I don't do affiliate links as I always want it to be clear that my reviews are utterly independent, however, here's a direct link to the two controllers on the Carpe Iter website: shop.carpe-iter.eu/product/adventure-control/ shop.carpe-iter.eu/product/bmw-control-kit/ Cheers for watching, John
This looks to be a fantastic product. Just placed an order. Only downside is shipping to the US is about 25% of the product cost! Still looks to be worth it for me. I was just out riding yesterday and I was getting frustrated a few times trying to touch the screen on my tablet. I usually wind up stopping to be safe but that gets old. Thanks for this review!
Yeah, it's tricky, but hopefully you'll find it worth it. When I bought the Adventure Control, a lot of that was shipping and tax, but ultimately it's just looking at the landed cost then seeing if it's worth it to you. What tablet are you using? Cheers, John
I'm using a Samsung Active Tab. I had been using my phone for the longest time but wanted to try something with a bigger screen. Even with the biggest phones I didn't like the screen real estate. The touchscreen isn't too bad, but more often than not it requires a solid finger push which isn't always easy on a bumpy road lol. I used to use Garmin back in the day but can't justify a single use item anymore. I use my tablet for everything when not on my phone. The main downside of the tablet is the screen brightness; none of the tablets can match a phone's nits. I plan on upgrading to a Tripltek 9 this Christmas. It has a max of 1300 nits, so plenty bright in sunlight, plus it runs on Android. I saw Carpe has their own tablet, but the spec on the Tripltek is much better. Finally, thanks for the insight on the other navigation apps, I never heard of Locus or OsmAnd. I've been using Waze primarily. Can't wait to try the others!@@bennettsbikesocial
@@stevef5490 Excellent, thanks! There are a few ruggedised tablets designed for bikes now - I'm using the Carpe Iter V4b and find it's very bright. Have fun trying some new apps! Cheers, John
You blokes in the US are spoiled when it comes to shipping. For us blokes in South Africa it is a given that we generally have to pony up from 30 to 50% of the product's price for shipping and taxes. Now you sort of feels how it is for us down here almost all the time.
Early days with the BMW ownership, but having used TomTom for years, I can read their instructions and mapping at a glance. The ability to zoom in and out was what I was after and this delivers. I also like to move the view about with a fingertip to see options & traffic and then easily re-centre with the wonderwheel. There’s a few comments about distraction and in all honesty, I can’t say that’s an issue with a UI I know so well. It’s a benefit in my mind to manipulate the view to what I want and back again so easily - and certainly a lot better that fetching up at a junction reading the signs whilst trying to remember the next destination or reading the post-it that (may still be) stuck to the tank!
This is great, thanks SO much! It's a good point about using your fingers for some of the actions if you don't want the buttons. Glad you're getting on with it well. Cheers, John
I use "pen for mobile" the one with soft tip. I attach it with an elastic band to my bike and is precise as my finger. Granted it cannot be used while driving (safely). But on back roads you can stop easily and sort thing out.
A tip for zooming if you don’t have a remote - on most map apps if you double tap the screen with one finger and leave your finger on the screen after the second tap, you can drag it up and down to zoom with 1 finger. Works with my RST leather gloves on and much easier than pinch to zoom.
Love this. I’ve been using this for a year. Great piece of kit. I’ve also got the gsa specific new version. Brilliant. Works with the wonderwheel. Great company for support etc.
When I'm on the bike, my cheapo Android handset lives in a weatherproof case, so this could come in handy; otherwise I have to stop, pull off gloves (and undergloves in winter) and prod at the bloomin' thing with my stubby digits. This is the second positive review I've seen regarding this bit of kit.
As a daily commuter I've always struggled with accessing the phone without having to stop and remove gloves. I've got the F900XR so will give this a go. Thanks.
Blimey, something that only works with Android! That's a first. Looks like a useful device, trying to manipulate a map via the screen when riding is just impossible even with the best touch screen friendly gloves. Oh, and the rain thing!!!
Android is more open to allowing background apps interact with the app you're currently using on the screen. Is it potentially less secure? Yes. Is it potentially more useful? YES!
