Hammerhead Karoo Adds App Store: A Few Thoughts

Hammerhead has announced an on-device App Store, except…well…just don’t call it the App Store. Instead, it’s officially called the “Native Extension Library”, or, in some places, also called the “Native App Library”. Either way, it allows you to tap and select to install 3rd party apps directly onto your Karoo 2 or Karoo 3, without needing to side-load apps (which on the Karoo has historically ranged from heavily geeky-cumbersome, to mildly cumbersome). This is a big deal, especially in comparison to what competitors Wahoo and COROS have (or rather, don’t have). However, it’s clearly still in its infancy. More on this in a second.

The next bit is that Hammerhead has made it easier to adjust data fields on the fly, as well as given you more control over the layout of those data fields. This too is pretty cool, and puts them more inline with what Garmin offers in terms of on-device data field customization.

I’ve been poking at both changes, and have a few thoughts. Starting with one of the most notable ones: I think this will be seen as a turning point in the Hammerhead vs Wahoo battle. Note, I say Hammerhead vs Wahoo, and not Hammerhead vs Garmin. In many ways, these two companies are competing for second place. But more on that later.

But first, let’s talk tech.

The Native Extension Library:

I thought about titling this section “The App Store”, but, I’m going to go on a slight rant/tangent here and make a point about titling it with the silliness it’s named, the “Native Extension Library”. At times, I feel like Hammerhead goes out of its way to reduce interest in its products. Said differently, if there was an award for “anti-marketing”, Hammerhead would win it. Be it the “New Karoo” naming fiasco, or not calling this an “App Store” (or other examples along the way), these moves only serve to flat-line interest in otherwise cool features and products.

As GPLAMA correctly noted in his video on this topic, Hammerhead content consistently performs exceptionally poorly (in terms of views and interest, be it on YouTube or the written site). This is outright bizarre in my mind, because as a product and features Hammerhead blows away many of their competitors. The Karoo 3 (or, ‘new Karoo’) is factually exceptionally good. A contributor to this, is for whatever reason, Hammerhead seems to try and find ways to make their cool and sexy things as dull, boring, and unmarketable as possible. I fail to understand it. In an ever-increasing world of heavy influencer marketing that many of their competitors engage in, Hammerhead has to be vocally proud of the things they create, and do it in a way that makes consumers excited to read/watch/etc a story about it. Else, they won’t meaningfully increase market share. Plenty of past failed bike GPS companies can attest to this reality.

Anyways, rant over.

Let’s get into it. First up, is updating your unit. As always, when you’re on WiFi it’ll automatically connect and grab the latest update, which it shows in that purple box:

A few minutes later, the update is applied, and we’re in business. At first glance, you won’t notice anything (again, another reminder of burying the good stuff). Though, they do briefly cover the new data field bits, which are pretty cool.

In any event, if you tap little four dots in the lower left to open up the dashboard, then you’ll see the new ‘Extensions’ folder:

This app extension library is what holds 3rd party apps, be it ones Hammerhead serves up (basically officially approved apps), or 3rd party apps you manually install via so-called ‘side-loading’. Of course, since the Karoo is running atop Android, this can mean everything from simple data fields you can use within the Karoo while riding, but also full on Android apps like Spotify or…umm…Instagram.

However, this is more than just a place to stash side-loaded apps. This is really the beginning of an App Store, and this launch now puts 7 apps into that bucket, ready for you to tap ‘install’. Previously, this required all sorts of cumbersome geekery. Now it’s a simple tap to install these apps. You can see this first round of apps:

If I tap on the Epic Ride Weather one, then I can click install:

From there I can work to get it all set up. Some of these apps require additional steps outside the Karoo, and others just work as-is. In my case, I continued on, and installed myWindsock, so I could see the wind details live on my unit:

From here, I went out riding. I’ve been riding the last few days in Morocco, and the remainder of the week as well. Thus far, it’s been reasonably windy each day (ranging from breezy pleasant to Netherlands FML).

