Magene C606 Budget Bike Computer gets ‘ClimbPro’ and more in big feature bump

In many ways, Magene is the Coros of the cycling world – it’s an up-and-coming Chinese-based challenger brand. But where Coros excels at marketing a minimal product line essentially only of watches (more from them coming this month), Magene has a wide and competent cycling product line, including a range of bike computers, smart trainers, power meter pedals, spider-based power meters, and bright radar tail lights. Their products are pretty good…and cheap.

An interesting YouTube video shows Gplama’s visit to their new, highly modern factory. It gives a distinct impression, and one with which I agree, that Magene is here to stay and will only become more competent and widely known in the cycling tech world.

Magene has a solid engineering base and its factory turns out good products, but to some degree, it is let down by its smartphone apps and on-device firmware. A common story. The company and similar competitors have realised this for a while and are making concerted efforts to improve. This article covers one such improvement to the firmware of the C606 bike computer (circa $160 for the top-end model!)

The latest firmware update for the Magene C606 and C506 GPS Bike Computers is version 1.7. There are several updates, including a couple of major ones that I’ll cover here.

C606 only

• Strava Live Segments with WiFi Sync: The C606 now supports live Strava segments. Your starred segments are automatically downloaded over WiFi, and a series of screens kicks in as you approach and compete on the segment. You are notified of nearby segments on the navigation map and alerted as you approach their start points. Once started, like competitor equivalent features, you compete against the KOM time or your PR with real-time progress visualisations.
  • I tend not to regularly use Strava Live Segment features. On the occasions I do, Wahoo’s feels the best implemented. Magene’s effort here is decent and covers the same core metrics as everyone else. Perhaps the colours and prominence of progress over the segment could be more striking? But, for the small number of minutes I use this kind of feature, it’s a perfectly acceptable presentation.
  • The C606 is perhaps the cheapest bike computer with these kinds of features. Magene claims a Strava subscription is not required for this feature (untested).

• ClimbPro: I thought Garmin had trademarked the ClimbPro name? Oh well, almost every rider widely uses that as the default name, regardless of the brand of head unit, which might give Magene legal grounds to use it. Hmmm. Anyway, ClimbPro has become one of the key features that signifies a bike computer can meet the needs of keen cyclists. It’s quite hard to implement, requiring an accurate device and a good grasp of onboard map and routing information.
  • The feature works in the standard way: When following a planned route, C606 shows a nice profile of the current ascent with the various gradients colour-coded and with chevrons on the map view to indicate the climb. Nice! It’s perhaps a more minimal view than those offered by competitors, but I like that (the chevrons on the map are enough for me).
  • Note: Requires you to start the climb from the entry point (base)
  • Note: Climbs are determined from loaded routes, not on-the-fly.

Features Available for Both C606 and C506:

• 1,000-kilometer Route Support (increased from 200km) – the previous limit was simply too low.
• DJI Camera Control uses on-device buttons with an option to use Di2 shifters.
• Updated Dark Mode for low-light conditions.
• Smart Recovery: If the GPS computer turns off unexpectedly (e.g., due to low battery or accidental shutdown), the ride record will not be lost, and the device will prompt the user to resume the ride upon restart.
• Intuitive Dashboard: The display has been improved with better fonts for clearer data visibility.

• Seamless Sensor Sync: Connectivity for ANT+ and Bluetooth sensors has been improved, and users can now see more status information for connected devices, including their battery levels.
• Expanded Language Support: 12 languages, Danish added in this update.
• Improved Rerouting algorithm

Requirements

• Device firmware to version 1.7xx via
• OnelapFit app version 1.8.x

Take Out

Magene is becoming an ever more serious contender at the budget end of bike computers.

Whilst these are very much first-gen implementations of Strava live Segments and ClimbPro, they are good ones with more refinement hopefully to follow. Furthermore, these are two of the key cycling tech features that bike computers need to demonstrate a good degree of competence and capability.