GPS recommendations?

I've been enjoying taking a GPS on my paddles, but my GPS seems to be dying. Having to press the cable just so to get it to transfer any data is never a good sign...

Years ago I had a little GPS that didn't have a screen, it was just a little puck that I could put in a bag and later download the tracks to Google Earth. It worked great, but I can't seem to find anything like it now.

Wondering if anyone has any tips?

My main desire is to get track info, as opposed to seeing live data while I'm paddling.

And I mostly surf, so ideally I'd love to see details about each wave ridden, but I don't think that's easily possible yet. I notice Rip Curl now has a GPS watch, but its not released yet and will probably be pricey:

www.ripcurl.com/searchgps-1.html

Seems like the sort of thing that should be easy enough with any GPS that saves a track?

Check out the Garmin range of gps watches,there should be one there that suits your needs.

Stuart

Probably the most popular GPS watch for paddlers is the Garmin 310xt, then all your data can be downloaded to Garmin Connect.

Garmin 310xt is fairly standard equipment. My wife uses a nike sports watch which seems ok and about a third the price of the garmin.

Great tip on the Garmin. Does anyone know if there's a way to get a view of just the surf rides? In other words, instead of seeing all your tracks, to see just waves ridden?

I'm a programmer and playing around with the data exported by my clunky old Garmin 60csx, and made a pretty rough script that does it, but I'd love something better. And ideally that I wouldn't have to build myself...

Here's what I came up with from my paddle today:

www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zoZ5GGoPJ78A.k5jdOzJoJ4yA

If you zoom in on the tracks to the north you can see each ride on a different line. Definitely needs a few more features, like duration of each ride, and a better way to tune out the noise (short rides, etc), but its a start.

Looks like the 310xt has been discontinued (in Australia at least)...

Edit: some good deals on ebay. Picked one up with the new HRM. Looking forward to trying it out...

I also use the 310xt. I set my screen up to scroll with 1 set of data showing to ensure biggest possible lettering for easy reading... distance, time & avg speed.. and in my opinion the best place to mount it is in the middle of the foot strap

wrybread wrote: I've been enjoying taking a GPS on my paddles, but my GPS seems to be dying. Having to press the cable just so to get it to transfer any data is never a good sign...

Years ago I had a little GPS that didn't have a screen, it was just a little puck that I could put in a bag and later download the tracks to Google Earth. It worked great, but I can't seem to find anything like it now.

Wondering if anyone has any tips?

My main desire is to get track info, as opposed to seeing live data while I'm paddling.

And I mostly surf, so ideally I'd love to see details about each wave ridden, but I don't think that's easily possible yet. I notice Rip Curl now has a GPS watch, but its not released yet and will probably be pricey:

www.ripcurl.com/searchgps-1.html

Seems like the sort of thing that should be easy enough with any GPS that saves a track?

Ripcurl is available at Surfstitch for $499
www.surfstitch.com/product/rip-curl-the-search-gps-watch-black

One interresting option is smartphones - they have GPSes, and they can be connected to computers. If being able to download the tracks to your computer afterwards is all you want, it works great; just put your phone in a waterproof phone case in your pocket, and off you go.

However, I want to see live data while paddling too. For that, smartphones have one huge advantage to watches - they have bigger screens, so you they can show more info without making the font too small to read at a leg length distance. The problem with most phones is obviously that they aren't waterproof, and waterproof phonecases tend to make the screen harder to read.

But there are also phones that are waterproff by themselves. But I haven't bought any waterproof phone yet, so I don't know how well that works: how do the touchscreens react to water dropps? Do they think the water drops are fingers touching them, or are they smart enough to ignore them? Does anybody have experience with that?

i used to have a iPhone mounted on my Seakayak in a watertight case.... worked very well when "touring"... the problems I encountered was NOT battery life, but sun glare and the fact that the actual unit heats up from direct sunlight, causing the iPhone to over heat and shut down... these days I keep it in my PDF using a Garmin 310xt as GPS. - see my profile picture - that yellow case in front of my PFD is the watertight case I used to have

I am with Epic5253 - the Garmin 310XT, does not need to be kept in Waterproof pouch, big figures on screen easy to read, records full track which uploads to Garmin Connect giving full detailed stats as well as a playback feature. Really great device.

Thanks for the recommendations everyone, I picked up a Forerunner 310xt, really nice little gizmo. I was able to find it "factory refurbished" for about US$100 on eBay. Looks brand new to me.

I'm hoping it outputs its data in a format similar to my old Garmin 60csx, which was pretty easy to play with. Since starting the search for a new GPS my little script that extracts surf rides from GPS data has come pretty far, with my old GPS at least.

Here's the output of my session from Sunday:

www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zoZ5GGoPJ78A.kiRvoPgK0I1k

Each of the colorful squiggles is a ride, and you can click each squiggle for more info about it like its length, duration and maximum speed. The longest ride on Sunday was 300 meters and close to a minute!

All those rides are on breaking shore waves, but it should work well for downwinders too. Let me know if anyone wants to send over data from their GPS to be converted and I'll talk you through how to export it if you need help with that. You can email me, wrybread at gmail dot you know what.

For those that do have a gps, consider loading the tracks on Strava. Stava allows you to compare paddles along the same course or track to previous outings or other competitors on the same day.

You can also define sections on a track and see how your performance improves.

I use Strava for cycling only - www.strava.com/athletes/3046076
for all other workouts i use endomondo - www.endomondo.com/profile/4083779

Why use two different apps when one will do everything?

Just pick kayaking at the end of your strava activity.

I actually prefer endomondo, just using Strava Cycling for the KOM's....

Out of curiosity, does Strava or Endomondo (or anything else) have the ability to show you where your rides occurred? In other words, when you caught a wave?

I have a nasty habit of spending a ton of time building something and then finding out it already existed, so I'm trying to confirm that what I'm looking to build hasn't already been built.

Have a look at my downwind from last week.

www.strava.com/activities/223115269

Just ordered my 3rd Garmin 310XT from an online dealer.

Each time I break one, or it leaks I do the research on what is out there and for these reasons I come back the old faithful 301XT

1) Screen has 4 fields that are customisable
2) accurate real time speed (see DC Rainmaker website for how accurate various devices are)
3) Customisable, Auto Pause ( yes some devices don't have this)
4) screen can be read from the footstrap
5) Long Battery life
6) Can be picked up cheap online
7) ANT+ heart rate straps

I've now determined if I can get 2 years out of a watch I am happy as I use it every day and boy when I don't have it do I miss it.

I much prefer the Endomondo interface compared to Garmin. However, I've noticed Endomondo seems to be generally reporting my speed as slower, compared to Garmin. I imported some of my Garmin workouts into Endomondo and after comparing the speeds on the charts, the Garmin website reports my speed as a bit faster. I used tcx file to import into Endomondo.

Any ideas how/why this is happening? Is it a different smoothing or something of the raw data? I thought they would just display the data exactly the same but obviously not...