Well John I ended up buying the BMW kit. Extremely easy to fit, with cable routing taking longer than connecting it and setting it up with both my phone and tablet. Roll on my Bosnia trip in May 24
I've got the BMW controller, and it's fab and looking forward to the MRA integration, though. I've seen your comments Carpe Iter forum about additional functionality, so I'm looking forward to seeing where this gets to. Considering getting the BMW bar buttons too once MRA integration there 😀
I'm using the MRA app and love the fact that you can plan your routes through the website and they are just there in the navigation part. Few strange behaviours at times like taking you off a main road onto side tlroad only to retake you back onto the main road again a few hundred metres later. But they all do this on occasion. Main issue at present is the battery drain issue but that's down to the Here mapping that they use and I believe that they are hassling Here on a daily basis about this. Their forum is really helpful too.
Could possible quite a long wait as ios notmally doesnt allow these kind of external controlls as they deem them uNsAfE. Or some other fake reason. If you really like to stick to ios then i suggest a really cheap phone to just use for navigation. Android start already at prices under 100.
My dream bike would have even fewer buttons and gauges than the early 80's bikes. When riding the very first rule I follow is "Total Focus". I mean, looking at anything else than the road and possible interceptors is just voluntary blindness, and fidgeting with anything than the basic bike speed and trajectory controls is just voluntary amputation...if I have to use any device I stop and if I need to deal with a touch screen I remove my gloves...
You're evidently not commuting on a bike. Commuting on a bike is a mix of cycling through music or podcasts to pass the time and the odd phone call from the missus with child updates or checking on your person. There is a use case when your bike is a tool and not a weekend pleasure.
@@listerthat you are perfectly right. I have been commuting on a bike in the early 80's. No electronics to interfere with the pilot's attention ... And still I had an accident because I was not focusing enough. From then I decided to NEVER ride again for any purpose other than the fun of riding. If it gets boring or it's just a travelling tool, it is deadly dangerous.
This is amazing. I never knew it was a thing. BMW 1250RS and so many issues with the bmw sat nav that i removed it and now use my phone and google maps. Drawback is its a pain in the rain and using thick gloves on tiny buttons. Hope i can find a solution with Carpe for my bike! Thanks!
If my route doesn't include highways/freeways and if I'm going to an unfamiliar area I quite like using Komoot for planning and navigating routes. It's designed for cycling but the route planner on Android and PC is excellent and gives you a nice summary before and after your trips, eg. distance, road surface types, altitude, weather (premium), etc. The only downside is it'll steer you away from main roads in town which you'd need to ignore, so it's best used for regional trips.
What's important for me as a commuter, does the BMW Hub, which is connected to your phone via Bluetooth also allow your Bluetooth helmet to also connect to your phone at the same time. That would be two Bluetooth connections at the same time. Google pixel 7 pro. I really want to make calls, listen to music and have BMW Hub control at the same time. Also does the BMW hub, with the 4 button remote allow me to make & answer calls without touching the phone. My bike is a BMW F900XR.
Parrot used to have an amazing control like this for their helmet headset. Its the one thing I never understood why folk like Cardo or Sena never took it up as an idea. Love my dedicated garmin satnav still tbh. More reliable than a phone needing phone signal to render a map you've not had the forethought to download previously.
Don't forget to check if the green lanes you find are accessible. I use the TRFs GRM. Green Road Map. It's regularly updated with TRO's etc. Or check the council's definitive maps. 👍
Thanks for showing us what looks like a great product. Personally I'm still not happy about mounting my expensive camera phone on my handlebar. Still managing to navigate around using Garmins old 660, still reliability working.
Looks great.! This would be a fantastic and useful tool for uber eats/ deliveroo delivery riders to accept jobs on their app without having to take your hads off thevthe controls. It would be interesting to see if it does integrate well with the rider delivery apps.
Thanks, that's good of you! We don't take any kick-backs, but it's always great for manufacturers to know where the traffic's coming from. Cheers!@@ADVBear
@@bennettsbikesocial By pushing the near side of the left handlebar whiz wheel. However, it did stop working once. I closed the app and restarted it, and then it worked again. Have you been able to get it to work? Locus looks impressive so far.
