TCD or Mission Control?

ActionJackson

Well-Known Member
Region
Asia
City
Tokyo
OK I did my first ride today - Turbo Vado SL 5. I didn’t even touch, much less notice the TCD unit. The buttons on the handlebars seem fine to me. I’m thinking to ditch the TCD, attach a Garmin adapter to my iPhone and mount it on the stem where the TCD was. That way I can use mission control to tune the bike if I need to. And then I think I can see speed in Strava. Bad idea ? Would I lose something important?
 
If you go that way, purchase the BLEvo app. All ride parameters on BLEvo Dashboard, ride recording, motor tuning and more for US$10.
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I think the idea of mounting iPhone on Garmin mount is wrong; the thing will snap after couple of minutes. Buy a dedicated Quadlock mount and phone case, keep the TCD. The TCD battery will never run out of the power and is a good ride data backup.
 
If you go that way, purchase the BLEvo app. All ride parameters on BLEvo Dashboard, ride recording, motor tuning and more for US$10.
View attachment 93584
I think the idea of mounting iPhone on Garmin mount is wrong; the thing will snap after couple of minutes. Buy a dedicated Quadlock mount and phone case, keep the TCD. The TCD battery will never run out of the power and is a good ride data backup.
So perhaps I will forgo a Garmin phone mount, and probably remove the TCD and it’s mount, and replace with a dedicated phone mount, as I really want 1 computer at most. I’m just not sure what I’ll lose by doing that? Is there anything that TCD can do that my iPhone cannot ? Come September I will get the new Apple Watch 7 with 5G hopefully, and just use Strava on it. As well as play my music 🎶. Strip it down to the essentials. Actually the real data that I need mostly during my daily ride is elapsed time and total distance. When I do a really long trail ride like I plan for weekly I’ll use my iPhone attached.
 
TCD battery won't run out in a year. iPhone will dry up in a few hours.
There is that aspect. I don't know the iPhone but generally in order to see the screen in sunlight, the screen has to be set very bright and that really sucks down the battery.
 
If you go that way, purchase the BLEvo app. All ride parameters on BLEvo Dashboard, ride recording, motor tuning and more for US$10.
View attachment 93584
I think the idea of mounting iPhone on Garmin mount is wrong; the thing will snap after couple of minutes. Buy a dedicated Quadlock mount and phone case, keep the TCD. The TCD battery will never run out of the power and is a good ride data backup.
What mount are you using for the TCD in the picture?
 
TCD battery won't run out in a year. iPhone will dry up in a few hours.
TCD software will never freeze/hang up.

we may have different phones - my 12 pro max can run for far longer than i'll ride - certainly not a few hours. i've done 6 to 7 hour rides and had plenty of juice left. no doubt the TCD will last MUCH longer, but unless you're using an outdated phone, not charging it regularly, or doing very long rides away from outlets i don't see this an issue. of course any one of those may be true.

iPhone has never frozen running mission control, rideWithGPS, cyclemeter, google maps, etc. i did have mission control disconnect twice with no explanation in about 1,500 miles of ride, but a tap reconnected it.

do the vado bikes all come with the TCD?
 
OK I did my first ride today - Turbo Vado SL 5. I didn’t even touch, much less notice the TCD unit. The buttons on the handlebars seem fine to me. I’m thinking to ditch the TCD, attach a Garmin adapter to my iPhone and mount it on the stem where the TCD was. That way I can use mission control to tune the bike if I need to. And then I think I can see speed in Strava. Bad idea ? Would I lose something important?

you can see speed in mission control, from the wheel sensor, or in strava/rideWithGPS, from the phone's augmented GPS. you'll see some small variations between those two methods of measurement, but nothing terrible significant.
 
we may have different phones - my 12 pro max can run for far longer than i'll ride - certainly not a few hours. i've done 6 to 7 hour rides and had plenty of juice left.
With the screen always on? I'm truly impressed!
do the vado bikes all come with the TCD?
If you mean Vado SL then no, they don't. Only 5.0 has the TCD included. Still, the price of the TCD is some US$100.
Full power Vados and Comos come with wired TCD-w as the obligatory feature.
 
With the screen always on? I'm truly impressed!

If you mean Vado SL then no, they don't. Only 5.0 has the TCD included. Still, the price of the TCD is some US$100.
Full power Vados and Comos come with wired TCD-w as the obligatory feature.
i doubt i have the screen on 100% of the time, but certainly most of the time. i like the minimal white on black display of mission control, it does not distract from the ride and is legible in any lighting condition that i’ve yet encountered on a bike, with an OLED display of course ;)
 
i doubt i have the screen on 100% of the time, but certainly most of the time. i like the minimal white on black display of mission control, it does not distract from the ride and is legible in any lighting condition that i’ve yet encountered on a bike, with an OLED display of course ;)
I would be very interested with your experiences if you used a bike GPS navigation and had the screen always on.
The general comment of people using garmin/wahoo is: "Because the battery will last for the whole ride".
 
I would be very interested with your experiences if you used a bike GPS navigation and had the screen always on.
The general comment of people using garmin/wahoo is: "Because the battery will last for the whole ride".
i always have rideWithGPS running - for example
this ride with navigation.

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but i doubt i had the screen on more than 70% of the time, and probably in navigation vs mission control half the time. still, never once thought i would run out of battery, not even close.

a 6 hour ride in which one constantly needed the navigation screen on would be quite tiresome, more to me than my phone.
 
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