As reported by us earlier this month from Unbound Gravel, GPS sports activities watch producer COROS is getting into the biking market with its “Dura” Photo voltaic GPS biking laptop, boasting an astonishing 120+ hour battery life.
Based in 2016, COROS is comparatively new to the sports activities expertise business however has shortly gained a devoted following amongst endurance athletes on account of its high-performance options, sturdy coaching packages, and spectacular battery life.
“We have now usually been requested once we would create a motorbike laptop. Whereas we’ve all the time been enthusiastic about biking, we did not wish to develop a brand new head unit with out creating one thing completely different,” the model states.
With the Dura, COROS goals to produce athletes with “the final word biking journey and coaching companion” and has particularly got down to serve gravel racers, FKT chasers, brevet riders, and ultra-long-distance adventurers.
“Simplicity is the guideline for the brand new bike laptop. COROS has prioritized rider expertise by addressing a number of ache factors,” the model states. “From seemingly countless battery life to utilizing Google Maps for navigation, to lightning-fast add speeds and rather more.”
The unit’s most exceptional function is its 120-hour battery life, which operates independently of its photo voltaic panels. Like Garmin’s Photo voltaic merchandise, the photo voltaic panels on this machine lengthen the battery life reasonably than recharge the battery. COROS claims that an hour of direct daylight can add as much as two hours of journey time.
Beneath the photo voltaic panels sits a 2.7-inch MIP color touchscreen. For individuals who favor tactile controls, the aspect of the machine features a dial and button, permitting for straightforward interplay with the pc’s many customizable pages. This all is available in a modern and compact bundle, weighing simply 97 grams and measuring 99.5 x 60.8 x 15.7 mm (3.92 x 2.39 x 0.62 inches).
The newest race content material, interviews, options, evaluations and skilled shopping for guides, direct to your inbox!
COROS guarantees to ship all of the options cyclists have come to anticipate from a GPS head unit, complemented by COROS’s sturdy coaching platform, which is accessible through the cell app and the desktop Coaching Hub and free for machine customers. This service permits athletes to analyse efficiency metrics, talk with their coach, create personalised exercises and coaching plans, and extra. It is like having TrainingPeaks included together with your watch or biking laptop buy.
“Our objective is to create merchandise that remedy issues for athletes—whether or not that is to assist them practice, discover the world, or just deliver them nearer to the game they already love. COROS DURA is a transparent extension of this ethos and really is the final word journey and coaching companion,” says Lewis Wu, COROS Co-Founder.
The all-new COROS Dura is obtainable for pre-order beginning June 17 for $249 / £249 and can start transport to prospects on July 15.
Biking Weekly acquired a pre-release unit to check, so let’s take a better take a look at the Dura.
What’s has
(Picture credit score: COROS)
- Dimension: 99.5 x 60.8 x 15.7mm (3.92 x 2.39 x 0.62 inches)
- Weight: 97g head unit, 44g mount
- Glossy, aerodynamic design
- Wonderful value level: $249 / £249 / EUR 289
- Battery measurement: 960 mAh battery
- Battery life: 120 hours excluding photo voltaic (70 GPS hours in Twin-Frequency mode)
- Photo voltaic add: 1 hour of direct daylight provides as much as 2 hours of additional journey time
- Battery expenses totally in as little as 2 hours
- Display screen: 2.7 inch MIP colour contact display screen with 240 x 400 pixel decision
- Extra operation through a dial on the aspect and Again/Lap button
- Onboard sensors: barometric altimeter, accelerometer, gyroscope, compass, temperature sensor
- Storage capability: 32GB
- Working temp: -20 C (-4F) to 60C (140F)
- Adaptive backlight
- In-app route builder
- Good rerouting (through app)
- Normal quarter-turn interface*
- Bluetooth/ANT+/WiFi connectivity
- Twin-Frequency GPS (L1+L5)
- Auto GPS mode: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO, Beidou, QZSS
- IP67 water resistance
- Crash detection
- Bike alarm
- Stay monitoring
- Notifications
- Third-party app syncing
- Free exercises and coaching plans out there in app and desktop platform
- Along with a COROS watch, the ecosystem presents a 24/7 profile of your health and coaching standing incl. Sleep, HRV and Day by day Stress information
*observe: we discovered that the unit match reasonably loosely in my stem-specific Okay-Edge mount, which COROS rep informed us was a identified problem. COROS has since elevated the scale of the tabs on the again of the DURA after the primary manufacturing run of models so they’ll match all Okay-Edge mounts extra tightly.
