How reliable is the Satmap A10?

[PloddinPedro]

I used my A10 for LEL last week. It went for only 112k before damp got into it and shortly thereafter, it shut down completely. After that, its only use was as a routesheet holder!

At the finish I noticed another rider (sorry, didn't get a name) using an A10 and enquired how he'd fared with his - seems he suffered similarly although not to the point of total failure.

Anyone else have similar experiences? Have we two (hopefully) been unlucky and are the exceptions?

There will be communications with Satmap ........................ !

[Bledlow]

I've had mine since February. It's been in the rain a few times. Working perfectly - so far.

Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight. The reviewer obviously neither read the instructions, nor visited the manufacturers website.

[PloddinPedro]

....Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight.

Why would you turn off the backlight? If you do, you can't see anything on the screen; even to turn it back on again, if you've navigated away from the Settings page by accident.

[mike]

ours leaked in the lake district while we were walking.  It didnt die completely, but there was quite a lot of wet under the screen.

Underwhelmed.

[TimO]

I've never used mine in weather which was comparable to LEL, so couldn't say that it's immune to leaks, but I have used it in rain and it's been OK (so far).

Water can get under the upper screen, but that's easily (and intentionally) removed to clear things up.

The rubber dimple bit over the joystick broke on mine, so I got it replaced with a service.  If I hadn't got ir replaced, it would have compromised the waterproofness, and use in rain would have been a bad idea.

I thought that they were meant to be waterproof, so they should work in heavy rain, although I would have been more doubtful over the batteries lasting long enough (although I use multiple Li-Ion batteries rather than AAs).

On one longish ride, the track got confused, which was annoying, but could probably be avoided by saving the track every 12 hours or so.  I also carry an IgotU as a backup for route logging.

[PloddinPedro]

On one longish ride, the track got confused, which was annoying, but could probably be avoided by saving the track every 12 hours or so.

I find the track stops recording after about 210k or so. If I want a full record of the ride, I have to "Convert Trail to Track" every so often.  

I also carry an IgotU as a backup for route logging.

Sounds interesting - what's that?

[TimO]

I also carry an IgotU as a backup for route logging.

Sounds interesting - what's that?

The I-gotU is a small integrated GPS tracker and logger.  It's intended to be used for attaching GPS fixes to photographs.  It's biggest issue is that due to the size of the battery, to keep it running for the whole of LEL you would have to reduce the logging rate significantly, possibly something like once a minute (the application that configures it is on a different PC to this one).

[Bledlow]

....Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight.

Why would you turn off the backlight? If you do, you can't see anything on the screen; even to turn it back on again, if you've navigated away from the Settings page by accident.

You can see the screen with the backlight off, in quite moderate light levels. If you try it, you'll see. Mine is readable right now, under an old & dim 11W  low-energy lamp, with the backlight off. In bright sunlight, it's clearer with the backlight off than on. That's what Satmap say, & they're right. I've tried it.

[PloddinPedro]

....Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight.

Why would you turn off the backlight? If you do, you can't see anything on the screen; even to turn it back on again, if you've navigated away from the Settings page by accident.

You can see the screen with the backlight off, in quite moderate light levels. If you try it, you'll see. Mine is readable right now, under an old & dim 11W  low-energy lamp, with the backlight off. In bright sunlight, it's clearer with the backlight off than on. That's what Satmap say, & they're right. I've tried it.

Well that's bizarre. It's almost as if you have a totally different piece of kit from mine! If I set mine to zero backlight I can barely make out anything and then only if I angle the screen to catch the light. Judged by my unit, "what Satmap say" is completely untrue. How new is your A10?

[Bledlow]

....Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight.

Why would you turn off the backlight? If you do, you can't see anything on the screen; even to turn it back on again, if you've navigated away from the Settings page by accident.

You can see the screen with the backlight off, in quite moderate light levels. If you try it, you'll see. Mine is readable right now, under an old & dim 11W  low-energy lamp, with the backlight off. In bright sunlight, it's clearer with the backlight off than on. That's what Satmap say, & they're right. I've tried it.

