Your Karoo 2 will unfortunately be delayed in its final delivery to your door. Please allow us to shed some light on the reason behind this.
Like you, our team has been working in a totally new world of remote operations. While we have successfully navigated our way through international supply chain challenges and restrictions to team movement over the course of this year, this has still posed a major hurdle. Remote exchanges between our factory and testing facilities in the last few weeks have slowed our progress as we launch this innovative product under the highest quality standards.
For this reason we are forced to adjust our shipping timeline, and ultimately delay your order. At the time of pre-order, your order was scheduled to ship in late October. We now expect to ship the bulk of these orders in late November. Some orders are projected to ship a few weeks earlier than this, and some a few weeks later, as we prioritize delivery by order date. We have been working tirelessly to avoid this scenario and are sad to have to share this news.
If the additional weeks of waiting are too much, will refund your pre-order deposit at any time, and would love to welcome you back as a customer in the future. To ensure your full satisfaction, we also offer a 45 day refund policy after your unit is received. We will keep you informed as we ramp production in the weeks ahead and your shipment draws near. If you have any further questions please reply to this email, and our team will get back to you.
Thank you for your patience and your support. Our mission remains to bring you the most advanced head unit on the market, and to help you unlock your full athletic potential.
I pre-ordered the day they opened it, I think August 27 or something. You must have jumped on a bit later.
Still, I have told them that we all have to cope with ‘the current situation’ and that if you decide to start taking pre-orders by the end of August, only to delay shipping as of mid-October, you haven’t been paying attention much.
Same for me. I’m fine with it, as I don’t know what I would do of it in that period of training indoors. Moreover, it seems that we will be locked down again, soon… (by the 26th of October ?)
No ANT+ without a dongle; but BLE works fine for me (HR, cadence, smart trainer, and power) .
Doesn’t provide the all-in-one solution as hoped for (phone as GPS); I won’t bother to install a SIM.
Tested with XM (v3.5.2.0) running in foreground continuously at normal screen brightness –
2 hour rides/workouts, no problem. 2-1/2 hours is risky. Anything longer and you need a battery power pack of some sort but NOT the over-priced, under juiced Mophie available for the Palm.
I came up with an 8+ hour option (as pictured) but haven’t tested that runtime estimate. The longest route I might ride on a weekend is 6 hours.
No doubt you could extend runtime considerably with apps that support sleep/dim functions and operate in background. Possibly 50% or more? However, I am baffled how Palm came up with 4:45 hour estimate for a “GPS workout”. Doesn’t seem feasible with any app and sensors connected.
Haven’t tried removing Verizon bloatware to boost battery life but that should help too. I did disable most apps under Settings for my tests.
Summary –
Palm works fine for me as a cycling computer, but I’m only interested in running Xert mobile with BLE sensors and Google Maps when needed.
I assume Varia radar will work but haven’t purchased a RTL515 to test that yet. Hint to Xert: Add radar support in future version of the mobile app.
Total cost: $150USD (refurbished Palm + TPU case + VHB tape + 6000mAh power pack + glue on quarter-turn plate); 185 g
$150 is my do-over price. I spent more initially but got refunds when I realized where things were headed. The first protective case I got (polycarbonate frame, TPU bumper) couldn’t be used with the power pack because it’s too stiff to mount with VHB tape and be able to remove the phone. However, I kept that case to use as my “2 hour” solution (indoors or out). It’s a slick looking combo:
If your workout/ride needs are lightweight in nature (1-2 hours) this is the way to go (refurbished Palm + SUPCASE + KOM adapter plate = 88 grams, $128USD).
For the 8+ hour solution (first two pics above) I got a 100% TPU case which is flexible all-around so the phone can be pulled out even with case securely VHB taped to the power pack. This TPU case happens to accept a lanyard loop so I made use of my Garmin strap. If I were to redo this configuration I would get a slightly smaller power pack (same design, different manufacturer, 5000mAH).
I can assure you that this delay was completely unexpected and caused due to a last-minute change that we had to make to improve the unit’s durability.
You can certainly keep this email as proof that we will not have any more delays.
Glad they caught it before the first wave but I wonder what it was?
Durability could be anything from shock test failure to water intrusion to screen display or an issue with the new mount design. Your guess is as good as mine.
Probably not “easy”, but I found these instructions straight forward to follow. They’re written for someone who has an apple computer and makes use of the terminal: https://github.com/JohnJ80/Karoo-App-Sideloading.
Mostly though I use the xert player on computer/phone, and run the typical Karoo interface. The interface size of the xert player on Karoo is a little too small.
