CAT EYE 1604220 Padrone Smart Wireless Bike Computer, One Size, Double

I am a retired Engineer. As such I have spent my life figuring out systems and equipment, how to use, configure them maintain them and all such. I lost the old computer that I had so I chose this one as it would use the gps in my phone and give me a lot more information than my old unit. Sounded great to me. I got home started to read the instructions and the first thing I found is that NONE of them worked. Not even close. The instruction sheet said to go online for more info. So I did. Those instruction were even worse. I found some info on the back of the box and that worked, kind of. The Cateye app for my phone also had some instructions. Again worthless. So I spent a week figuring out how to get this thing to work. I got it figured out but there was a LOT of frustration in the process. Part of me just wanted to send this piece of S*** back and be done with it. When I mounted the speed sensor on my chain stay and rear wheel, I found that the same sensor is used for Cadence and it wont reach my crank arms to sense the magnet. So now one of the MAIN reasons I bought this thing is useless. Now I will say that it is a nice looking unit. With the Out the Front bracket it is quite useful while riding. The components themselves look to be well made. If they could just write a USEFUL set of instructions, they would have a winner. Oh one more thing. The Cateye app is a joke too. Crashed on me the first time I used it and I had to uninstall it and reinstall it. All data was lost. Not that much since I just got it working but never the less its gone. The GPS data that is supposed to show you a map of where you were didn't work the first time I installed the app and it still doesn't work. Hard to give this thing a good review based on its looks.

I’ve struggled with this computer for a couple of years now and I’m ready to give up. The computer rarely pairs to the speed/cadence sensor as instructions lay out. But sometimes they do randomly connect. If I do manage to connect them, they will loose their connection mid ride. The computer has also stopped recording altogether during long rides, loosing the ride data. The setup instructions don’t correlate to the device’s operation. Both speed and cadence sensors require that the magnets pass incredibly close to them, making their successful installation very difficult or impossible on disc brake, gravel or mountain bikes that have wider tire clearances. The UI is far from intuitive and don’t even get me started on the primitive and poorly designed mobile phone app that is offered by Cateye to connect to this via Bluetooth. It’s a joke! Save yourself the hassle and stay away from this product. I regret I did not invest a lot more for a Garmin, like the pros use, or spent a lot less and for a very simple computer (after all, I let Strava (mobile app) record ride data and provide analysis). Can’t tell you how many miles I have spent swearing at this devices’ screen while it displays a spinning wheel, or “ready”, or nothing at all, instead of accurate speed. There, I feel better.

Cateye makes excellent bike computers. I own the Strada, An the Padrone +, and am totally satisfied with their performance. This was my attempt to an upgrade to “GPS”. The bad: there are two modes: direct and mirror. With the cadence/Speed sensor attached and working, in the mirror mode, I could only get the iPhone app to operate correctly. The head unit never synced with the app. I was disappointed. In the direct mode, the head unit only showed speed. It did not show any heart rate or cadence data. I tried numerous times/online help to get this unit to work as stated on the package. It never did. The Good. The app works flawlessly with the sensor. It captured heart rate, speed and cadence, and synced with Strava without a hitch. If you are looking for GPS unit, try a different computer.

Purchased the Padrone Smart Phone bundle with Speed and Cadence blue tooth sensors for both direct and/or mirror mode operations. I'm replacing a 15 year old Vetta V-100 hardwired computer, but still have it installed to compare readings to the new Padrone operation. Under direct mode (sensor signals direct to Padrone) and after calibration settings, the Padrone and Vetta readings are remarkably close on distance, odometer, speed, and cadence.I have discovered one weird characteristic in mirror mode: Almost from the start of the ride, the odometer is off by 3 to 4 miles (low) throughout the entire ride; however, at the end of the ride when saving the ride data, it zero's up the error difference and the two odometers (V100 & Padrone) match again. This has happened every time I've used mirror mode this summer (2015).Other than that weird temporary odometer error in Mirror mode, all the other functions are working as expected and match or better the V-100 functions and accuracy. When a phone call or text messages come in to the smart phone while in Mirror mode, the Padrone display indicates a phone handset for the phone ringing and message indication for text messages which I need for my on-call duties for my job. I plan to buy the heart rate monitor strap in the future as I'm getting older and that data might be helpful.The altimeter function has revealed that my hilly 23 mile ride has 300 ft less ascent than what I thought was a flatter 28 mile trail ride to and around an area dam-site/lake. Never would've guessed that based on my experience!My only worry is the function button on the bottom of the Padrone, which is activated by pushing on the 3 dots position on the top when mounted, is rarely but sometimes triggered by very bumpy spots on my trail ride (on my road bike). Hoping this is not a possible operations problem in the future as it ages. My VT-100 buttons are finally showing wear and tear after only 15 years of regular service around 1200-1500 miles per year.I still have not had time to figure out how to post the data to facebook after trying to do this a couple times. Need to search the manual to find instructions for this sometime. Probably not doing something right to enable that function.Otherwise, I'm enjoying using the Padrone and comparing it to my old Vetta V-100. The phone/message notifications are essential to being able to go on long rides and still receive "alarms" and calls from my work when I'm on-call.

Very bad computer; I put it back in the box and bought a Garmin Edge instead.