Hammerhead Headwind and other new additions with the latest extensions

This month’s update to Karoo mentions three ‘new’ apps (extensions) and a tweak to the power save profile.

Further Battery Improvements

…added additional configurable options to Battery Save Mode. Riders can now enable Slower processing, and Max brightness settings without needing to turning the screen off. …

Taking a leaf out of Garmin’s book, Hammerhead now allows you to slow down Karoo in some scenarios. Slower processing can be more power-efficient and hence boost battery life. This new feature might enable riders to change the ‘clock speed’ of the computer inside Karoo, or, more likely, it’s a bit more complicated than that.

This is an interesting move and one that I welcome. The change only seems to work in battery save mode, but it may be allowed elsewhere over time. It must be a good thing for us to decide if we want faster-performing devices at the expense of battery life. Beware the downside, though, these may include taking forever to save a workout or ten seconds to render a map screen fully – or is that just Garmin I’m talking about? 😉

Headwind

Not to be confused with Wahoo’s HEADWIND, a smart fan, Karoo’s Headwind seems to be a 3rd party app that adds relative wind and speed direction as a metric.

This is handy information for many riders, and alternatives already exist for Karoo owners with the snazzily designed WINDSOCK. Headwind is by @timklge.

These are stock images, and I couldn’t find the app/extension listed on my Karoo.

Powerbar

Not to be confused with the sports nutritionist of the same name, the new PowerBar app/extension adds a small bar on screen to show power levels.

This might initially appear ‘not that useful’. However, it’s a pretty cool way of adding power info to a map screen without compromising the space available for your map.

Again, I couldn’t find this on Karoo, so here is a stock image.