Well that's bizarre. It's almost as if you have a totally different piece of kit from mine! If I set mine to zero backlight I can barely make out anything and then only if I angle the screen to catch the light. Judged by my unit, "what Satmap say" is completely untrue. How new is your A10?

Bought February this year.

It depends on the light level & the angle you hold it at. The screen has to be lit from somewhere, so turning the backlight off won't work in very dim light, or when the screen is angled away from the light, but I've read it comfortably in the shade of trees on a day when it was very sunny in the open. That was the first day I tried turning the backlight off. With it on, the screen had to be shaded to be read at all, & only with difficulty however much I shaded it.

When I first used it, in February & March, I had to have the backlight on. By May, I was getting irritated by the difficulty of reading the screen on sunny days (light levels really do increase), so looked for ways to turn the backlight up to 100% while keeping other power-saving modes (screen turning off, etc) operating - and found the advice to turn the backlight off when ambient light made the screen hard to read. As I said, I tried it next time I went out on a sunny day, & found it to be practical advice. Only when it's very bright, mind you.

[PloddinPedro]

....Factually incorrect review in the new CTC comic. Says it only covers the UK, & you can't turn off the backlight.

Why would you turn off the backlight? If you do, you can't see anything on the screen; even to turn it back on again, if you've navigated away from the Settings page by accident.

You can see the screen with the backlight off, in quite moderate light levels. If you try it, you'll see. Mine is readable right now, under an old & dim 11W  low-energy lamp, with the backlight off. In bright sunlight, it's clearer with the backlight off than on. That's what Satmap say, & they're right. I've tried it.

Well that's bizarre. It's almost as if you have a totally different piece of kit from mine! If I set mine to zero backlight I can barely make out anything and then only if I angle the screen to catch the light. Judged by my unit, "what Satmap say" is completely untrue. How new is your A10?

Bought February this year.

It depends on the light level & the angle you hold it at. The screen has to be lit from somewhere, so turning the backlight off won't work in very dim light, or when the screen is angled away from the light, but I've read it comfortably in the shade of trees on a day when it was very sunny in the open. That was the first day I tried turning the backlight off. With it on, the screen had to be shaded to be read at all, & only with difficulty however much I shaded it.

When I first used it, in February & March, I had to have the backlight on. By May, I was getting irritated by the difficulty of reading the screen on sunny days (light levels really do increase), so looked for ways to turn the backlight up to 100% while keeping other power-saving modes (screen turning off, etc) operating - and found the advice to turn the backlight off when ambient light made the screen hard to read. As I said, I tried it next time I went out on a sunny day, & found it to be practical advice. Only when it's very bright, mind you.

Interesting. I've just had a long chat on the 'phone with Richard Calthrop-Owen, Satmap CEO. He knows me of old as I've long since been one of his more difficult/extreme A10 users! I've sent my A10 back today and he's promised to get it sorted out, water ingress-wise. We talked about the backlight issue. He sort of confirmed what you've said insofar as it seems the troops have been using them out in Afghanistan and are using them with the screen off to conserve power; mind you, he did add that obviously the light levels out there are way above those here!

When I get my unit back, I'll experiment a bit more and see what luck I have.

[TimO]

This is an interesting thread.  I've had the most success power wise, when using it overnight (typically on a FNRttC) when I've set the screen to 10-20% brightness.  The battery last for ages like this (I've normally got the screen set to turn off after 30 seconds or so).

On bright days, it's been next to useless to read the screen without stopping and shielding it with my hand, but I never thought of turning the backlight off altogether.

Next time I'm using it on a bright sunny day, I'll also have to experiment.

[PloddinPedro]

This is an interesting thread.  I've had the most success power wise, when using it overnight (typically on a FNRttC) when I've set the screen to 10-20% brightness.  The battery last for ages like this (I've normally got the screen set to turn off after 30 seconds or so).

