I just went for a ride to test the idea of using my old edge 25 as a very basic mini display for my instinct watch.

I set it on ‘indoor ride’ mode with BT/GPS off, with the watch broadcasting HR as that’s all I really wanted to keep track of when glancing at the bars. basically turned the edge into an Ant+ receiver and display.

I recorded the ride on the watch. And now I’ve just left the edge running with the watch still beaming HR at it to see just how long it will run like that (seems like it will go for ages like this)…

I know Garmin do their “extended display” thing for the Fenix, Enduro, epic and some of the Fore runners so long as you use a compatible edge you can display more information on the bars.

But are there any other options for a cheap ‘Dumb’ head unit? Something that can just display data from another device and/or sensors during a ride? Ideally something that can be tailored a bit more in terms of fields and display setup and keep going in non-GPS mode for a good long while…

I’ve been wondering about this but for simplified navigation cues only. Happy to keep my phone in a pocket recording and check a map when needed, but thought a nice simple little screen with a breadcrumb trail or similar would be good. I saw this in an advert but not sure if it would work that well at more off road navigation and 11 hours isn’t enough battery, but I like the principle:

Beeline Velo 2

I just use my old Edge 810, works a treat.

That ‘Beeline’ Jobbie looks sort of interesting, I assume it has to talk to a phone via BT to be useful though and they don’t make any real mention about any wider sensor compatibility (ANT+?), I don’t think that’s really the target market is it? It’s more tethered satnav for commuters and casual urban cycling.
I’m not really bothered about Navigation in this instance, 11 hrs runtime is respectable I suppose, they say it’s got a 400mAh battery where my little edge 25 is only 110mAh but my little experiment demonstrated to me that it will run for ages with GPS/BT disabled (I got bored and stopped it after 10 hours with the battery indicator not showing a significant reduction)

For Navigation duties I have an Edge Explore (plus a battery pack) I’m only interested in a Dumb head unit for “Training” purposes mainly to keep an eye on HR… Essentially I have a whole separate setup for longer road/gravel rides where Navigation might be needed.

More generally I’m just trying to get away from using a bar mounted device for day to day riding in favour of recording stuff with a watch, but I do have a couple of good use cases for bar mounted devices still.

I think I’ll hold onto the Edge 25 just to use as a ‘dumb’ bar display for HR, I don’t think I’ll do much better with anything else that’s out there right now…

Cheers all.

i just strap my instinct to my bars (using a little garmin thing to make it nicer) then use a generic ant+ chest strap to measure heart rate. More accurate than a wrist heart rate and way cheaper than a head unit.

Not sure on the V2 but beeline was just a Bluetooth connected display for the phone app, and we never got it working well for us for off-road riding. You were supposed to be able to import a gpx for off-road, but I found it always simplified whatever you gave it down to a dozen waypoints

I’m using my instinct on my wrist specifically to get away from needing a HR strap.

I only want to broadcast wrist HR to something simple on the bars for “training purposes” not on every ride, it doesn’t need to be mega accurate TBH.

I’m using my instinct on my wrist specifically to get away from needing a HR strap.

Oddly mine seems to be very binary whether it’s accurate or not.

Either it matches perfectly, or doesn’t. I managed a four and a half hour ride on the SS the other day, the instinct HR fluctuates (so it’s doing something) but only between 50-100bpm (i.e. the same as a stressful day sat at my desk!). Other days it works perfectly.

Yeah, it’s fine for my purposes HR wise, perhaps I’m wearing it a bit tighter or something?

Elevation is another matter entirely, I’m just ignoring that though 🙂