Samsung S4 Active as a bike unit?

[jever98]

I have been pondering if the Galaxy S4 Active would be a good head unit. It has a big screen, has an ANT+ chip and is waterproof.

Has anybody tried it? With a quarter turn mount glued onto the back it could make a pretty nice screen.

[KWalker]

Far too big (5inch diagonal screens are quickly becoming a standard size for non iOS devices) and running constant data uploads in the background wouldn't be pretty for battery on long rides. ANT+ data packets are fairly small and only would upload 1x/second, but the fact that the display takes a lot of power, connectivity to GSM/CDMA networks takes additional power, the app running constantly in the foreground also takes power, GPS (if you want it) cranking on the battery even more takes power, etc. its not a very feasible solution with current batteries. Most of the ANT+ or BTLE wearable fitness devices benefit from not having to actually power many receivers or services nor do they have to power as large of an OS and their screens are far smaller, which is why most fitness companies are moving to watches first. If anything I could see a universal ANT+ fitness watch/HU occupying this space and transmitting to a phone for data storage with an app running in the background, or to a simple SD card. Moreover, since it would use the device's GPS capabilities you would have to get fairly frequent location updates to create even a meager breadcrumb trail, which cuts battery life down even further. If you've ever tried the RoadID app you'd know what I mean there.

I messed around with a Wahoo computer for a while and found it to simply be draining for my phone, especially if I wanted to listen to music or use Garmin Connect.

Lastly, on a sidenote, the rise of BTLE as a standard for connected devices is going to be the nail in the coffin for ANT+ as a standard, despite what DCRainmaker might say.

[AndreLM]

I agree with KWalker on the battery issue. But in case you want to try, you can use this case.

IpBike is the app you will need.

[jever98]

@KWalker:
I am not sure I follow on the battery issues: The Garmin Edge 800 has a 1100maH battery vs the Samsung's 2600maH battery. I would expect that you have similar power consumption from the ANT+ and GPS chips. Other functions like phone, other apps should be possible to be turned off. Leaves the question of the screen and backlight.

Regarding the screen size - why too big? Should make for good legibility? I guess you could put it sideways in front of the handlebars.

@AndreLM: the case is for the S4, unfortunately (different size)

Cheers
N

[CBJ]

Larger and higher resolution screen will use more battery?

Will it work with gloves like the Garmin?

All phones normally has tons of glare which makes it very difficult to read the screen when biking.

[KWalker]

The screen will use a lot more battery even o low output settings. I assume you could turn every other service off, but that seems sort of pointless. You cannot just compare battery size i terms of battery life and output. We have done A/B/C tests with lots of different brands with lots of different settings (cell on, GPS on, cell off, GPS off) and every brand seems to be fairly unique. Different chipsets consume power in different ways, but I would still estimate without any firm data that the phone battery life would still be fairly short. Plus, if you can't use it as a connected device, a phone, or a GPS device why on earth would you use it over a cycling computer? Cycling computers with these features aren't very expensive and like I said above, lots of people like actually having their phone operate like a phone while they ride. For me this means CDMA, GPS (sometimes), Skype on (for notifications), email on, cell service on, and usually a music player on. I can't imagine wanting to sacrifice phone functionality so it could be a really big, inefficient cycling computer. And, like I said, I don't think the ANT+ chip is any benefit since that standard will eventually be killed off.

No one needs a 5 inch diagonal screen. Having used one of those iPhone cases, its just not necessary and doesn't add to the experience.

[AndreLM]

My bad on the casing recommendation...

[g00se]

Having used various Android phones as strava/gps trackers, even with most of the functions turned off, you'd only get a few hundred miles before the battery is empty - even with the screen off. Controlling the device is problematic too, especially with gloved hands.

[Mattias Hellöre]

Where did you read it have ant+ chip that will work with garmin stuff?

[g00se]

i don't have enough posts to add links yet - but there are details of the S4 models that have ant+ built in on thisisant.com