What it does not have (on the time of pre-release testing)
(Picture credit score: COROS)
- Avenue names or POI on machine maps
- Integration with Experience with GPS
- On-device rerouting
- “Climb” function
- Temperature, Climate, Wind information
- Strava reside segments
- Lap Abstract Knowledge
- Location on unit
What’s coming quickly
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
- Experience with GPS integration (Accessible beginning this week)
- Biking actions and full exercise builder help on COROS Coaching Hub (Accessible beginning this week)
- Outside Temperature readings (Accessible from July 1)
- A “Climb” function when following routes can be improved and can higher show lengthy climbs
- Strava Stay Segments
- Shorter sync time for sending Strava routes to the COROS app
- Media controls for playback on telephone through Bluetooth
- Optimizations for Flip-by-Flip in order that its extra responsive at excessive speeds
“Like with all COROS merchandise, we’ll proceed to recurrently replace the product with extra software program updates intermittently over the course of the 12 months and past,” Coros says.
First impressions:
(Picture credit score: Anne-Marije Rook)
We acquired our take a look at models solely per week earlier than launch, and thus, our time with the Dura GPS biking laptop has been transient, however we’ll share our first impression now and a full-fledged assessment later this summer season.
Preliminary unboxing impressions had been that the unit is surprisingly modern and light-weight, given its claimed battery life and host of capabilities. For comparability, the Dura is smaller than a Garmin Edge 1040 and extra just like the Hammerhead Karoo however thinner.
The Dura sports activities a decently-sized vibrant show –although missing in each measurement and graphics when in comparison with, say, the newest Hammerhead Karoo– and a photo voltaic panel that’s a lot bigger than what we have been seeing on Garmin’s Photo voltaic merchandise. The dial on the aspect of the unit is a nod to the model’s watch heritage. In wristwatches, this knob known as a crown and historically had the important perform of setting the time and winding the watch. The ‘crown’ on the GPS biking laptop means that you can navigate the unit’s settings and pages.
The actual star is, in fact, the battery life. After per week’s use, together with one eight-hour journey, the battery continues to be above 70%.
There’s all the time a studying curve when switching to a brand new ecosystem of merchandise, and I like to recommend customers take a while attending to know the Dura and the companion app, particularly. Loads of the machine’s settings and customizations are accessed through the app and cannot be accessed through the unit itself.
I skilled a number of hiccups in my admittedly few take a look at rides that left me considerably underwhelmed. That is, nevertheless, largely because of the many options being unavailable till public launch or ship time. These hiccups included the dearth of integration with Experience with GPS (which can be fastened by launch time), the slow-to-respond zoom out and in buttons on the contact display screen and a few navigation points.
The on-device map does not present any road or path names, nor does it point out any factors of curiosity. For a product focused on the extra adventurous of cyclists, my largest concern lies in its rerouting talents or reasonably, its limitations.
COROS claims, “In the event you change your thoughts mid-ride, seek for new locations in your telephone or draw a brand new route, COROS DURA will sync the up to date route in seconds.” This may work properly in a metropolis, however it falls brief in distant backcountry settings the place there isn’t a cellphone reception.
The Dura is without doubt one of the few computer systems in its class that does not sport on-device rerouting talents. As a substitute, it depends on the app and mobile connection or WiFi.
“The considering right here is that *most* of the time while you want this sort of rerouting help, you are in a extra dense city atmosphere with a number of routes to the identical vacation spot (the place you are prone to have mobile protection),” COROS tells Biking Weekly.
“Conversely, while you’re out within the backcountry or in additional rural areas the place you won’t have mobile protection, it is often fairly easy to seek out your manner again on route by wanting on the map in case you make a mistaken flip.”
From expertise, I’ve to disagree with this logic. Greater than as soon as, I’ve discovered myself in a wooded space, far-off from any civilization, looking at 5 identical-looking gravel paths, questioning which was going to take me within the path I really needed to go. In these conditions, I’ve come to depend on on-device rerouting or my watch’s skill to route me to the closest POI to get me again on observe.
Moreover, the rerouting is powered by Google Maps reasonably than OSM Cycle, which does not typically counsel and even acknowledge gravel trails. It prioritises paved, identified roads. As such, I lately discovered myself being rerouted to a closely trafficked freeway reasonably than the beautiful, quiet gravel roads my route was meant to take me on.
Fortunately, COROS revealed that it does plan on bringing a reroute performance to offline maps ASAP.
The Dura’s battery life is actually astonishing, setting a brand new customary available in the market. Its value is extremely aggressive as properly. Different photo voltaic merchandise carry a price ticket of at the very least $100 extra, generally as a lot as $500 extra just like the Garmin Edge 1040 Photo voltaic.
Garmin and Wahoo have lengthy dominated the GPS biking laptop area, so the emergence of a robust competitor can be a welcome improvement.
Shopper models will not ship till July 15. As such, I and our different testers look ahead to testing the options as they roll out. We are going to report again with a full-length assessment later this summer season.
