Premium Features of Ride With GPS app available to NCCC members for trial spin

[karlos]

Members- NCCC is evaluating whether to spend $250 for a Club Account with RideWithGPS, where your ride leaders currently map out all our rides and make them available to y'all. The primary extra that members get with this account is that you get some extra Premium features on Club Routes with the RWGPS (Ride With GPS) app on your iPhone or Android phone. If you are not a paid member of RWGPS ($50/yr for Basic and $80/yr for Premium), then you are probably completely unaware of some pretty cool features, which allow you to use your phone and bypass spending ~$400 for a Garmin with turn-by-turn navigation. The primary features that I find really useful are:

• Download routes to phone. You can download both the cuesheet AND the relevant map data prior to the ride - cheap when you're at home with a wifi connection. Then, you can use the offline copy on your phone to navigate during the ride, with audio turn-by-turn navigation. Since the map data is on the phone, you can ride with cellular data OFF with full app maps and features, saving you both data expenses and battery life. Your phone should never drain the battery with this feature. If you've tried either the RWGPS or Strava apps on your phone, you'll know the frustration of a dead battery, and possibly extra data charges, when connected all the time to the cellular network. With the offline maps on your phone, you only need to make sure that your GPS location is ON.
• The voice navigation is really cool. It mirrors EXACTLY what the ride leaders put on the cue sheets, unlike the Garmin navigation. Even "stop here for a water break." I find the audio cues even better than what I have in much more expensive car navigation systems

To see how this works, check out this 3 minute video from RWGPS.

Many people want to keep their phone in their jersey pocket or saddle bag - I do. You can still hear the voice directions (even better with one earbud if you ever use one - two are illegal  ). And, for just $80, there is a bluetooth display gadget that boldly shows your RWGPS app data on a light, thin screen on your stem or handlebar so that you can put your phone away with the screen off to save more battery. Click here for a short video on that.

To check this out on your own, install the RWGPS app on your phone at the iTunes Store (iPhone) or Play Store (Android) and then join our trial NCCC Club at http://ridewithgps.com/clubs/381-nccc. Click on the button to join or send an email to rudnick.cooper@gmail.com for me to hook you in automatically. Then on your phone, login to the RWGPS app. If you already have that app installed, you should logout and log back in, so that your RWGPS account will pair you up with the NCCC trial Club Account. Then, on the left-hand side of the menu, you'll see Club Routes as in the screenshot of my phone below. Click on that. Any route you select will be available offline (arrow on bottom right hand side of the screen) as in the video and you're off and running without cellular data after you download and start navigating by voice. Other goodies are available such as "pinning" routes; for example, you can pin the rides you want for the next month and they will show up under "Pinned" - see the screenshot - where you only have a few rides to scroll through as we would eventually have many hundreds of rides total under Club Routes, which would be awkward to flip through them all.

I'm hoping a bunch of you try this out and provide feedback. If there is little interest we will NOT sign up for this Club Account, as the other features are either redundant or not as useful as our web pages. Please voice your opinion as this will be an agenda item for the March 24 NCCC Board meeting, after which the trial period expires. If you have put off spending $$$ on a Garmin computer and you have a smartphone, this gives you the same (arguably better) features of forking out for a Garmin. So, think about it... If you've already spent the big bucks on a Garmin or similar, I apologize if you're now having a little buyer's remorse 

[karlos]

Just to be clear. If we go for the Club Account, nothing will change on the website or how we plan and post our rides. The only function of the Club Account I would recommend using for now is members' use of the RWGPS app's Premium features on Club Routes only. We don't want to change that.
-Karl

[karlos]

I just got a caution from RWGPS support on the cool Wahoo RFLKT bluetooth display that mates with the RWGS app. It evidently works great with iPhones, but there may be kinks with Android. I'm sure they will get straightened out, but I don't want to misinform anyone. BTW, I ordered one to try out with my Android phone. If it doesn't work I'll return it via Amazon. Stay tuned - I get it on Monday.

[Don MacLeod]

A little off topic, but on the subject of downloadable maps, Nokia's free HERE maps, together with RidewithGPS and a GPX viewer, have worked for me (when I use them ).  I gather they can provide turn by turn guidance, haven't tried that:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/here-maps-offline-navigation/id955837609?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
http://www.cio.com/article/2896304/mobile-apps/5-things-youll-love-about-nokia-here-maps-app-for-ios-and-3-you-wont.html

[karlos]

Nice to know that there are other apps that provide offline maps to save data and bandwidth. That review says that pedestrians, though, don't get the voice cues, only drivers. I'm guessing, that if you ride your bike faster than you walk  , then you will get those voice cues on your bike.

