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« on: June 20, 2026, 12:08:20 PM »
Pretty new device, so maybe a review is helpfull to others.
This is my first bike GPS, so I can’t compare it to other devices. Until now, I’ve been using Komoot on an iPhone 13 mini for navigation. But the battery life and the frequent loss of the GPS signal really annoyed me. With some things, you definitely have to adjust or set different standards.
The BSC 500 comes with a simple stem mount and a safety strap. That’s perfectly sufficient for me.
I think the build quality and feel are okay—functional, but nothing more.
The display is great. It was always easy to read—whether in the woods or in direct sunlight—even though the brightness was set to only about 60 to 70%. You don’t need to worry about that at all.
Battery usage was just under 15% on the 2.5-hour ride. However, I only had a speed sensor and a cadence sensor connected (which, by the way, worked absolutely flawlessly). For me, that’s more than enough….
Navigation also worked wonderfully with the device. I didn’t try rerouting, though. At the start, it sometimes jumps straight to the end destination if the two points are close together. After the first few meters, though, it suddenly worked again. I also find the voice prompts with the navigation instructions quite helpful. I also really like how the map automatically zooms in during turn-by-turn directions. The GPS seems extremely precise. Auto Start/Stop is great, too. It feels like it stops immediately as soon as you reach a stop sign.
Syncing with Komoot works wonderfully in both directions.
But now for the things I didn’t like so much. I hope these will be optimized with future software updates:
For some reason, setting up the data screens is a bit buggy, which caused iClimb to stop working for me. The climb was detected, but the iClimb data screen didn’t appear. I ran into the same problem on the second climb. I stopped and reset the data pages to factory settings. Then the iClimb page suddenly appeared. After I reconfigured my pages at home to my liking, two Sports Camera pages suddenly appeared (which I don’t need anyway). We’ll see if iClimb works next time.
Configuring the data screens is somewhat limited. You’re restricted to predefined layouts. It’s not possible to simply make one data field larger and another smaller if there isn’t a corresponding layout available. On the other hand, there’s a really wide selection of data fields, including graphical displays.
When navigating, almost every turn is announced with a turn-by-turn direction. It didn’t really bother me, though. But it feels a bit unnecessary…
There’s a slight delay when switching between data pages. After you swipe, it takes a moment for the next data page to appear. But you get used to it, and I think it’s tolerable given the price…
The route display on the map isn’t ideal in terms of color, especially if you’re colorblind (red/green). Unfortunately, this can’t be adjusted either. The arrows do help, and you can tell which way to go, but a different color—like a bold blue—would be much better…
When a new map segment loads while you’re driving, part of the map turns white for a brief moment. It’s not a big deal, but it just shows that this is a low-end device and that they probably cut corners on memory and the processor….
Zooming and panning the map also seem to overwhelm the device and are only somewhat helpful (if this feature is important to you, you’re better off buying a different device…). When you zoom out, for example, the displayed route suddenly stops. If you zoom out further, it reappears. If you zoom out even further, the map eventually disappears and all you see is the route on a white background…
The ringtone could be a bit louder, but it’s audible at close range. The only annoying thing is that the double-tap on the screen doesn’t work reliably. It feels like every other time, only the ringtone button appears, but no ringtone plays. If that would work reliably, it would probably get rid of my Hardware bell.
Conclusion:
All in all, I’m still very satisfied with the device. Navigation and data display work really well, even if there’s still room for improvement. However, iGPSPORT really needs to figure out the issue with iClimb and the bell. Then, in my opinion, the BSC500 is a top-notch device at a really good price. I bought the device on AliExpress and paid just 123€. But even the 159€ price in the official store is still a bargain for what it offers…
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