Aha, This Way. Now even Navigate with the Kiox 300.

Yesterday, Bosch rolled out a major software update for its eBike Flow app. The Kiox 300 benefits the most from this, as you can now also navigate with the display for the Bosch Smart System.

In the past few years, Bosch has done a lot for the drives of the second development stage and the corresponding displays. So far, the latest drive has been a bit behind. In various forums, users speculated about when the Smart System would follow suit. Now the time has come.

A line surrounded by nothing

Planning, importing and riding routes – this is now possible, even with a two-fold strategy. But more on that later. To begin with, let’s take a look at the visual presentation. Comparable to the forerunners such as Garmin, Wahoo and Co., a line symbolises the path ahead of you. Its shape mimics the course of your route. Around this line, however, it remains black. In other words, you cannot really see a map view and therefore no number of clues about the actual surroundings.

The turn-by-turn indication contains all the essential information with the direction and distance.

One reason for this is probably the size of the Kiox 300’s display, which is just two inches. There is simply not enough space to display a map in a usable size. However, the Wahoo Element Bolt, a relatively widespread navigation device, is only slightly larger at 2.2 inches. And that’s where you get it.

Below the line, an arrow indicates the direction of travel. As soon as you change direction, the display reacts and rotates the view so that the arrow always points forward. In contrast to navigating in a real map view, the mode cannot be changed. With this particular display, that would hardly be helpful.

Above the route line, the Kiox 300 tells you in which direction the route will soon lead and how far it is to the turn-off. A separate screen also shows you how far away the destination is. Based on the average speed so far, the computer immediately converts this into a remaining time. In this way, you can predict your arrival to the minute. By the way, this forecast is based on your current average speed.

Unless something unforeseen happens, with the Kiox 300 you always know exactly when you are likely to arrive at your destination.

Another cooperation with komoot

You have two options for planning your trips. The first is the eBike Flow app itself. There, the respective routes can be assigned to the following three predefined profiles:

• Daily
• Leisure
• eMTB

Alternatively, you can also work directly with the komoot route planner. This gives you more scope. Both the map material and the settings for planning are much more extensive and can be customised to a greater extent. If you want to import a route from komoot to the Kiox 300, you have to link your komoot profile with the eBike Flow app once beforehand.

You also have the option of importing routes from the Strava route planner.

In some cases, the minimalist navigation view is certainly sufficient, but perhaps not in all.

More information recorded

In the course of the software update, Bosch has created additional options for you to track your routes live while riding and to evaluate them afterwards. In the past, the subsequent evaluation of a tour was limited to the information on cadence, power and calories burned. This list has been expanded to include three aspects that allow you to better assess the level of difficulty of your rides:

• current altitude
• maximum altitude
• metres of altitude ridden

For those with a thirst for knowledge, you can also track the average cadence and power output of your bike. The display tells you at any time whether you are moving above the previous values or whether you are staying below them.

Another nice gimmick is the new shift recommendation. Already well known from the car, it works quite similarly in this case. A narrow line in the upper third of the current screen indicates whether you should change to a lower or higher gear ratio. The function aims to increase your efficiency while riding, save the battery and thus extend the range. The shift recommendation is based on your current cadence. If you are not a fan of such functions, you can deactivate them in the display settings.

To ensure that you do not miss the switching recommendation, the hint always appears on the current screen.

According to Bosch, you can download the free eBike Flow App update as usual from the Google Play Store and the Apple Store.

Farewell to COBI.Bike

In addition to the news about the expansion of functions for the Kiox 300, the manufacturer more or less announced the end for COBI.Bike. Bosch has already taken the retrofit kits out of the programme. The Help Connect service for the COBI.Bike app will also be discontinued on 30 November. For the Smart System drive, there is a comparable product on the market with the SmartphoneGrip. Anyone who still buys or owns an ebike with an older drive without COBI.Bike will probably have to go without this smartphone mount.

Pictures: Bosch eBike Systems