Bringing a Decade Old Bicycle Navigator Back to Life with Open Source Software

Summary

I recently found a Navman Bike 1000 in a thrift store for EUR 10. This is a bike computer, a navigation device for cyclists, made by MiTaC, the same company that makes the Mio bike computers. This Navman Bike 1000 is a rebadged Mio Cyclo 200. It's from 2015 and as you might have guessed, no more map updates. There seem to be newer maps from 2020, but the official download tool fails. Planned Obsolescence at its best. The device is still in very good condition, the battery runs for 5 hours, the screen has great visibility outside and the software is extensive. NAVeGIS Open Source navigation with up to date maps Recently I removed all Google Ads from this site due to their invasive tracking, as well as Google Analytics. Please, if you found this content useful, consider a small donation using any of the options below. It means the world to me if you show your appreciation and you'll help pay the server costs: GitHub Sponsorship PCBWay referral link (You get $5, I get $20 after you've placed an order) Digital Ocea referral link ($200 credit for 60 days. Spend $25 after your credit expires and I'll get $25!) This article shows how I dabbled a bit in reverse engineering, figuring out the device runs Windows CE 6.0 and using Total Commander and NaVeGIS together with Open Street Map to get up to date maps from the OpenFietsMap project, allowing me to use this device for navigation with the most up to date maps. Since it is all open source, even if the current map provider would stop, I can always make my own maps. Oh and it runs DOOM: There is no other input than the touch screen, so I can shoot and nothing more, but hey, it runs DOOM! Planned Obsolescence Mio still makes newer devices like this one, which probably only last 2 years and then the maps are out of date with no updates. I'd even be willing to pay Mio for updated maps for this older model. The original maps (kaarten, Dutch) are from 2015. I wonder why a company would assign its engineers the task of providing m...