@@bennettsbikesocial Update. On the home screen map, the whiz wheel "enter" always centers the map but when DMD2 is on the navigation map screen the whiz wheel "enter" recenters the map until you use the pan buttons. Using the pan buttons puts the navigator into "Panning Mode Target" mode so a whiz wheel "enter" launches a sub menu. To stop this from happening, disable "Panning Mode Target" in the settings found under the gear icon in the upper right corner of the map. The setting is near the bottom.
My problem with using the phone for navigation is on rainy days, the rain messes the screen up, it's like having a toddler pressing random buttons! Other than that, I use a mix of setting everything while stopped and just using voice commands while driving.
I was mildly interested until I saw the price. About 158 Euro plus VAT and import duty. I'll just pull over if I need to change maps - and really, how often do you actually need to touch your phone once you've started a journey?
It depends how you're navigating - if you're choosing where you want to go as you ride, regardless of whether you're following a pre-programmed route or not - being able to zoom out, get a route overview and pan around can be really helpful. They're not for everyone of course, but I really like riding this way.
Looks like a great gadget. Sometimes it looked as if you were speeding up the video whilst using the controller. Did you, and if so, what is due to lag in the response of the app?
@@listerthat As long as the GS had the navigation preparation installed when it was first sold, I'd get the BMW Control without a doubt. Full set with buttons, so you can easily move around apps. Cheers, John
@@bennettsbikesocial the adventure one. I don't have a BMW and even if I did I would be tempted to buy the universal one to be able to transfer it in the future.
Good info , I contacted them to see if they ship to Canada and if the app is available here, I do ride a Can-am ryker ace2021 a bit different but love my 3 wheel Alain & Yellow
That Carpe-Iter controller is exactly what I need for my Street Bob! That will clean everything up and I will have one less group of wires leaving the fairing! Will it fit 1" bars?
Hi John, Thanks for the review, can this be used at the same time as there is a Bluetooth connection from a sena to the same phone the controller is connected to ? Thanks, Mark
Recently ordered it, and the customs fee came in this morning.... £45 ouch. If only it was £25 cheaper it could have avoided it. All adds to the cost of it.
It is frustrating, but that's why you don't pay VAT at checkout. Hopefully you'll still enjoy it. Did you get the Adventure Control or BMW Control? A Bike Thing here in the UK will be distributing them soon, which is great news!
I'm reviewing it at the mo. The CI BMW Control wont work with it, though it does have its own remote, an option of which is to work with the BMW wheel using its own adaptor. Cheers, John
I have the controller with the Carpe Iter Pad. When in DMD2 and following a gpx file it keeps spanning the map and never comes back to my position, very annoying ! I had to disable the controller. Any clue ?
I've not used it, but if it has any app supporting it on the phone, make sure that's set to not have any battery management on it. Ensure it's 'unrestricted', not 'optimised'. The Carpe Iter sets all this kind of thing up automatically.
@@bennettsbikesocial Android will actively put background apps to sleep if it thinks they're not being used; the unrestricted status means they'll keep running (and using battery) no matter what. Need to jailbreak an iPhone to do this in iOS.
I don't do affiliate links or anything as I always want it to be clear that my reviews are utterly independent, however, here's the website: carpe-iter.com/ Cheers, John
Still thinking about this. How do you use OS maps with locus maps? I don’t suppose you can route/navigate with them, but expect you can overlay your position, orientate the map according to the current direction, overlay a gpx, etc?
You have to download the OS maps at a small additional cost for each area (same areas as paper maps), but you can use the nagivation on them. It's transparent to you as a user in how it works, but but it must be using the Open Street Map data to know where the roads are and effectively treating the Ordnance Survey maps as overlays.
@@bennettsbikesocial ok, makes sense. Prob the Ordnance Survey maps are just a tile overlay and the routing is done on the underlying open street / lomaps. It’d be interesting to see with paths that exist on the former but not on the latter, if any.
