Just last month we wrote a review of Komoot trip planning. And while we found the route planning and navigational functionality to be impressive, the web & mobile phone based application wasn’t a seamless transition to many of our GPS devices. That is changing as Komoot worked with Garmin to develop an app that automatically syncs your planned routes & trips with 15 of Garmin’s most recent devices.
At the same time that our team was discovering newly built local mountain bike trails in the US, out EU team was using Komoot to create tracks for a multi-day on & off road adventure bikepacking trip along the German & Czech border. Shorter rides were mostly fine to use our smartphone, but when we needed extended battery life for multi-day touring, we lost some functionality having to manually upload .GPX files to a Garmin Edge cycling computer from a laptop.
Now with the new Garmin App, Komoot routes will automatically sync straight from your online Komoot account onto your linked Garmin device. Plus, with the mobile app on your iOS or Android device, you can now modify your route on the go and automatically sync it to your GPS. (That would have been especially useful on our bikepacking trip when we got bogged down on an extremely muddy section of trail, and needed to plan an escape route in order to make it to where we were spending the night.)
It helps that most Garmin devices have longer run times than mobile phones while navigating, so we can now save phone battery for taking ride photos. And for more adventurous rides, it won’t hurt to get that expensive smartphone off the handlebar and into a pocket or bag during your rides.
The free Komoot App can be downloaded now from the Garmin Connect store. Just sign into your Komoot account once you upload it to your device, and your planned routes will immediately be visible, and ready to download & follow along. The app will work with Garmin Edge 520, 820, 1000 & 1030 and Edge Explore 820 & 1000 devices, plus a number of watch-based Garmins as well.
