Okay, it looks like this might be more of a roadie thing than a MTB one – but what do we know? It launches today on Kickstarter, with the units going for a cool $499. And half of the original production is already sold out.
As many people will tell you, digital readouts on your pieces of tech were cool at school. Remember those watches which had loads of little keys on them so you could use them as calculators? Exactly.
But as we became People Of The World, analogue readouts were much more awesomer. More elegant, suave, and… just totes cool, bro. And HOW COOL were the analogue speedos you’d strap to the front wheel of your Grifter? Nun more cool. That’s how cool.
Step forward the Omata. It’s a GPS with an analogue readout. All the internal gubbins is still present and correct – it’ll log your ride, and you can upload everything to Strava etc if you really must. KOMs, PRs, routes. All that. Oh yes.
But while you’re riding? A nice clean dial, with speed, distance, ascent and time. Elegant. Suave. Smooooooooooth. We like the idea very much.
The Kickstarter campaign is now live, here and they’re exhorting people to Facebook, repost and retweet on Instagram and Twitter…
What say you?
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I’m a little long-sighted; I have to wear prescription glasses for using computers etc, but I’m fine without for distance. This means I ride without prescription lenses and struggle to read the cluttered display of a Garmin 800 (especially thanks to Garmin’s frustratingly stupid choice of a digital-clock style typeface, which is *far* less readable than the more natural face on the Touring unit).
So in principle this has some appeal to me, although it still looks more cluttered than it needs to be. And, again, that typeface has poor readability (though the dial design makes that less of an issue).
What I *really* need, though, isn’t stats; what I need is an easily-readable navigation screen…
Quite like that. ANT+ and power instead of speed and I might be tempted.
Looks very nice.
Looks good but would only useful if they produced a metric version. Mph and ft? On a bike? Pah!
why is 18mph marked on the speed readout?
probably a market there for upscaling these for older cars.
Metric version: https://twitter.com/omata/status/711779958239068161
Having the speed and distance scales zero points 90 degree apart offends my OCD, plus what nickc says. 0, 10, 18, 25. Get in the sea!
HOW MUCH?!?!
Or am I being unreasonable?
No Heart rate? Having a rev counter but for my ticker would be nice.
surely this is 4 days late….
More pointless products for people with too much disposable income.
beautiful, but out of my league 🙁
I know the guys who have done this, one of them is my housemate from college who introduced me to mountain biking back in the early 1990’s. The idea is based on those old cable operated speedos you used to be able to get for cruiser bikes and Raleigh choppers but with a modern twist. Obviously not for everyone but in a very crowded market it does stand out. The 18mph mark on the speedo is a nod to the title of a cycling blog by the development team, oh and yes, you can get them in metric too….
gratuitous plug for a mates Kickstarter ends 🙂