11 July 2024
COROS has announced they’re delaying new shipments of the previously announced COROS Dura cycling GPS. The unit was set to start shipments next week, on July 15th, but due to a potential mounting tab breakage issue, customers can choose to accept shipment as previously scheduled, defer their shipment till September, or cancel their purchase.
COROS has stated that the reason for the delay is to redesign and remanufacture the tabs on the back of the unit. That’s due to them finding in testing that in some 3rd party mounts, the Dura tabs could break.
The COROS Dura uses the Garmin quarter-turn mount system, which is reasonably well understood. That said, there are some manufacturing nuances to it, to ensure proper fit. Obviously, I don’t have any way to know if/how many broken tab units are out there, but, I can confirm that the COROS Dura units I have fit ‘ok’, but not ‘great’ in various 3rd party mounts I used. It tended to be a little bit loose. Not horrible, but just enough that after years of using various devices/mounts, I knew it didn’t quite feel ‘perfection’. We’re talking likely sub-millimeter nuances here on the thickness.
Now, people who have pre-ordered the unit will be given three choices via e-mail that just went out, they are:
Further, COROS has changed the availability date for future purchases to September 15th, 2024. All of this reminds me quite a bit of the original Wahoo ROAM launch debacle, which featured broken mounts within a few weeks of launching, causing Wahoo to cease all shipments for a month or two.
That said, while COROS’s decision to sort out the mounts is a good one, I’m struggling to see why this unit isn’t delayed in its entirety until September. COROS had planned a ‘final’ firmware for media/reviewers would be available July 9th, the same firmware consumers would get. This was slated to address various issues many reviewers found back in June.
However, upon trying that firmware, it’s clear it’s not ready. Instead, there’s a new firmware coming out next week (at the same time it ships to consumers), where they hope to address various issues.
As I noted in my preview post back a few weeks ago, it was pretty rough. I had estimated that it would take until fall sometime to be stable enough to compete with various older units (let alone current gen units). I then guessed that by next spring (2025), they’d likely be in a place to compete with a handful (namely Wahoo) of bike computers, on many features. There were many many many issues.
Based on using what was set to be the final firmware for next week on a couple-hour ride yesterday, I still stand by that assessment. It failed to notify me on approximately 80% of upcoming turns. COROS has however made improvements based on specific feedback that myself and others gave, such as making the re-routing faster and automatic (versus a very latent manual confirmation). But it still requires your phone, the app running, and said app/Dura to be happily communicating. But beyond that, there were other rather notable issues during the ride. Thus, giving the unit more time to bake is the right move. COROS says they’re working through the issues that myself and others reported in the last few days.
Again, as I continue to say – I do have significant confidence COROS will stick this landing eventually, and ultimately cause a heartache for other cycling GPS companies. But, it’s simply not something that’s going to happen right away. Current firmware is still very much private-beta level, and not production ready.
Still, COROS has a long history of moving extremely quickly on firmware updates in the wearables realm, and this is literally the same software as their watches. And thus I’ve accounted for that in my fall/etc estimations of their timelines/readiness as noted above. The singular aspect that’ll take *years* to be competitive once they start, will be on-device re-routing (as COROS Dura currently requires a cellular connection for all re-routing).
Ultimately, I have no idea what to ‘release’ next week on the 15th, from a reviewer standpoint (if anything). It kinda puts every reviewer in a weird spot. Clearly, they aren’t likely to fix the issues we’re seeing in the most current firmware (that have been around for well over a month now), in the next few days. Turn-by-turn routing is really hard, and this is part of the hardness. Whereas bits like the continued sticky watts, will probably be easier to fix. Either way, real-world consumers are getting units next week and paying with real-world cash. That’s typically my bar for when a review is appropriate. Thus, we’ll see.
With that – thanks for reading!