I recently got a 1gb Nyon off of eBay for $45 and upgraded my 2018 Haibike SDURO Trekking 9.0. The computer worked just fine with my Intuvia controller, though I upgraded that with a Nyon controller as well. It's a great upgrade, especially at that price, and after a bit of wrangling, I got everything working with the Bosch eBike Connect application for iOS and the eBike Connect website over wifi. It works well enough that I'm not bothering to wear my Fitbit for route tracking anymore.
As
@Alaskan said, the custom riding modes make all the difference in the world - it's almost like a new bike. My Performance Line CX engine is not great on battery life compared to engines with less torque, but with a custom ride mode I can get range estimates around 20 miles longer than before. There were some trips that were outside or on the edge of my of my Eco battery range that are now very possible and without the expense of a second battery.
I've also discovered that Eco mode is a lot of assistance, it just sucks when taking off from a stand still. So rather than burning battery life in Tour all the time, I have a custom ride mode that uses Sport level of support starting at zero mph but tapers off to slightly below Eco levels of assistance once I start going. The result is the bike still feels like it has a lot of kick, but I'm getting dramatically improved range and a bit more exercise.
It's also great having navigation on the bike. Open Street Maps is fine in Portland, Maine, It's better than Apple Maps, which doesn't even offer bike specific instruction, and while it's not as up-to-date as Google Maps, I've found that it's better at routing me over actual bike trails. I do wish that Bosch updated their OSM tiles more frequently, but it has a better interface than the OSM app for IOS and for a $45 upgrade, it's spectacular.
I did try riding for a few days with my phone mounted to my bike - the Nyon (and the Intuvia for that matter) are both capable of charging an iPhone if you get a Micro USB A -> Micro USB B -> lightning adaptor. That said, I found that the UI for mapping on my phone wasn't as well laid out for biking as the Nyon, and I found that having a smartphone on my handlebars was incredibly distracting. My expectation is that having a phone for navigation would be better than a dedicated GPS, but the Nyon is better. Having everything integrated on one screen designed for the eBike is very compelling.
I was wondering if the Bosch SmartphoneHub would be a better computer, but I really don't want my phone on my handlebars and as near as I can tell, the SmartphoneHub doesn't list custom riding modes as a feature; I'm not giving that up. If anything, I'd love for custom riding modes to be more advanced. Right now you can only vary the assistance based on speed, but I'd love to have access to more sensors such as current incline or heart rate. As it is, I almost never switch out of a single custom ride mode unless I hit a very steep hill. I could imagine with more sensors I'd never have to adjust the mode.
That said, there are some things I wish worked better with Nyon / eBike Connect:
1. No support of notifications from phone of any kind on iOS. I don't want a ton of notifications coming in, but call and weather alerts would be nice. The
iOS app store page states that displaying incoming messages is currently disabled intentionally.
2. No support for syncing to Fitbit or Apple Health. The SmartphoneHub app can do this; eBike Connect can't. I'm not sure if Bosch is going to keep developing eBike Connect or even if they do, if they will keep it as a separate app from the acquired Cobi app. I don't expect better fitness integration any time soon.
3. No support of using a Fitbit, WearOS, or Apple Watch as a heart rate monitor. This is not a deal breaker, but it would be nice.
4. This one really bugs me because I think it's simply a bug with the iOS app - I'm able to set a Home and Work address on the eBike Connect website, and I'm able to sync those addresses to the Nyon. So, after a sync, I can select the "Take me Home" option from the navigation menu on the bike and it will route me back home. However, the website will sync all of my settings with the exception of Home/Work address to the iOS application. If I try to start a route on the iOS app to home, it thinks no address is set. Also, if the phone syncs to the Nyon over bluetooth, it will erase the Home/Work addresses on the Nyon. It seems whatever syncs last, bluetooth or wifi, wins. It's extremely annoying. The work around is I have a saved location called "Home" separate from the built-in Home address. I've tried setting up everything as new a few times, but it seems like there's no way to set or sync the Home/Work addresses to the iOS application.
I did contact Bosch on point #4 because it does look like a bug in the iOS app. This is the response I got:
Thank you for contacting Bosch eBike Service!
Sorry to hear you are having these issues. Currently the Nyon is not supported in North America. This is most likely why you are having these issues. I would suggest to switch to any of the other displays with the exception of the Kiox since it can only be had on new bikes. We just came out with the smartphone hub. You can check it out on our website
Bosch-ebike.com
I guess that's fair from their point of view, but it's still kind of a lousy answer. I think it's simply a bug and most likely unrelated to where I'm using the computer.
In short, given the price at which you can get an older model Nyon, it's an amazing upgrade if you already have an Intuvia mount. Based on what I've read, I'm not sure I would want the new SmartphoneHub over Nyon - having a dedicated computer and the custom riding modes is worth more to me.
I'm so happy with it I've ordered another one to upgrade my girlfriend's 2019 Gazelle Arroyo C8 HMB Elite, even with the added cost of upgrading from that bike's Purion display.
What I would like to see however is an updated Nyon supported in the US (and all other regions) and I would love it if Bosch replaced the eBike Connect phone app with Cobi's software. It seems like Cobi's system is superior when it comes to integrating with other devices and services. I would also love more sensory input to customize riding modes. The primitive ride modes Nyon offers leads me to believe that we can have vastly improved range and battery life with computers that give us the support when we really need it the most while tapering it off when we need it less.
If anyone has figured out how to get Home/Work addresses to sync to the eBike Connect iOS application, I'd love to hear from you. I know it's a little bug with an easy work around but it drives me slightly mad.