Thanks for the reference

[Jim Robinson]

I have a Garmin and a SmartPhone, and the ridewithgps and strava apps.     When I tried the apps with my cheap droid they drained the battery too fast to last an entire ride.    This was over a year ago, and I haven't tried with my iPhone, so maybe the app has improved in that regard.   Anyway, that's something to consider and test on your own phone.   Its the main reason I continue use a Garmin for tracking rides and navigation.

[karlos]

Jim - The whole point of the Premium offline map download feature is to remove battery drain, especially if you turn off your cellular data, leaving only your phone's location services on. As a paid member, I can attest to that. Just join the trial club and verify for yourself with either phone, even if you're a non-paid RWGPS member. The Strava app is a different story, but cell data off/gps on  helps there,  also. I, like you, don't like the battery drain for either the RWGPS or Strava apps when running in a mode where data (especially big map data) is constantly being communicated back and forth. The voice navigation is really great as you don't need to use your eyes and you get all the cues that the ride leaders add by hand.
Karl

[karlos]

If anyone wants to just join the trial NCCC Club account, click here. The Club Route Library contains this month's March Roadies rides, so that you can try out the Premium features of the RWGPS app on one of the rides if you like.
Karl

[karlos]

Also, the term "airplane mode" may be slightly different for different phones. Whatever kind of phone you have, for saving battery life, you want cellular data OFF but GPS location ON so that you can navigate and record. Some phones may turn GPS OFF for airplane mode. fyi my samsung galaxy s3 in airplane mode allows me to keep gps location services on - ymmv 

[karlos]

I just got a caution from RWGPS support on the cool Wahoo RFLKT bluetooth display that mates with the RWGS app. It evidently works great with iPhones, but there may be kinks with Android. I'm sure they will get straightened out, but I don't want to misinform anyone. BTW, I ordered one to try out with my Android phone. If it doesn't work I'll return it via Amazon. Stay tuned - I get it on Monday.

Ok, I now have some firsthand info on the Wahoo RFLKT bluetooth display for keeping your phone in your pocket and displaying primary data on its stem or handlebar mount, including turning cues from the RWGPS app. We checked it out on the Wed Bonsall ride today. It worked great on the iPhone. On my android Samsung Galaxy S3, it would lose connection every 30 seconds or so. I contacted RWGPS and Wahoo support and the solution was to revert to a previous firmware version, while they work on fixing the issue. I did that and can confirm it also works well on android phones, too. As Wahoo continues to upgrade its firmware (hardware evidently is great), and RWGPS continues to improve the app, things will only get better. I still will probably use my Garmin out of habit, but I would definitely go this route for phone connectivity without battery drain and voice navigation if I didn't have a Garmin. I still may lay the Garmin aside because I really like the voice navigation better. I might add that we navigated in airplane mode on an iPhone and Android for 67 miles and 6700'+ elevation today, about 6 hrs total for the ride, and both phones experienced about 30% battery drain, just about the normal drain I get when I'm not running any apps.

For you Strava weenies, you save your ride when done on your RWGPS account, then download as a .gpx file and simply upload to Strava if that's where you prefer to log your rides.

Karl

[Robert Abraham]

Thank you for the report Karl. Sounds pretty cool. Do you know what the battery life is for the RFLKT unit? The website has info on the type of battery but not expected longevity.

-Robert

[karlos]

Wahoo claims 6-9 months battery life. I  was checking out some forums and it could be 3-5 months. I wish they would give battery life in terms of hours ridden instead as it obviously depends on how much you ride . We'll see but at least it's not weekly or monthly. I like not having to plug it in all the time.

[karlos]

Interesting coincidence. If the Wahoo RFLKT is of interest, it is only $59.99 (25% off) through March 13 at http://www.wahoofitness.com/devices/wahoo-rflkt-iphone-powered-bike-computer.html
Also, you don't want to get the RFLKT+ as it has extra sensors that drain battery. Users say the RFLKT+ batteries last days as opposed to the RFLKT battery life on the order of months. Also the RWGPS app does not make use of the extra features of the RFLKT+ which is why they only talk about the basic RFLKT on the RWGPS website.

Karl
[disclaimer: I do NOT work for Wahoo, nor do I get kickbacks, and since I have a Garmin and a Premium RWGPS account anyway, I really don't need any of this stuff. This is just for NCCC member information ]

[Jim Robinson]

I've downloaded the app.  Waiting for group membership approval.  One feature I'm keen to try is the live logging, to share my location with others (spouse mostly, or maybe other riders on a long ride). 

[karlos]

The live logging requires constant cellular connection, though.  It's a standard [wrong, it's now a paid] feature of the app and is contrary to using the premium feature of keeping the route and map offline with cellular data off. But it's a nice feature if you want  keep your ride recording  live.