Known Issues & Problems with Bosch Products + Help, Solutions & Fixes

[William - Bosch Team]

New potential known issue: Nyon '21 does not seem to support bike lane routing here in the US. Every route I plan either on the app, device or web, regardless of "Fast, Scenic or Short" takes me on regular roads even though there are bike lanes everywhere. For instance a trip from the southern tip of Manhattan to say the Intrepid Museum (a docked aircraft carrier) in midtown does not route you over NYC's preeminent bike lane the Hudson River Greenway along which the Intrepid is docked. This is becoming a showstopper for me when using what IMO is the differentiating feature of the Nyon as compared to Kiox. I spoke to Bosch support who claims they have a single Nyon device between their 2 support office, and I compared this to buying a boat GPS Nav system and it routing me over regular roads. Even the cheapest bike GPS systems are aware of bike lanes.

And before I get the replies about the woes of converged devices, this is software. Fixing their back-end to prioritize the mode of transportation this is made for is the issue and should have been priority A1 for the Nyon team!

Are you having issues with paved trails, or actual bicycle lanes on city streets?

It appears Nyon will not route you anywhere that eBikes are prohibited.

Please see article: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/03...s-hudson-river-greenway-e-bike-ban-continues/

My apologies for the underwhelming experience with our newest member of Bosch Support on the phone. We are working on bringing him up to speed.

 

[SteveBorough]

You call this out as if its a feature, I assure you the Nyon routing system is not aware of your article. Moreover, my Nyon NEVER ever prioritizes bike lanes on ANY city paved roads. 100% of the time it chooses just regular city streets and does not pick routes purpose-built for bicycles (electric or otherwise)

The question is does Bosch plan to incorporate bike lane data into their GPS Navigation? Seems like the most obvious feature request of all time!

 

[William - Bosch Team]

You call this out as if its a feature, my Nyon NEVER ever prioritizes bike lanes on ANY city paved roads. 100% of the time it chooses just regular city streets and does not pick routes purpose-built for bicycles (electric or otherwise)

That's my mistake... I wouldn't consider illegal route avoidance a feature, but more just the way it's designed to behave. Definitely sounds like a frustrating ride experience, and I myself also wonder why it doesn't route you on more desirable routes.

I'm still working on getting more info on this, and hope to have a better answer for you soon.

 

[SteveBorough]

illegal route avoidance

you mean "ALL BIKE LANE AVOIDANCE"

 

[William - Bosch Team]

you mean "ALL BIKE LANE AVOIDANCE"

Please keep in mind that I'm doing my best to help you with this.

In order to help, I need accurate information to share with the people that I'm bringing questions/issues to.

Are you saying that your Nyon's navigation avoids any city street that includes a designated bicycle lane alongside vehicular traffic, or are you saying that it avoids bicycle/pedestrian specific paved trails where automobiles are not permitted?

Or is it something else entirely that I'm not picking up on?

 

[SteveBorough]

Please keep in mind that I'm doing my best to help you with this.

In order to help, I need accurate information to share with the people that I'm bringing questions/issues to.

Are you saying that your Nyon's navigation avoids any city street that includes a designated bicycle lane alongside vehicular traffic, or are you saying that it avoids bicycle/pedestrian specific paved trails where automobiles are not permitted?

Or is it something else entirely that I'm not picking up on?

The Nyon does not prioritize streets with a bike lane. It ignores bike lane data and just picks regular roads. As "scenic" avoids "major roads" which mode (*please add one) that picks roads with bike lanes. Open google maps on your phone, create a from/to route, select the bike icon and the back-end looks for streets with bike lanes and routes you over them. Yes, a street with a bike lane is a "city street that includes a designated bicycle lane alongside vehicular traffic"

 

[William - Bosch Team]

This is perfect, thank you Steve. The comparison to the Google Maps functionality is especially helpful. I'm sending this over now.

 

[SteveBorough]

This is perfect, thank you Steve. The comparison to the Google Maps functionality is especially helpful. I'm sending this over now.

Thank you, sorry for my tone! Just a bit frustrating when my bike's new nav sends me over streets I can't possibly keep up with traffic due to not having a designated bike lane, which is quite dangerous here in NYC.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

It's all good! I've not been in this exact situation myself, but I'd imagine it is quite frustrating. I'll let you know what I find out.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

@SteveBorough Any chance you can tell me the starting point/destination (exactly as you entered them on Nyon) of one of the routes you were having trouble with? Our team in Germany is working on this now, and has asked for this info along with a screenshot or picture of the route your Nyon chooses (I realize the route part may be very difficult, so no worries if it's not possible.)

Feel free to PM if either starting/ending location is something sensitive like a home address, etc.

 

[SteveBorough]

@SteveBorough Any chance you can tell me the starting point/destination (exactly as you entered them on Nyon) of one of the routes you were having trouble with? Our team in Germany is working on this now, and has asked for this info along with a screenshot or picture of the route your Nyon chooses (I realize the route part may be very difficult, so no worries if it's not possible.)

Feel free to PM if either starting/ending location is something sensitive like a home address, etc.

