Hammerhead Karoo 2 Evaluate – BIKEPACKING.com

compose Cass Gilbert
time Apr 29, 2022
comment 2

Navigational devices can be a blessing or a curse. At best, they lend flow to my bike travels, no matter the weather, and help translate routes I’ve dreamt up in the comforts of my living room into reality, letting me breeze down dirt roads I’ve never ridden with the confidence of a tour guide. But there’s no doubt that such devices can also have me jabbing at buttons in confusion, over-analyzing data, or spending too much time staring at (yet another) computer screen.

Increasingly, many are marketed towards the Strava KOM crowd, and given Hammerhead’s language (“technology to inspire and empower all people to unlock their athletic potential through cycling”), it’s likely the Karoo 2’s role as a training tool is a significant part of its raison d’être. But for this review, I’m looking at it from a bikepacker’s perspective, and more of a recreational, off-the-grid one at that. For further thoughts on how the Hammerhead Karoo 2 performs both generally and for racing, be sure to check out Neil’s Hammerhead Karoo 2 review video on YouTube, which is embedded at the bottom of this post.

And, as part of my Hammerhead Karoo 2 review, I should also point out that I can’t help but compare the Karoo 2 at times to the Wahoo ecosystem – specifically the ELEMNT ROAM – as it’s the head unit I’m most familiar with and definite a competitor, especially given the similarity in price points. I should also mention that I use Ride with GPS as my favored form of route creation and curation, so I can’t comment on the specifics of how the Karoo 2 plays with Komoot.

Smartphones vs Head Units

Ultimately, I’m not looking for too much from my navigation device. Here’s my checklist: A clear, easy-to-read screen that’s suited to most weather and forms of terrain, be it wending, technical trails deep in the forest, or dirt roads on a Sunday afternoon. I want decent map detail that offers me clues to my surroundings beyond the enigma of the line I’m following. A robust construction that I don’t have to worry about if I leave it on my bike for the night. A worry-free battery life that easily lasts a full day, and ideally more, with the device left on and running. An intuitive way to load in routes, both online and off, is definitely a very big deal. And a user interface that’s straightforward to get my brain around is important.

Sure, some of the latest generations of smartphones can do the majority of the above extremely well. But in my experience, they’re still not quite there in terms of screen clarity, use in the rain, general robustness, and battery life. This is why running an additional ‘head unit’, as these navigation devices are often known, remains my preferred choice, even if I always have my phone handy, along with a host of navigation apps loaded onto it too.

To help me avoid getting lost in the reeds, which is all too easy with a powerful device like this, I’ve broken down the review into these topics, broadly speaking, keeping it relevant to a bikepacker’s needs.

First Impressions & Initial Setup

My first impressions of the Hammerhead Karoo 2 are extremely good. The device feels solidly made and very polished in its design, and whilst it takes some time to power up, it finds satellites quickly. Minor gripe: the fancy box the Karoo 2 comes in seems to be about creating an ‘opening experience’ rather than ending up with anything useful at the end – perhaps a box to store nuts and bolts – and will be destined immediately for the ‘recycling’ bin.

The Hammerhead Karoo 2 is a gorgeous device that comes complete with a set of skins, presumably to tie into your wardrobe. The nonsensical box is a bit of disappointment, though.

When it comes to the initial setup, I didn’t find it especially straightforward. The learning curve felt relatively steep for both navigating through the screens to record my first ride and when trying to dig deeper into the device’s nuances. A downloadable PDF of instructions I could study and digest in my tent would be really useful, as from what I could see, all instructions are accessed online.

Granted, a part of my confusion could be chalked up to my familiarity with the Wahoo button layout, though I do think the lack of a companion app makes setup more complicated than it would otherwise be. Unlike the Wahoo, the Hammerhead Karoo 2 has its own operating system – Android 8 – which means there’s technically no need for a companion app on your phone. Pros? One less program to deal with, and it means the Karoo 2 can stand alone, whether you have your phone or not. Cons? You lose out on your phone’s more advanced OS to help set up the Karoo 2 exactly the way you want it, and it creates some offline syncing issues, which we’ll get to below.

Setting up a ‘bikepacking’ profile with customised data fields relevant to touring

However, once I’d found answers for features that eluded me, using it became a much more satisfying affair. First things first. I created a profile called ‘Bikepacking’ that contained the core data fields I favour, like distance, elevation, cumulative climbing, temperature, a map, and upcoming elevation. To do this, I needed to set up my own custom pages within the profile, as the default ones tend to promote VAMs, KOMSs, kilojoules, and lap times over more straightforward metrics. Note that if, say, you’re a competitive cyclist by day, but a leisure bikepacker at the weekends, you can set up several profiles to suit your split personalities.

