So you just had your own personal iPhone 5 unboxing. What next? If I were you, I’d hop on my bike and go burn a few calories, taking in the sunny view of the city as I go. But where would I put my new toy? After all, there are no iPhone 5 handlebar mounts available yet. Or maybe you live somewhere rainy and dull, and you want to keep your iPhone in a pocket or bag.
Luckily, the RFLKT now exists. It’s a little LCD bike computer that sits on your handlebars, only instead of just spitting out your speed and lap times, it displays sports info beamed to it from your iPhone — 5 or otherwise.
RFLKT (which probably means “reflect,” but I can’t help but read as “ROFL kit”) comes from iPhone fitness gurus Wahoo. It uses low energy Bluetooth 4 to talk to iPhone apps, and gives you the readout up on the bars.
Apps need to be compatible to work with it, but one of the first to incorporate ROFL Kit (which they should totally call the SDK) is Cyclemeter, one of the best cycling apps out there.
What’s more, Cyclemeter also talks to your ANT+ cadence meters, heart-rate monitors and so on via Wahoo’s 30-pin dock connector-to-Bluetooth dongle.
This is great for people who just plain don’t want to ride with an iPhone up on the bars, but as it uses Bluetooth 4, it’ll also work great with the iPad, which you can leave in a pannier with its battery-killing screen powered down.
If the ROFL Kit had come out before I’d bought the excellent Garmin Edge 500, I probably would have bought this instead. Launch should be soon, and the price has yet to be announced.
Source: Wahoo
Thanks: Brad!
