RuggerJoe

Am I turning into a grumpy old man, or is anyone else annoyed that they don't seem to make wired computers any more. I miss my old Cat Eye. Wired with magnets an no extra batteries to worry about.

Iride01 

They still make CatEye wired computers. Enduro, Velo 9 and Velo 7 according to their website.

LesterOfPuppets

Also, Sigma has 5 wired computers on their website.

https://sigmasport.com/product-category/bike-computer/

philbob57

The Sigmas are good computers, but the attachment failed for me. If you buy one, make sure you insert the computer into the bracket as solidly as you can. I'm using a Garmin 530 now, and it's great, but I'd still be happily using my mid-level Sigma if it hadn't fallen off my bike.

steelbikeguy

nice!
I've got a Cateye Velo 7 on one bike, and it's been great.
I've got Mity 3's on a couple of bikes, and they are quite reliable too.
Honestly, the Cateye computers are about as reliable as anything I own. Replace the battery every 7 or 8 years and keep on going.

Steve in Peoria
(I've got vintage Avocets on a few bikes, and they need new batteries every year)

RuggerJoe

None of them have cadence, or any of the nice features of the wireless versions. I just miss my Astrale.

PeteHski

Why not just go wireless then?

LesterOfPuppets

Cateye Strada Cadence is the rig for you then. Unless it doesn't have some other "nice feature" ...

Koyote

I googled "wired bike computer" and found an absolute pile of wired bike computers, including many models from Cateye.

So, what is the problem?

2_i 

The problem is in carrying out a superficial survey. When you want to replace your wired computer, most likely you will only find models inferior to what you had.

Koyote

We don’t have any idea which Cateye computer the OP is trying to replace…and it doesn’t really matter since most wired computers offer pretty much the same functions. So I don’t think your claim makes any sense.

unterhausen

I have a friend that kept giving me wired computers. For some reason, they are still around somewhere in this mess. I prefer gps, I don't need the last little bit of accuracy, and I don't like running wires unless I have to. E.g., for lights.

pdlamb

Yes, that was a good computer. One of mine still is! The other, I gave up getting good connections after 20 years; even a new harness didn't work. I should have bought a couple more before the hoarders got them all...

noglider 

I've used the $3 computers you can get on ebay or the Chinese web sites. They work fine. Yes, really, three dollars.

prj71

Yes you are grumpy. Bluetooth / ANT+ technology has made wires obsolete in a lot of cases.

Why mess with wires when you don't have to?

Who buys a speaker and plugs it in with wires? We have little bluetooth speakers that sound 10x better than their wired counterparts of the past.

noglider 

I'm a grumpy old man who likes wires, too. I also ride steel bikes. I do use bluetooth a lot, but it's not that reliable, at least here in Manhattan where there is a lot of interference. I even have one of my computers hooked up over wired ethernet. Yes wireless stuff is better in many ways, but when I want the best reliability, I use real cables. For example, during Pandemic, we had as many as three zoom calls simultaneously, and our internet connection was suboptimal. We ran cables through the house and wired all of our computers to the ethernet to get the most out of them.

PeteHski

It sounds like you just had a poor Wifi signal around your house as 3x Zoom calls is pretty trivial.

noglider 

Good guess, but no. We were living in rural New York State, and the service from ISP is unreliable. When I do speed test, there is a lot of jitter, i.e. variation from one ping to the next. Speedtest results also vary a lot. And worse, the maximum upload speed is 10 Mb/s, and it's throttled to keep it that way. We have two wireless access points in the house, and I've run tests within the house to make sure they work well. Moving to wired improved performance a bit, but the major problem was with the ISP.

pdlamb

Why mess with batteries when you don't have to? One battery in the late, lamented Cateye Strada would measure speed, distance, and cadence for $50, and that one battery would last a year or two. ANT+ Patrone with cadence has a battery in the speed/cadence sensor and one in the head unit -- twice the batteries to run down, for the low price of $180. At least they'll last the same year or two. GPS starts around $250, another battery in the cadence sensor, and you have to remember to charge the GPS every week or so.

OK, so you can arrange routines to minimize the hassle. But unless you need something only the GPS can give you (like a power meter with yet another battery), why not take the easy and low cost route?

prj71

Apples and oranges. You are trying to compare a bike computer to a PC.

prj71

Mess with batteries? Charge my Garmin Edge 530 and it lasts for 20 hours. Obviously I'll never ride that long. Then when I get home, throw it on the charger until the next ride.

Cateye Strada still exists...But it's wireless.

pdlamb

I didn't see the point of dynamo lights for commuting for years, until my blinkies ran out of juice a couple times. Same kind of thing with computers. I'm pretty darn sure when it gets dark my dyno lights are going to come on. And I'm pretty darn sure my wired computer is going to work; not like the times I forgot to charge the GPS, or got busy for a couple evenings and didn't have time to futz with it.

Horses for courses, I suppose.

Koyote

If I did longer commutes, and did them every day, I might get a dyno lighting setup...But they're not foolproof. Wires can come loose, for instance. I would probably still keep a small rechargeable headlight mounted to the handlebar.

As far as computers go, an old-fashioned wired computer is dinosaur stuff. My Garmin 1040 lasts about 57 hours on a charge if I'm not following a GPS route. Even at my usual mileage, that'll get me through several weeks before I need to even think about plugging it in. And the payoff is a huge amount of data on a huge screen that's super-easy to read.

PeteHski

So why not just get the wireless $50 Cateye Strada?

prj71

That's user error. Not a problem with the device.