Initial setup figured out, a number of drop-down menus offer quick access to functions like ‘screen off’ and ‘settings’. They’re a really nice touch, as they provide shortcuts around the device, and the ability to turn on and off more frequently used functions – like the touchscreen during rainfall. Yes, if swipes and taps aren’t your thing, or water or sweat are disturbing play, you can choose the Karoo 2’s physical buttons to navigate your way around the device. Again though, I did find the learning relatively steep for figuring this all out, and less intuitive than I’d hoped.

Screen clarity & Navigation

Once you’ve signed into the device and entered a wifi code, the downloaded map is a complete delight to use, with a level of colour and detail that comes close to matching my iPhone 6. The Hammerhead Karoo 2 sports a generous 3.2″ (88m) touchscreen, which is responsive and fluid. Unlike the non-touchscreen Wahoo, you can also scroll around the map: a padlock icon either tethers your position in place, which is preferable while moving or, once unlocked, allows you to roam around. Although there are no contour lines or mapping layers to flip between, as you might expect from your phone, the level of detail from the Open Street Map base map is extremely impressive. And, unlike my ELEMNT, route POIs are shown on the map too, even if it’s frustrating that their names are truncated and there’s no way of accessing embedded details. I dedicated a page to upcoming elevation and it benefits from glorious detail, with the addition of a ‘climber’ feature that gives you a more detailed analysis if required.

Screen brightness is excellent and easily adjusted to suit ambient conditions – I kept mine at 50 percent or less. You can also choose between a black or a white background for your data fields, the former being easier on the eyes at night time. In fact, you can even turn off the screen altogether if it’s offputting or you’re trying to save battery life. I did notice, however, there there’s considerable midday glare in bright conditions. Perhaps a thin, anti-glare screen cover would help.

On a number of occasions, I ran the Wahoo ELEMNT ROAM and Hammerhead Karoo 2 side by side, and I invariably found the Karoo quicker to adjust to turns and more accurate in its position when stopped. It’s also very sensitive to slow-speed travel, which works out well for those protracted hike-a-bikes.

Loading Routes & the Hammerhead Dashboard

So long as you’re online, the Karoo 2 does a great job with loading in routes you’ve already created or other bikepackers have shared with you. Signing up with Hammerhead gives you access to your own ‘dashboard’, which can be accessed from a laptop or phone via your browser. In the case of a Mac, there’s also a Chrome App (called a Progressive Web App) that you can quickly access from your launchpad.

At home, it’s a seamless process, even if there are a couple of steps to cover. First, pin the route you want in Ride with GPS. Then, hit the sync button on the Hammerhead dashboard and voila, it’s synced to the device, as long as you’ve entered your wifi code. If someone is sharing a Ride with GPS route with you that you haven’t saved to your library, you can also simply cut and paste the link into the relevant field, and it will sync too. Plus, you can create a ‘favorites’ folder within your pinned routes. Given how many routes I have, I found this feature to be especially handy, and I’d love to see it developed further with more custom folders. The dashboard has other uses too, including its own route-building software, though I much prefer Ride with GPS.

Away from your laptop, you can either load a SIM card into the Karoo 2 and purchase a data package. Or, as I did, you can create a hotspot on your phone to connect with the device, head to your browser, and sync routes from there. I bookmarked the Hammerhead site and found my name and password auto-completed quickly, although it still feels like a somewhat clunky process compared to having a standalone companion app. Note that if you’re running an Android device, you can create a Progressive Web App on your phone to streamline this process – though you’ll also need to be online for it to log in and work. It would be great if you could do the same with iOS.

When you’re offline, however, you’re out of luck, as there’s no way to push a route created on your phone to the device using Bluetooth. My MO is usually as follows: take the time to plan a route with RWGPS but when things go awry, draw up an alternative, on-the-fly option, using the excellent and offline-friendly Mapout App on my iPhone. I’ll then export it out of Mapout to Wahoo’s companion app and sync it with the Element so I can keep navigating with the head unit rather than reverting to my phone.

In terms of space within the unit, there’s no need to worry. I’ve loaded in the complete map series for Mexico, and a whole host of routes, and I’ve still used just a fraction of the Karoo 2’s 32GB internal capacity.

Use in Rain

I was able to use the Hammerhead Karoo 2 in intense heat and heavy rainfall, but never in temperatures below freezing. The Karoo 2 has a choice of swipes, pinches, taps, and double taps that mostly work well, though I sometimes found myself accidentally say, swiping to the next screen rather than scrolling around the map. Thankfully, there are physical buttons too, which really come into their own during heavy rainfall. Granted, it takes some user experience to figure it all out, but with time, it becomes more straightforward.