I remember the days when motorcycling consisted of turning the key and pushing the start button, putting it into gear and off ya go. Enough if this tech BS. Just go ride.
It’s mostly for offroad or adventure riding. Instead of spending hours planning your route with maps, you can do things on the go and ride more. This “BS”, as you call it, allows people to spend more time riding and discover new routes. That being said nobody forces you to use those. I think it’s great that some companies try to innovate, this is how things progress either we like it or not.
It goes into the plug that would connect to the BMW navigation. Your bike must have been prepped for BMW nav when new, but doesn't need to have the bracket on it.
Answering my own question here - dmd2 works but it seems (at least) zoom out doesn't work. That's a real head scratcher for me because my old Carpe adventure controller did work with dmd
Locus map doesn't appear to have a nav mode for motorcycles though or am I missing something? I'm enjoying Kurviger as a route maker and nav or Osmand.
I haven't used Kurviger yet - will give it a try. I'm using Locus for map reading, rather than nav. For that Ive been using Calimoto or Google. Cheers, John
Hi after watching your video I ordered an adventure controller which cost around £200 delivered. On delivery UPS wanted another £45, so I sent it back thinking it was a scam. The company should be more upfront on the checkout that this cost is associated with the UK not being in Europe. Sure I am not the only Brit conserved. Are there any UK distributors?
No UK distributors at the moment, but the extra cost has been the case with everything ordered from Europe since Brexit, and it's why the price you paid on the site had tax excluded. You then paid tthe standard UK 20% VAT on import, plus likely a fee from UPS (which is annoying, but that's the couriers). It's not helped by some shops, particularly in the Far East, that send to the UK without proper declarations, so evade tax. Reputable companies don't do that.
I just like being able to switch between maps easily, but I still use OsmAnd too. That's what's great about using kit like this - you're not tied to one platform.
Both the Adventure and BMW Controllers shown in this video are made by Carpe Iter in Prague. Thork, in Portugal, sells Wünderlinq, which integrates with BMW but not to the same extent and is in some ways far less elegant. You can get more details in the written review here: www.bennetts.co.uk/bikesocial/reviews/products/motorcycle-technology/carpe-iter-bmw-universal-controller-review
@@bennettsbikesocial I’ve looked into that system time and time again but it’s still confusing, who does what? What do I need? Why can’t I use their software on my iPhone? What about that dashboard software, is it required? Why can’t they just make one thing?
These are two different companies. DMD2 Beta is navigation sofware. Use it if you like it, or use OsmAnd or Locus or others. Thork is also starting to produce its own hardware@@simulacrae. There is nav software for iOS, but more for Android. These controllers aren't designed for any one app - they're fairly universal. Have you had a chance to watch the video all the way through? Hopefully it's all explained in there
"how many of these were you paind to promote?" Can you have a go at rewriting your comment in such a way that it makes some sense please? I'll guess you're trying to imply I was incentivised to produce this video, which as I've tried to make very clear, I'm not and never am.
I have been wanting to find a handlebar remote for my music as I want to keep my hand on the bar, especially since I'm an IAM observer and often use hand signals so I don't want to confuse my associates with them seeing my hand on my helmet. Would this be overkill just for that purpose or are there better options for a music controller? I have an Interphone so the Sena controller unfortunately isn't an option for now
Try googling "QXS-001". It is a cheap, waterproof bluetooth controller that does not need to be connected to power. Out of the box it controls music apps on Android but the buttons can be mapped to control other apps. Not as good as the Carpe Iter but for £15 it might be all you need to solve your problem.
They're working on compatibility for the Treads but haven't heard anything about the Zumos yet. If they can bring BMW's wonder wheel control to an XT2 I'll buy one.
@@Pyrrho_ Finger crossed that they consider a version for Garmin XT. 🤞👍 As far as I know, the very latest BMW Navigator is basically a XT2 but with BMW software, and does work with a BMW wonder wheel.
@@windinthewillows6248 Their latest navigator is a standalone unit running almost identical software as the BMW Connected Ride app, and it costs over a grand.. I have the Connected Ride cradle and app; the XT2 is a much better nav experience -- BMW's is too basic in comparison.
