Bryton GPS cyclocomputers?

[bumknees]

Has anyone here used the Bryton Rider 30 or Rider 50 cyclocomputers? I was thinking about getting a Garmin Edge 500, but the prices on the Brytons fit my budget better

[Random]

I recently purchased a Bryton Rider 30. The price was less than many of the conventional cyclometers I was looking at and I thought it would be interesting to try a GPS. The Rider 30 is similar to the Garmin 500 at nearly half the cost.

It is a veritable Garmin clone. The hardware is impressive. Solid quality. Good mount. I did not purchase the speed sensor or HR monitor. But the Rider 30 is ANT compatible so you can use any ANT sensors, HR belts or soon, power meters you choose. The battery duration is reportably 2x the Garmin. I can't vouch for that, but it is pretty good.

Now the tricky part. The software. They include a Bryton Bridge which connects the unit via a computer to the Web. USB is also how the unit charges.

Set up was intuitive, but the manual is remarkably vague and incomplete. You have to bushwhack.

And not everything works yet. For instance, I could not set up the proper local time. A bug. And units varied between History and the Meter settings.

The good news is they regularly provide downloadable updates. So when I report these problems they confirm them and promise future fixes. Garmin has gone through similar but apparently fewer teething problems.

I have not experimented with uploading, charting, routes, etc. But others seem reasonably content with those features.

The unit works well. It loses signals occasionally but so do other GPSs. It accelerates and decelerates with some latency compared to my wheel sensor computers and reports slightly slower speeds. But it is consistent. There is some freezing of altitude gain and slope under odd but reproducible scenarios, so i expect it will be fixed in future updates.

Net net, this is currently best for early adoptors who are patient with warts in progress. I liken it to Android versus iPhone. The promise is a more open environment where they can evolve faster than Garmin. I expect a lot from the April update and may be disappointed. Others might have returned the the unit, but the quality of the hardware, their responsiveness to my emails, their acknowledgment of the bugs, and general usefulness of what they already deliver keep me curious.

[dekindy]

I can't comment but thanks for the post as I am now aware of an alternative that I was ignorant to prior to your post. I did a search and found many detailed commentaries so they are available.