Editors’ Choice 2024: Hammerhead Karoo 3 GPS Unit

Could the new Hammerhead Karoo 3 rival the latest from Garmin and Wahoo? Chipps certainly thinks so.

• Brand: Hammerhead
• Product: Karoo 3 GPS Unit
• Price: £449
• From: Hammerhead 
• Tested by: Chipps for six months

Chipps: “I had the previous Karoo 2 unit for 18 months and this new version answers nearly every niggle I had with what was already my favourite computer head unit. The Karoo 3 is intuitive to work with, the battery life and route accuracy is great and it has been simplicity itself to hook up and display no end of power meters, heart monitors, even SRAM AXS gear selections. The buttons have been made clickier over the last unit and there’s now a dedicated on-off button.

“Those are all great reasons for recommending this, however two further reasons sealed the deal: 1. The unit offers different ‘scenes’ for each bike or riding scenario. Each scene can have a completely different setup of screens, sensors and alerts. Want your training mode to just show you power output, heart rate and time, with a map on another page with total elevation? Want beepy turn by turn navigation on your commuting scene? Or just power and elapsed time for your Zwift sessions? You can have a different scene for each bike, or even for different riders. It’s great if you still want the maps and distance, but don’t care about speed, or you don’t need your pain cave numbers on screen all of the time. When you power up your unit, the different scenes appear and are easy to switch between, so there’s no need to have a load of blank ‘Searching for power meter’ screens when you’re just riding to the shops.

“The other great aspect is how easy it is to upload routes to the unit. Using your Hammerhead web account over at hammerhead.io, you can easily upload a GPX file, but it’s equally easy to harvest just about any publicly visible route. You can just paste in a URL from Strava and the next time you power up your Karoo (near Wifi or your phone) the new route will be on there and ready to follow. It’s a great unit – and with over the air updates, it’ll just keep getting better.”

Pros

• Clear, bright and responsive touchscreen
• Super easy to upload and follow routes. ‘Over the air’ map and system updates too.
• Great form factor, battery life and (now) tactile and clicky buttons.

Cons

• Worst looking bar mount ever. Comes with a ‘quarter turn’ (ie Garmin) adaptor though.
• Screen navigation can get confusing with competing ‘scroll up’ and ‘scroll sideways’ swipes. Sweat drops on the touchscreen can choose random destinations for you. (Luckily, there’s a rain screen lock).

Overall

A worthy competitor to the Garmin and Wahoo big units, with over-the-air updates, excellent clarity and an easy to get used to ecosystem, the Hammerhead Karoo 3 is definitely one to consider for your next big GPS purchase.

This product was selected for our Editors’ Choice Awards 2024

In the Editors’ Choice Awards we highlight our standout bikes and products from the past year. These are the bikes that we’d like to have in our sheds. These are the components and clothing that we still use long after the nominal test period has expired. This is the good stuff.

To make the cut, each thing must have proven itself out on the trails. They’ve got to have been reliable and ride-enhancing. We don’t do technology for technology’s sake. Nor are we overly swayed by showy, high price tags and bling materials. That said, we don’t prioritise anything solely because it’s cheaper than its rivals. Nor do we penalise a genuinely great product if it is conspicuously expensive. Performance is what matters in Editor’s Choice.

These are the star performers of The Class of 2024.

Review Info