about the Canmore GT-750FL-S datalogger, which looks like a large USB thumb drive and doesn't offer the bluetooth of the Holux. It's $56 here on Amazon, but I found it for $38 shipped on eBay, so I also picked up one of those. It sounded very promising on paper.
For my testing, I compared the Holux, the Canmore, a Garmin Edge 500, and an old Motorola Cliq MB-200, an Android smartphone running Google's MyTracks app. The Garmin was my wife's, and the phone was what I had been using to log rides. I soon discovered how to pair the bluetooth function on the Holux with my current phone (Samsung Galaxy Nexus, known for having poor GPS performance) so added that to the mix, running the Strava app.
Results:
* After adjusting both the Holux and the Garmin to 1 second logging, I found them to be very close in accuracy. An out-and-back ride on a singletrack trail had both of them overlapping the original track almost exactly.
* The Canmore was significantly less accurate than the Holux, showing some drift on the same out-and-back trail sections. Subsequent testing with the Canmore while walking showed even larger errors.
* The Motorola Cliq was reasonably accurate but had a large amount of small errors, such that a long straight section of trail looked like a jagged line. It stayed close enough to the trail to give good results with matching segments, but the lower quality of the phone GPS was apparent.
* Paired with the Holux via Bluetooth, the Galaxy Nexus running Strava had excellent accuracy from the dedicated chipset in the Holux. This made for my favorite combination, as I can run the phone app, and as soon as I end a ride, it automatically uploads. Plus, if there are any issues with the phone (loses BT signal, battery dies, etc) the logs are still available on the Holux unit itself. Having lost rides to GPS issues before, I really appreciate the backup.
Conclusions:
* The Holux is a great unit. Battery life is excellent, and unless you're into serious mega-endurance races, will be plenty for any one day's use. The use of a standard Nokia cell phone battery is pretty clever as well, since spares can be bought and swapped in pretty quickly if needed.
* The Holux has excellent accuracy, and since I can mount it high on my helmet, gets the best view of the sky, and this seems to be part of the reason why I think its accuracy is slightly higher than the Garmin, which is usually mounted on the handlebars its view of the sky can be partially blocked by the rider.
* Pairing the Holux with a smart phone makes for the ultimate combination of accuracy and ease of use as well as upload speed. Uploading the Garmin involves taking it off the bike and connecting it to a computer. Uploading from the smart phone, depending on the app, can be completely automatic.
* The Canmore was a disappointment. The accuracy is significantly lower than the Canmore, and it doesn't offer the Bluetooth. If you wanted to get into GPS as cheaply as possible, it's a decent alternative, but my choice is still the Holux.
* The Holux M-241 shares the bluetooth connection and GPS chipset of the M-1000C, plus adds a display and can handle standard AA batteries, so would be a very interesting alternative.
* Cell phone GPS units are significantly lower quality than the dedicated chipsets you would find in something like the Holux. Because the units use "assisted GPS", I've had two phones, the Galaxy Nexus and my previous Droid X, which wouldn't even lock onto the satellites unless it had a data connection. That's no good when you're riding in an area without cell coverage. Along the same lines, many of my Strava friends have been bitching about rides not being accurate on their iPhones lately. From a quick search, it doesn't look like you can pair an iPhone with a bluetooth GPS without buying an additional app, but it does look like it's possible.
* A USB serial connection is the standard for GPS units, which is too bad. If you could pair the MTK chipset with a unit that showed up as removable storage, getting and managing the logs would be significantly easier. I don't know of any GPS dataloggers that do this, though, and as I understand, it would render the GPS unit unable to be used as a wired GPS receiver for a laptop.
If you need something with a display that'll show you how fast you're going or how far you've gone, a datalogger like the Holux won't do you much good, and the small display of the M-241 probably won't do, either. For that, you'd want to look at the Garmin offerings. Just make sure to adjust the logging interval from "Smart recording" to 1 second if you're going to be riding off-road trails.
Otherwise, being able to get into Strava or other GPS ride logging sites for only $60 and get the accuracy of the Holux makes this unit a complete win. I'm very happy with this purchase, and have been recommending it to other folks.
The Holux gets fix quite quickly, usually in 30 seconds. It always helps if you don't move while it searches for the satellites, and once it gets fix it never loses again. In urban canyons, such as among the downtown high-rises the signal tends to bounce a bit in every direction, thus later I always modify the tracks with the so called 'clamp to the ground' function. It modifies the height vector based on Google Earth data and eliminates the vertical bouncing and produce a much more realistic elevation diagram very similar to the barometric altitude meter results. Unfortunately the bound ezTour software doesn't offer this function, but for example the (ex-Motionbased) Garmin Connect web service or the free TCX Converter utility do it for you.
The logger function of the M-1000C is excellent. There are 4 preset modes for logging: car, bike, running, hiking. In hiking mode for example records a waypoint in every 3 seconds and in every 10 metres, while these values in bike mode are 5 seconds and 5 meters. But it is possible to set these values manually according your preferences as well. The memory is huge, 4 hours of running log (recording in every 5 seconds) occupies 1% of the memory only.
Handling is easy: you turn it on, wait for the GPS led blinking (meaning fix) and there you go. When you finished just switch it off. Later in ezTour you can see you track in Google Maps and it is possible to modify your tracklog, like delete unnecessary waypoints, moving waypoints etc too. Unfortunately you cannot see the map under your track while you in Track Editor mode, though editing your track is reasonable manageable. While ezTour will not be your primary GPS track managing utility it does the basic stuff.
The Holux M-1000C delivers why I bought it: it can record the track of a week long hiking (with some external charging solution or spare battery as the battery last 'only' 28 hrs in logger mode), and I can use it as a bluetooth GPS with my navigation software on my HTC mobile if the built in GPS receiver gives up and/or I want to record my track.
Oh, did I mention that you can geotag your pictures with it?I bought the Holux M-1000c with the purpose of geotagging my photos. The software was really easy to use, and the time synchronization worked great. The instruction manual says that you need a special mini-USB cable in order to communicate via USB, but a standard mini-USB cable worked fine for me to download the data and configure the device.
I've also used the device in my car, and the it works great there as well.Frustrated !
USB communication doesn't work. Maybe it is Windows 7 related. The support web site is full of Driver downloads. A driver download resulted in some success, when I turn the GPS off and on, it produces some sound by the PC. But the Holux ezTour SW still can't communicate with the device. I sent an e-mail to the support group. No reply. I called, and most of the times I get "Lines are busy". When I get though, I get a Chinese phone menu. There does not seem to be support from within the U.S. or North America.I have bought this to supply GPS coordinates to my camera adapter. I use a Foolography Unleashed for my Nikon and they work together flawlessly. GPS data gets recorded in the EXIF data straight away, there is no bulky box in the hot shoe and I can stuff the camera in the bag without worrying about attachments. I just turn on the Holux in the morning and then forget about it. It either stays in the camera bag or in my pocket; in both cases it supplies data faithfully.
This combination works very well for me and I am glad to have bought this logger.
I have no use for the logging function and have not tried it yet.
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