The main thing that still bugs me a little is that the maps are *very* basic (and small, not surprising considering the unit's size), with no street names displayed, even at max zoom (which only goes as close as 200ft, would be nicer to be able to go closer for tricky turns) and once you zoom out further than 1000 ft are pretty useless in terms of seeing anything helpful, which combined with the lack of being able to pan around the maps really does make the maps *only* really suitable for following existing routes (preferably with Turn by Turn directions - though at least such routes are easy to get onto the device), rather than getting a general sense of orientation and checking what's around you. The lack of colour on the maps also makes differentiating types of roads and tracks difficult.
This is a bit of an issue for me, as the main thing I want a GPS unit on my bike for is navigation - I'm not a competitive cyclist, and don't really need any "training" features (though some basic stats are nice, as is the ease of uploading my rides to Strava and RideWithGPS), but I *do* want to be able to navigate when cycle touring, both for single day 50 mile+ outings, as well as much longer extend touring trips in the UK and abroad. The TBT route display is good, but I think the Bolt is only going to be up to the job if I also regularly check the map on my phone to get a better sense of orientation.
I've been using an Elemnt (non-Bolt) for the last few months and at first I thought I was going to find the maps inadequate, but in practice they've been fine for navigation. My biggest annoyance is that if you get too far off course, the Elemnt can stop displaying the route entirely - something has been overly optimised to keep everything running smoothly on low-powered hardware, at the expense of usefulness. One thing that I do is have the "distance to next cue" visible on one of my data pages and then switch to the map page (zoomed in fairly closely) as needed.
I used RideWithGPS for all of my mapping because that's what Audax Oz have standardised on, and it integrates beautifully with the Elemnt.
I just tried out my Bolt with RideWithGPS today (also the first time I've used RideWithGPS!), the integration does indeed work very well. Ride with GPS seems to generate pretty sensible automatic routes (more so than Komoots or the Companion app) and the Turn By Turn directions are clear and helpful. One issue I did experience, which I didn't notice so much with the TBT directions I got from Komoot is that the distance to turn notifications seem a bit behind of my location, by this I mean I was actually at the point where I needed to turn when the TBT directions from RWGPS seemed to think I was still 40 to 50 feet away, so twice I actually missed the turn, though of course the Elemnt beeped at me and flashed red, so I knew that this had happened and could turn back. is there a way to tweak the RWGPS settings somehow to make the distance to turn notification more accurate? I was in open ground in Oxford, so assume the GPS signal was fine.
When I rejoined the route, the Bolt flashed green LEDs at me to confirm I was back on it, then all was good again
I wish you could create a RWGPS route in the smartphone app (or at least in a more mobile-optimised website), like Komoot, so that I could generate a route using it whilst on a tour.
I’m enjoying mine - everything has worked fine so far - it’s nice to have something compact on the bars for a change. The buttons are great - positive and light even with gloves - the side ones a million times better than the original. Sound is very loud - ideal for the hard of hearing! The only disappointment is that the led’s are not that visible in sunlight.
Interestingly, that's the opposite of my experience with the original Elemnt: sound is not loud enough but the LEDs are plenty bright, even in direct Australian summer sunlight.
I read that they made the beep much louder on the Bolt, I think the volume is just about right. The LEDs are okay, though sometimes a bit hard to see when very bright.
I actually wish the screen was a little bigger on the Bolt, perfect for me would probably be something with a screen in between that of the Bolt and original Elemnt (2.4"?), but with the form factor, new buttons and loud beep of the Bolt...
I also wish there was an option (which you could turn on or off) for the Elemnt to automatically switch to map mode (and back afterwards) when approaching a turn - I'd like this for some routes, but not others.