That's exactly how I use mine - it's fantastic at night, to have the rolling OS map very nicely lit and very easy to read (but see below) In fact I'd say you could afford to go down to 5% if it were available, to save your night vision a bit; it would still be easily readable.

On bright days, it's been next to useless to read the screen without stopping and shielding it with my hand, but I never thought of turning the backlight off altogether. Next time I'm using it on a bright sunny day, I'll also have to experiment.

Again, agreed exactly.

Incidently, on the subject of readability, I had a rant at Richard C-O about the choice of colour for the Route - I find that when trying to follow an "activated" route through complex road formations, the colour of the route merges effectively with unclassified yellow and brown B roads. I suggested they should use magenta as Garmin do, or some similar colour which stands out but which doesn't match any colour in common use on the OS map. How do others feel about this? Do you also find it a problem or is it just my tired old eyes?

[TimO]

Incidently, on the subject of readability, I had a rant at Richard C-O about the choice of colour for the Route - I find that when trying to follow an "activated" route through complex road formations, the colour of the route merges effectively with unclassified yellow and brown B roads. I suggested they should use magenta as Garmin do, or some similar colour which stands out but which doesn't match any colour in common use on the OS map. How do others feel about this? Do you also find it a problem or is it just my tired old eyes?

No it's not just you, I find this a problem as well.

One potential problem is that different companies use different colours, so whilst this may solve things for UK OS mapping, it could muck up other UK maps (eg A-Z) or non-UK mapping.

The easiest solution would be to have an option somewhere to allow a choice of the route colour, and ideally it would remember the colour for each map card, so when I swap between my 1:50000 South-UK and 1:14000 London A-Z the route colour changes as well.

[Bledlow]

... (I've normally got the screen set to turn off after 30 seconds or so).

On bright days, it's been next to useless to read the screen without stopping and shielding it with my hand, but I never thought of turning the backlight off altogether.
...

1) Ditto.
2) Ditto. That's why I was hunting through the instructions & website looking for some way of combining 100% backlight with rapid screen switch-off, & other power-saving stuff.  That was how I stumbled across the "turn it off" advice. I don't think I'd ever have thought of it myself.

PloddinPedro - interesting what you say about Afghanistan. I wonder what maps they're using. Any idea if it's issued, or one of those things troops buy for themselves? Aren't the Satmap founders ex-military? Maybe they have contacts . . . .  ah yes: Richard Calthrop-Owen is ex-RAF - Satmap Man Interviewed - OUTDOORSmagic Gear features

[TimO]

PloddinPedro - interesting what you say about Afghanistan. I wonder what maps they're using. Any idea if it's issued, or one of those things troops buy for themselves? Aren't the Satmap founders ex-military? Maybe they have contacts . . . .  ah yes: Richard Calthrop-Owen is ex-RAF - Satmap Man Interviewed - OUTDOORSmagic Gear features

I would imagine that if it'll sell more units, they would more than happily cooperate with the MOD to put their mapping of Afghanistan onto an SD card, even though there is no way it would ever be released to the world at large.

(In fact, it would be a trivial tweak to make sure that it only worked with units fitted with a MOD approved firmware, so it couldn't even be accidentally leaked to the outside world.  That's what I would do if I was involved).

[andygates]

Bledlow, you're not using polarized glasses are you?  They are famously funny with these transflective screens.

[Bledlow]

Bledlow, you're not using polarized glasses are you?  They are famously funny with these transflective screens.

I usually wear ordinary plastic glasses. Contact lenses & Bolle sunglasses (with various lenses) when cycling.

[PloddinPedro]

Bledlow, you're not using polarized glasses are you?  They are famously funny with these transflective screens.

I usually wear ordinary plastic glasses. Contact lenses & Bolle sunglasses (with various lenses) when cycling.

That's another interesting comparison - I find I cannot use any kind of tinted sunglasses and still expect to be able to read the Satmap screen. Polarized especially just don't work at all.

