Enhancing Battery Life with New Modes on the Hammerhead Karoo

Hammerhead’s latest update for the Karoo bike computer introduces three customisable battery-saving options, allowing riders to optimise their battery life based on ride conditions and needs. Here’s a closer look at how these new settings can help extend your Karoo’s battery life and give you more control over your device’s power consumption.

Three Battery States to Choose From

With the update, riders can now select from three battery states:

1. Default Ride Mode: Delivers over 15 hours of battery life under standard usage.
2. Battery Save Mode: Extends battery life to 30+ hours.
3. Advanced Battery Savers: Pushes battery life even further, up to 35+ hours.

Detailed Overview of Battery Save Mode

Battery Save Mode is designed to significantly extend battery life by reducing screen usage and adjusting brightness, all while retaining essential functionality. Key features include:

• Automatic Screen Off: The Karoo’s screen automatically turns off to save power, switching back on when critical information is needed, such as turn-by-turn navigation or CLIMBER alerts.
• Adjustable Screen Timer: By default, the screen will stay on for 35 seconds after an alert or event. Riders can personalise this timer in the Battery Save settings menu, tailoring it to their preferences.
• Customisable Screen Triggers: Riders can select specific events that trigger the screen to turn on. Simply navigate to “Screen On Triggers” in Battery Save settings to adjust these events to suit your riding style. Of particular interest might be the in-ride alerts, so almost every ‘exception’ that happens when riding should trigger the screen to come on.
• Brightness Capping: Battery Save Mode will automatically limit maximum screen brightness to 45%, optimising battery consumption without compromising visibility.
• Profile-Based Settings: Save Battery Save Mode configurations within specific ride profiles for quick access or change settings on the go, making it easier to adjust based on varying conditions or ride durations.

Advanced Battery Savers for Maximum Efficiency

For riders looking to push their battery even further, Advanced Battery Savers offers additional customisation:

• Custom Brightness Capping: Users can adjust maximum screen brightness further in Advanced Battery Saver settings, finding a balance between visibility and extended battery life.
  • I can’t test this now, but I would have liked this on long summer rides this year when very bright days maxed out the screen brightness, and I had to override that to save battery manually.
• Slower Processing Option: Riders can enable ‘Slower Processing’ to reduce CPU speed, conserving power by easing up on processing intensity. This option is located within the “Advanced Battery Saver” menu and, when enabled, optimises performance for the longest rides.
• I’m unsure why the GPS accuracy can’t be downgraded here, for example, with a once-every-5-second recording. I suspect the answer is that powering up the GPS chip requires more battery than would be saved over short-duration GPS point recording.

By utilising these customisable power-saving options, experienced Karoo users can now adapt their device’s performance to meet the demands of longer rides, remote routes, or energy-conscious training sessions. This update is a powerful addition for riders seeking maximum functionality and battery life in one package.

Q: Where can I change the battery settings?

A: You can access them from three places: the control panel during a ride, from the profile settings to change how a profile behaves permanently, and from the global system settings

Q: What triggers a change in the battery behaviour?

A: Permanent global settings changes or profile changes are always active. In-ride changes are initiated manually or when one of the automated trigger conditions is met.

Change A Profile

Most people would want to have every ride profile defaulting to BATTERY SAVE=OFF at the start of every ride. But if you’re going on an all-dayer, then it might make sense to change this to save battery right from the start.

change During a Ride

Swipe down the control panel and then across to the system setting. Tap the battery icon to toggle battery save on or off.

Chane how Battery Saver Works

With battery saver mode enabled, the screen defaults to OFF.

Settings> Battery Save

Karoo then watches for certain trigger conditions to occur. When they occur, the screen turns ON.

The battery save screen above shows the names of all the possible triggers, but you can only see whether you have enabled the trigger by tapping the pen icon next to “Screen On Triggers”. You then personalise the triggers to turn the screen on for: a lap; a hill; when the Karoo resumes; when there is a direction cue; when a Strava segment approaches; when you’re off route; when a car approaches (via Varia); if the battery is low; when a structured workout gets to the next step; and when you receive a phone notification.

The behaviour is further nuanced as, for example, the duration of the trigger can also be automated. Thus, when a vehicle approaches, the screen will stay on for the event, i.e. it will turn off once the vehicle has gone.

The default 35 seconds is the time that passes before the screen turns back off.

This is all clever stuff. It would be nice to see the status of each trigger on the Battery Save screen, IMHO.

Take Out

For about three months earlier this year, I used the Hammerhead Karoo 2 as my primary, and often only, bike computer. Overall, it was a highly enjoyable experience – Karoo looks good, is easy to use, and is packed with advanced features. However, I did some full-day rides, and the available battery life caused problems – the screen needs to be dimmed, or you need to pack a charger. So, the new battery life modes would have been helpful to riders like me in such scenarios.

Even with this new feature, I still have some residual battery anxiety around how exactly I should customise Karoo, so it’s always on exactly when I need it.

Ultimately, I would prefer a hardware solution that simply gives me all the features and all the battery life I need. A product like the Garmin Charge or an adapted reserve backup light based on the Ravemen FR160 is what I’d prefer.

If you ride as often or less than me, you probably don’t need this feature, and it will be easier to charge up after every few rides, safe in the knowledge that there is a good battery save facility when you need it in an emergency.