By your question I'm not sure you understand my concern. ANY route, between ANY 2 points in NYC on the NYON/Bosch website do not prioritize bike lanes. Instead it sends you over busy NYC streets that do not have a bike lane which is extremely dangerous.

For example from: Manhattan Bridge Brooklyn to Central Park, none of the roads it chooses has a bike lane, now do the same thing on Google maps, it chooses biking safe roads. This applies to "fast, scenic and short," all routes are extremely dangerous as they are not on any of the streets NYC has designated and converted to co-traffic roads or streets that have dedicated bike lanes off to the side.

*EDIT: please ignore the altitude differences, I live in a very tall building and Nyon's sensor is registering this.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Hi Steve,
Thank you for this info. I believe I do understand your concern, but the team in Germany asked for a specific example of what you are experiencing. While they could check any route in NYC, they wanted to be as exact as possible when looking at your issue.

The map, etc. that you provided should be great for helping them to understand. I'll pass this along and let you know what I hear. I appreciate your help with this issue, and your patience as we work to resolve it.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Update: The team in Germany has identified the issue with the service provider, and are working on a fix.

 

[SteveBorough]

Update: The team in Germany has identified the issue with the service provider, and are working on a fix.

Wow, thanks for bringing this to their attention, would be a gamechanger for the product here in the US if this gets resolved!

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Wow, thanks for bringing this to their attention, would be a gamechanger for the product here in the US if this gets resolved!

I appreciate your help with feedback on the issue, especially with sharing the screenshots of maps and routes. I'll let you know when I hear an update on their progress.

 

[peterh_nz]

Update: The team in Germany has identified the issue with the service provider, and are working on a fix.

Hello.

I’m glad to read that this issue is being addressed. My thanks to William and the Bosch team.

I’d like to add my observations of using Kiox and eBike Connect in New Zealand.

Here also, the routing service gives little, if any, priority to using designated cycle paths. As a consequence I have considered this function unusable.

I have also noticed that the copy of Open Street Map which is used for the service is at least many months out of date (I have deleted and reinstalled the map over a period of eight months). Having an updated map is especially critical as I live in a city and environs with a very good and constantly evolving network of cycle paths.

The source copy of the map at openstreetmap.org is well endowed with cycle paths and is constantly updated, often reflecting on the ground changes within days.

Regards

Peter

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Hello.

I’m glad to read that this issue is being addressed. My thanks to William and the Bosch team.

I’d like to add my observations of using Kiox and eBike Connect in New Zealand.

Here also, the routing service gives little, if any, priority to using designated cycle paths. As a consequence I have considered this function unusable.

I have also noticed that the copy of Open Street Map which is used for the service is at least many months out of date (I have deleted and reinstalled the map over a period of eight months). Having an updated map is especially critical as I live in a city and environs with a very good and constantly evolving network of cycle paths.

The source copy of the map at openstreetmap.org is well endowed with cycle paths and is constantly updated, often reflecting on the ground changes within days.

Regards

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your feedback! I'll forward this to the team as well.

Any chance you could share a specific example of a route you attempted that was way off? If it's not easy, then no worries.

 

[retiredNH]

Be glad you don't have the cobi.bike app with the smartphone hub. It came with my new Allant 8s. No useful instructions anywhere. The relevant website just re-states what you see on the screen. No real manual. The worst - no tech support that I can find. Mine is not connecting properly to Komoot. If I plan a route in Komoot, I can't upload it to cobi.bike, because the app says it's offline. On top of this, the map display shows roads with such low contrast, just a thin brown line, that minor roads are very difficult to see.

Who would design such a system, and foist it off on customers for the premium models?

 

[peterh_nz]

Hi Peter,

Thank you for your feedback! I'll forward this to the team as well.

Any chance you could share a specific example of a route you attempted that was way off? If it's not easy, then no worries.

Hello William

I have attached a GPX file of the sensible preferred route that maximizes the use of cycle paths. If you enter the start and end points (only) from the GPX into eBike Connect you will see what I mean.

I intended to also attach the resultant eBike Connect saved route but was unable to locate the file.

Regards

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Be glad you don't have the cobi.bike app with the smartphone hub. It came with my new Allant 8s. No useful instructions anywhere. The relevant website just re-states what you see on the screen. No real manual. The worst - no tech support that I can find. Mine is not connecting properly to Komoot. If I plan a route in Komoot, I can't upload it to cobi.bike, because the app says it's offline. On top of this, the map display shows roads with such low contrast, just a thin brown line, that minor roads are very difficult to see.

Who would design such a system, and foist it off on customers for the premium models?

I'm sorry to hear about your frustrating experience. You can find manuals for all of our products on our consumer-facing website, www.bosch-ebike.com.

Here is a direct link to the Smartphonehub Manual

Our customer support hotline can be reached at: 833-267-2432, or 833-BOSCH-EB

I consider @Stephen - Bosch Team to be our unofficial resident expert on SPH, so I'm hoping he can chime in with some more guidance here.

To answer your question, Bosch designed and produces the Smartphonehub, and the OEM (Trek in this case) spec'd it on the Allant+ 8S.