Hammerhead: adds Surface Type for Karoo route planning
Hammerhead’s Karoo now alerts you to upcoming changes to the surface type of routes planned on its dashboard.
No doubt the surface-type map layer will be incrementally expanded upon by Hammerhead over the coming months and Hammerhead will probably eke out an innovative, related feature. Let’s see
In my local area, the main downside I’ve found with surface type information is that a significant proportion of roads/tracks have unknown surfaces.
Hammerhead’s Release Notes
Karoo Software Build Version 1.355.1428
Introducing Surface Type Information into the Karoo Ecosystem
Now you can see the proportion of paved vs unpaved surfaces you should expect on your routes.
- On Karoo this can be viewed on Route Details, and on the Route editor of the Dashboard.
- For now, this applies only to routes built or edited on our Dashboard.
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- If you’re navigating, Karoo can also alert you of an upcoming change between paved and unpaved surfaces. You can see every anticipated surface change in the Cue Sheet.
- This applies to all routes, including those imported by file, synced from a connected account, and generated on Karoo (e.g. route to pin).
- Note: This feature is off by default! Go to any Outdoor profile’s Turn-by-Turn settings on Karoo to enable this feature.
- If you’re navigating, Karoo can also alert you of an upcoming change between paved and unpaved surfaces. You can see every anticipated surface change in the Cue Sheet.
Improved Smart Trainer Connectivity
Some smart trainers broadcast as both a Smart Trainer (which can be controlled) and a simple Power/Speed/Cadence source (which cannot be controlled). The data they broadcast is the same otherwise. With this release, Karoo will now recognize if a smart trainer is broadcasting as both and merge them so that you always connect to the smart trainer. This prevents pairing to the simple Power broadcast when you intended to pair to the controllable Smart Trainer broadcast.
Last Updated on 26 January 2026 by the5krunner
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I think it leverages what Suunto has added to their app some months ago. It relies on OSM data to display surfaces, hence it can benefit from users input 🙂