Having the little wind data field has consistently been more useful (and frankly correct) than the Wahoo ACE built-in wind sensor (which I’m also running):

These are the sorts of little apps that are awesome, and a core reason how Garmin has historically expanded its empire. While I don’t think Connect IQ is the main reason people choose a Garmin device, I think it does contribute to why people might stay in the Garmin ecosystem, if they’ve found specific integrations they don’t want to lose. Thus, it’s apps like these that Hammerhead needs to do everything possible to court.

Meanwhile, back in the Hammerhead App Store, notably absent here is the Ki2 app, which adds Shimano Di2 compatibility to the Hammerhead Karoo, after Shimano acted like a 2-year-old “without adults in the room” (actual quote from someone at *Shimano* in the know) and yanked access to Di2 integration for reasons that still remain unclear years later. The reason it’s not listed as an official app is because that would put Hammerhead in the position of ‘approving’ something that basically contains the propriety ‘key’ from Shimnano. That key was reverse-engineered, which would put SRAM in a precarious legal position.

But fear not, you can still simply download the Ki2 app and side load it. It’s just not showing in the extensions library all easy-peasy to select.

Going Forward:

This is a good start to the App Store (and seriously Hammerhead, just call it an App Store, embrace it). I’m sure at some point they’ll have categories and such, but with a literal handful of apps in it right now, that’s unnecessary. The next step will be to encourage developers to actually develop for it. And the best way to do that is to ensure that it’s easy for developers, especially hobbyist developers, to make small apps and publish them.

That’s exactly what Garmin did just over a decade ago, when they announced the Garmin Connect IQ App Store. More apps drives more interest (consumers, developers, and bigger companies), and limiting apps at this stage does little to encourage development. The easier Hammerhead can make it for developers to jump in (with lower barriers to entry now), the better it is long term.

Which brings us full circle back to Wahoo. At some point, Wahoo has to start offering an App Store. We’ve seen in recent years Wahoo has struggled to keep up with new features, especially with the transition to the Wahoo ACE (which is a new codebase for future Wahoo bike computers, removing numerous long-held Wahoo features that Wahoo has been trying to add back in). Hammerhead easily passes Wahoo in monthly/quarterly/annual new features, and not just throwaway stuff, but legit super-useful things. It’s very hard for anyone to objectively say that Wahoo’s units, on the whole, are better than Hammerhead’s right now. I’d struggle to see anyone try and mount that case, especially with the new Wahoo ACE-based codebase assumption.

For perspective, many times over the last 15 years a company will ask me “Do you think we need X feature?” to compete, where usually it’s a big-ticket feature, and one that’s gonna take a lot of dev time. For example, on watches that could be music, or ECG, or NFC payments. My response is always the same: “Can you envision a scenario in 3-5 years where if you don’t have that feature, you can actually compete in this category?”. In 100% of the cases, the company responds back with “Ugh, you’re right…now to figure out how to get there.”

In this case, Hammerhead has put in the ‘ugh’ time, and certainly has plenty more ‘ugh’ developer time remaining. But this is a big milestone for them. Likewise, Wahoo has to be thinking about how to get themselves there. In that same vein, so does COROS, but arguably, a few years further than Wahoo. COROS isn’t yet competing with the higher-end units from Wahoo/Garmin/Hammerhead. But eventually, they will. In which case, they should ask themselves the above question. It’s really as simple as that.

With that, thanks for reading!

FOUND THIS POST USEFUL? SUPPORT THE SITE!

Hopefully, you found this post useful. The website is really a labor of love, so please consider becoming a DC RAINMAKER Supporter. This gets you an ad-free experience, and access to our (mostly) bi-monthly behind-the-scenes video series of “Shed Talkin’”.

Support DCRainMaker - Shop on Amazon

Otherwise, perhaps consider using the below link if shopping on Amazon. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but your purchases help support this website a lot. It could simply be buying toilet paper, or this pizza oven we use and love.