Charging & Battery Life

Battery life is claimed to be 14 hours but didn’t achieve this in practice, quickly noticing that certain core functions were more energy-hungry than others. For instance, if I deviated off my route and allowed the device to reroute me back again, power tended to drain more quickly. The same even goes for when I left the route map on the Karoo 2’s screen, rather than swiping over to a data field. I’m sure if you use a power meter, notifications, Strava live segments, etc., this will be even more noticeable. In use, I turned off audio, dimmed the screen to 50 percent or below, and either turned off the screen or activated the power save option too.

Given these variables, it’s hard to say how long I was actually getting, though it was considerably less than the ELEMNT, even with its aging battery. But even at a 10% loss per hour, I was still was able to get through the day without needing to recharge it, and as I always carry a 10,000mAh cache battery on a bikepacking trip, it didn’t end up being a real issue – I just had to remember to do so. On the topic of charging, it takes around three hours from flat, and I read that the “Karoo 2 does not support charging over 5V. The maximum current flow is 2.5 Amps but only during 0-30% charging. Regular charging is around 1.25A so high amp or high voltage chargers could be dangerous or damage the product.” Note again that I haven’t used it in cold conditions, but, as Neil found in Colorado this winter, that will definitely have an effect too. The Karoo 2 operating temperature range is rated down to -10°C, so cold weather bikepackers and endurance athletes take note.

The charging port is USB-C and it includes a rubber grommet to prevent water and dirt ingress. Somewhat strangely, it’s not tethered to the unit, so is quickly lost (in fact, a spare is included). Either way, Karoo 2 seems hardy enough for most weather conditions – it’s IP67 waterproof rated with its hatch or not, and I never had any issues.

Bike Mount

The unit comes with Hammerhead’s own out-front mount. It’s really secure – almost too secure, as you have to be careful not to press any buttons or touch the screen when doing so. There’s also an adaptor for a Garmin ¼ turn included, which meant I could run it on my favorite drj0n MC Deck. The Garmin adaptor is far less of a positive fit, but there’s also a lanyard to ensure it doesn’t bounce off your bike if it does get knocked.

Regular Updates

The Hammerhead Karoo 2 is subject to regular updates – biweekly is the claim – that clean up bugs and implement completely new features. Whilst welcome, it does mean there’s sometimes new stuff to learn, like swipes and commands. The most recent example is the Climber function, which gives you a clear analysis of an impending climb, aside from what you may see in the actual upcoming route profile. It auto-detects climbs, and you can choose whether you want it to include short as well as long climbs, I found it works well with pre-loaded routes, but was a bit more hit and miss in Mexico, at least over less conventional rides I like to take.

Over the course of using this unit and writing this review, some of my earlier complaints have actually been addressed, so it’s definitely improving all the time.

Quirks

I did notice some quirks that I haven’t covered above, and they’re all collected here. For one, syncing a route from the RWGPS browser to the Hammerhead dashboard adjusts both the distance and the cumulative climbing – the latter often significantly.

When routes are listed within the Karoo 2, their names are truncated. This creates issues if I create several versions of a similar route (say, “Around Oaxaca v1” and “Around Oaxaca v2”), or if I reverse a route (“Around Oaxaca Reversed”), as I can’t always tell one from another. Ideally, I’d like to be able to tap on the truncated name and see it in full, as I would with POIs, which are also truncated on the map.

It’s great to see upcoming POIs on the map, but the full name and embedded details are lost. Similarly, a favourites folder is welcome, but longer route names are also truncated.

Unlike the Wahoo, the Karoo 2 doesn’t have the ability to flip the direction of a route, which I really miss – both for day rides and backtracking. You can do this on the Hammerhead dashboard, but you’ll need wifi/data, and I found it often rerouted the original ride considerably in the process.

I also noticed that the location marker is further up on the screen than I was expecting (and much higher than my Wahoo ELEMNT). It would be great if there was a way of adjusting this to your personal preference, so you don’t lose map space for the terrain ahead.

Spot the difference. My Wahoo Element Roam has taken a beating, and the screen is now showing signs of damage (which can be repaired under warranty). Still, despite its age, the battery still lasts a lot longer.

• Model Tested: Hammerhead Karoo 2
• Weight: 167g (inc mount)
• Place of Manufacture: China
• Price: $399
• Manufacturer’s Details: Hammerhead

Hammerhead Karoo 2 Review Video

Cycling technology continues to evolve, and a big part of that is cycling computers. Over the last six months, Neil has been testing the Hammerhead Karoo 2, a stunning unit that certainly showcases the advances of small handheld technology. In our latest review, Neil shares nine things he has learned about the device after riding countless miles on day rides and bikepacking trips.

Have you tried the Hammerhead? Let us know how you got on with it for bikepacking in the discussion below.

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