[Bledlow]

There's obviously a difference between our eyes, as my sunglasses make little difference: some, not a lot. Weeellll . . . .  unless I do something silly, such as wear the darkest lenses on a dull day.

[perpetual dan]

Thread resurrection - my active 10 gave me trouble today, for the first time. I've not updated the software in a while but have done so since I got it. The batteries were fine - freshly charged and I was only out 3 and bit hours. It was mildly moist, but nothing more than that. I had two sorts of problem:
Twice, going down hill and dodging most of the potholes, it switched itself off. Both times I had to remove a battery and put it back in before it would re-boot.
Once the "you are here" circle froze. It responded to button presses, so it was a good km before I realised it wasn't showing me as moving and that turn back there was the one I should have taken. Maybe I put it into planning mode by mistake, I'll keep an eye on that.
Has anyone else had this? I'm slightly concerned that its developed a loose connection.

[PloddinPedro]

Thread resurrection - my active 10 gave me trouble today, for the first time. I've not updated the software in a while but have done so since I got it. The batteries were fine - freshly charged and I was only out 3 and bit hours. It was mildly moist, but nothing more than that. I had two sorts of problem:
Twice, going down hill and dodging most of the potholes, it switched itself off. Both times I had to remove a battery and put it back in before it would re-boot.
Once the "you are here" circle froze. It responded to button presses, so it was a good km before I realised it wasn't showing me as moving and that turn back there was the one I should have taken. Maybe I put it into planning mode by mistake, I'll keep an eye on that.
Has anyone else had this? I'm slightly concerned that its developed a loose connection.

I haven't suffered the power off problem but I use the li-pol battery instead of AAs in the cradle. However, I have suffered this problem with Garmins and the remedy was to pack the metal contacts with a little sponge rubber or similar. You may find that simply bending the folded metal contacts so that they grip the batteries more tightly will help?

Re. the "freezing", I suspect you may have knocked it into Planning mode without realising it. On the few occasions mine has frozen, it's always a total lock up - none of the buttons, including the power off one, will work and the only remedy is to remove the battery and reboot.

[TimO]

Re. the "freezing", I suspect you may have knocked it into Planning mode without realising it. On the few occasions mine has frozen, it's always a total lock up - none of the buttons, including the power off one, will work and the only remedy is to remove the battery and reboot.

Occasionally I've had the software go to sleep for a significant amount of time, 30-60 seconds, during which it won't respond to the keyboard (including noticing that a key had been pressed and turning the display back on).

Of course, when it does eventually respond it goes mad for a few seconds as it catches up with all the keypresses, hence it's obviously a moderately privileged process holding up a low privilege process, the screen display.  Very high priority process such as the keyboard handler is still running fine, and buffering up the keypresses.  Similarly, the logging continues in the background without any pause, since the track is complete and doesn't end up with any gaps or discontinuous jumps.

Last week, when using it on the Nottingham to London ride, some water got into the switches (the "nipple" has broken off again) and eventually the entire user interface flipped out, and refused to respond.  The logging continued in the background happily, and the entire route was there when I downloaded it later.

That is the only real issue I have with the unit, the rubber gasketing is damaged far too easily, even just with normal use, and once it's broken water can get in and inevitably cause the device to fail.

[perpetual dan]

Good point about the batteries, I'll try tweaking the contacts.

I've also had the delay problem Tim mentions, most obviously when it is trying to get a GPS lock and find SD cards as well. I was probably pressing buttons for a minute the first time it happened yesterday - I counted to ten at one point. The logging I'm less concerned about that being able to navigate - but when I converted the trail and put it on bikeroutetoaster there were gaps.

[TimO]

...but when I converted the trail and put it on bikeroutetoaster there were gaps.

GPS recordings always have gaps.  When you go under a bridge, or a large vehicle goes past you, or you're in a built up area with poor sky visibility, the GPS will always have problems seeing enough satellites to maintain a solid contact, in which case you'll get gaps (depending on the unit and the duration).

Whenever I've had gaps with the Active 10, it's been due to something like that.