@@bennettsbikesocial Fair enough. I never intended on being an apple fan boy but it suits my simple brain. Equally a second phone for sat nav isn’t a bad idea
Totally get that@@1991julez I still only use Apple computers as it's all I used from starting work on an SE30, so I just can't get my head around PCs. I had iPhones for years, tried an Android and hated it, went back to iPhone then tried Android again and now I won't go back. There's good and bad of both platforms of course! Cheers, John
Most people I see with all these items strapped on their motorcycle never go further than Starbucks 🤷♂️🤷♂️🤷♂️ I put my phone in my pocket and Bluetooth to my helmet speakers. And I travel all over the NW USA on my bike and never plan the route. Just point twist and go. At around 5pm I start looking for a camp site or hotel/motel….
I don't do affiliate links as I always want it to be clear that my reviews are utterly independent, however, here's a direct link to the Carpe Iter the website: carpe-iter.com/ Cheers, John
Great piece of technology, but I won't recommend using it in terms of security. In the end, you'll use your phone more often than you did, and I think this is not good for your security. Keep your phone in your pocket, train your brain to memorise the way and look at the road ;)
Call me a Luddite, but when I ride I know where I'm going, look at the maps before I go and keep my concentration on the road and hazards. Every time you break your riding concentration focus by fiddling with tech, pushing buttons, looking at maps as you move - is an opportunity for a fatal accident involving you. I have picked enough bodies off the tarmac to know that it can happen in the press of a button or glance at a sat-nav. Know where you're going before you head off, look at your route and know it. If you are unsure about your route and worried about getting lost - pull over safely, consult it properly at the side of the road in a safe place, instead of juggling another distraction. Bikers like me whinge about other drivers using their tech on the move, so don't increase the danger of getting yourself killed.
This could be a dangerous distraction for me. I would rather stop. There are already more than enough things to take your mind off the road on modern bikes.
That's an excellent idea for remote control on the handlebar. But the price is an abuse. There are much cheaper Bluetooth ring joysticks in the market that can be easily adapted with some 3dprinting and cost a fraction of this product.
Do they offer universal control of apps? Do they offer the HUD that allows you to lock the screen off and provide other features? Do they offer support and backup?
Good lord, don't use a GPS while you're driving a motorcycle, unless it's talking to you in your helmet turn by turn and you don't have to actually... look at it. Pull over to the side of the road or into a parking lot if you need to make sure you're on course. That's what I did on my last trip. Not a big deal, and infinitely more safe.
I highly appreciate your channel. But English isn't my native language and it seems like you have a train to catch. Also you are speaking about several new products and compairing them and at the same time you are showing other effects on the screen which make it difficult to understand what you are talking about and what you want to point out by the things you are showing. At least for me as a non native English person. Please keep up making videos but make them twice as long 😉
Actually, it's not. According to StatCounter, the Android mobile operating system holds the largest market share of 70.77% globally, as of August 2023. iOS, on the other hand, holds a global market share of 28.52%, as of August 2023. The iOS mobile operating system is highly popular in the Oceania region, with a 55.66% market share. Unless you're talking only about North America, where slightly more people use iOS than Android. But there are other countries in the world too. According to StatCounter, the Android mobile operating system holds the largest market share of 70.77% globally, as of August 2023. iOS, on the other hand, holds a global market share of 28.52%, as of August 2023. The iOS mobile operating system is highly popular in the Oceania region, with a 55.66% market share. finance.yahoo.com/news/ios-vs-android-market-share-135251641.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAHVrOy4OXdy_Hvyf0vPnQ6E9nCrPkKRroXv2E-2wB55FsS28qRrGeiLQXmO_JQcCMbqXNFTu1_s228Pa-kDKlTKu-sdK1LcLtwZyaOwhib2ygx_YbYOF0idsekZaqZHtdMmTTjV8A3aCi0AWYF8k4O-scYLY0n2_0njY3Xwi2QwF#:~:text=According%20to%20StatCounter%2C%20the%20Android,with%20a%2055.66%25%20market%20share.
